It's celebration time at our Gravesend centre as we've recently been awarded Best Garden Centre in the South East by the Garden Centre Association.

By winnning this award we, along with another two garden centres, have gone through to the final and we'll hear in the New Year whether or not we've been voted Best Garden Centre in the UK.

Manager Pam Garrard says " Every year we try to get better and better at what we do.  This is a fantastic accolade for the whole team at Gravesend, all their hard work and support has really paid off.  We just want to be the best and to be one of the top three in the country is really amazing.  We look forward to next year!"

In the last issue of Clippings we proudly reported that our Gravesend centre had been awarded Best Garden Centre in the South East by the Garden Centre Association and we are now delighted to announce we have also been awarded the accolade of one of the top three garden centres in the UK.  Among many of the credits we were awarded

• 2nd  for best people
• 2nd  for our landscape area
• 3rd  for best point of sale

The Garden Centre Association annual awards involve a rigorous inspection process of approximately 150 garden centres including visits by mystery shoppers – some of the highlights they noted were our fun and creative displays, crisp merchandising, clear and simple signs, new display gardens and great staff.

Ice star Nicky Slater is put through his steps at Crowborough.
Customers at Crowborough were given a real treat at the end of January when ITV's Dancing on Ice Judge and former British Ice Dance Champion Nicky Slater dropped in to our centre.
A few weeks earlier Ice Magic, the company who hire the skating rinks to Millbrook, contacted us and said that Nicky was looking for a venue to rehearse for his forthcoming UK show and that whilst living in Brighton and travelling to and from London for Dancing on Ice and other TV commitments, our Crowborough centre would be an ideal location for rehearsals. So two weeks ahead of our planned skating event the rink was installed and Nicky made regular visits to the centre to practice for his show. This not only caused great interest among our customers but also with the local media, so much so that we made the front page of the Kent & Sussex Courier and a three minute slot on BBC South East News.
Boosted by all the additional publicity our skating weekends were a huge success with over 700 people taking to the rink at Crowborough and nearly 600 doing the same at Gravesend.
Nicky Slaters’ show Ice Times (see  www.nickyslater.com for dates) is currently touring the UK and he's taken one of our Christmas penguins “Millbrook” with him!