This week Garden Trade News launches its search for the UK's top garden centre Christmas teams. The Greatest Christmas Awards - now in their fourth year – reward the outstanding teamwork that has made garden centres the envy of other retail sectors during the festive period.
Christmas has never been so important to the garden industry as it is this year after a season most would rather forget.
Garden centres have been pulling out all the stops to make sure festive sales recoup turnover lost this summer, and reports are reaching the GTN Xtra offices of a great start to the Christmas campaign in many parts of the UK.
Garden Trade News recognises those efforts, and The Greatest Christmas Awards are open to all garden centres, regardless of size, and there are three categories to enter – The Greatest Christmas Grotto Team, The Greatest Christmas Display Team and The Greatest Christmas Houseplant Team.
If you feel your Christmas Teams are worthy of a judging visit from The Greatest Awards Team send a nomination email to trevor.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk or call 01733 775700.
And if your customers feel you are The Greatest Garden Centre at Christmas, ask them to vote for you to win The Greatest Garden Centre at Christmas Award. To apply for a voting pack please email trevor.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk or call 01733 775700.
You can also nominate The Greatest Christmas Supplier of the Year.
A brand new category for this year is The Greatest Christmas Sizzle sponsored by SOLEX (LOFA's outdoor leisure show at the NEC, Birmingham). So if you have been promoting barbecues for cooking the Christmas turkey, as many garden centres have this season, this is a category you should enter.
The Greatest Christmas Awards are made possible by further generous sponsorship from:Glee, Vision Commercial Kitchens, Snowtime and Kaemingk.
Judging gets underway this month and will be completed by early December. Closing date for nominations is close of play on Monday, November 26.
The Greatest Christmas Awards will be presented at The Greatest Christmas Party in Harrogate on the evening of Sunday 13th January 2013, sponsored by Premier Decorations, in association with the Harrogate Christmas & Gift Fair (www.harrogatefair.com) To book your tickets contact pat.flynn@tgcmc.co.uk or call 01733 775700
Watch out for The Greatest Christmas Awards Special issue of GTN Xtra with more details about the categories, links to the customer voting material and on-line ticket booking.