In This Issue
Amazing August sales
Don’t miss out – registration for Glee 2021 now live!
The Alternative Hose
Come and see a stand full of new ideas at Glee!
Exciting opportunity at Creative Products
Dobbies announces ‘Not Your Average Gardener’ award winners
GCA announces regional awards meetings
Torrential rainfall delays autumn bulb harvest
Dobbies launches nationwide votes for community garden funding
Time to adjust to online sales trend says furniture supplier EKJU
Why does Hobby & Handmade have the WoW Factor? Find out at Glee
Ecommerce ready garden furniture from EKJU
Autumn Fair launches official app
Darlac helps Chelsea Pensioners do a spot of gardening
Smart LEDs add touch of brilliance to Elho's pure range of pots
Chelsea garden promotes GYO and stylish new Muck Boot range
Yule love this!
Antony Harker to launch Altico at Glee - Read GTN's August issue on-line now
Video, video. Watch the SOLEX SUN video showreel from SOLEX On-Line 2021
Get your copy of GTN Xtra
GCA adds 'poisonous plants' module to e-learning system
RHS and Hug Rug partner on a range of eco-friendly, British-made mats
No Plantarium…but new plant awards go ahead at GROEN-Direkt trade show
Beverley wins week-end beak for 2 in SOLEX ONLINE draw
SOLEX 2021 On-Line remains open for buyers looking for next seasons bestsellers
The best of last week's
Bill Bickerdike, one of "the gang", has died
T&M for sale with up to £200m price tag say city sources
Impact of Brexit sees horticultural business export almost 40% fewer plants to EU markets so far this year
Last chance to nominate the best buyers of the past eighteen months?
August starts with sales uplift!
Bestsellers Top 50 charts every week
Buy your subscription to the GTN Bestsellers printed weekly newsletter
RECOUP highlights need for plastics films and flexibles recycling solutions
Situations Vacant
Exciting opportunity at Creative Products
 

This is an exciting opportunity to join the team at Creative Products, who are seeking a hard-working, dedicated full time merchandiser/area representative to look after the company's accounts across London, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Surrey....

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Why does Hobby & Handmade have the WoW Factor? Find out at Glee
Ahead of a range launch, Sammy Holman, managing director of gifts company Hobby & Handmade, tells us why his company sets out to make a life-changing difference to people suffering from autism and those with learning difficulties.
 

Most people’s worlds were ticking along, until coronavirus hit. The day the world came to a complete halt was weird and totally unforeseeable. This has been the toughest 18 months of a lot of people’s lives; some have lost loved ones, including ourselves, and some have been locked away seeing no-one for weeks and months. Old people became vulnerable, food became short, normality started to disappear as the virus spread like wild. Today we are still trying to get used to living in the “New Normal”.

 

But image this just for a minute… how life was for some before coronavirus. You wake up in the morning, you're confused, the sun is shining bright and the birds are singing, everything seems ‘normal’. But not if you are autistic or have a learning difficulty the world is never normal!  I am 55 and autistic, my journey through life has been often very tough indeed, The challenges I face, the battles I have fought, the fall-out with people I have suffered, are too many to count! As sometimes the quietest of noise feels like a disco in my head, the smallest of problems are a mountain to climb, and the confusion and whizzing in my brain is constant, and continues day and night until my brain decides to go to sleep. I often feel tired when I wake, I often feel emotionally drained for no reason, I often feel lost and confused and terrified of the day ahead. These debilitating scenarios are played out daily for people with autism, ASD or ADHD or any other learning.  For young adults who are trying to enter into the World of Work, it's not such a WoW factor…it’s more of an emotionally crushing sensation that causes all of the above.

 

But Hobby and Handmade are helping with making this move into the world of work less.  We are joining forces with Strathmore College in Stoke on Trent, where we are based. The college provides bespoke study programmes for young people aged 16 to 25 years old with a range of learning difficulties and/or disabilities, including:

We will help by offering work placements in our our woodcraft, foraging, printing and packing departments. We will help with hand eye coordination, confidence building, provide coping mechanisms and team building for the learners and their teachers.  We are doing this as I need and want to show the world that being autistic is not such a gigantic hurdle…and the size of that hurdle can be reduced to a step, over time! Don’t get me wrong but at 55 years old I have had to jump so many hurdles and still do today; sometimes I speak, sometimes I don’t! Some days I can engage with people and some days I just scream both inside and out. My temper can be uncontrollable and my fears bigger than any hurdle and high as the world’s largest mountain! I have no control over how I am going to feel.

 

However, what I have done is concentrate on my job as a graphic designer and woodcrafter. I have a love of nature, conservation and the great outdoors. I love animals and wildlife and all things that are part of our natural environment, especially those that need saving. Like the bees! I have created and designed and developed “Betty Bumbles Magic Seed Balls” and “Queen Betty is the Boss”: she is leading the way to teach children and adults alike why keeping the bees safe and growing their numbers is so important!

 

Betty Bumble is a 5in box of magic, inside which are seed balls, a bag of magic seeds and a booklet filled with information about bees, activities to complete and the history of the lifecycle of the bee. Our sets are interactive, educational and more than just a seed ball.  The H&H WoW learners will make the magic balls, pack the boxes ready for sale into garden centres and retailers. We are launching these magic seeds balls – and revealing its main secret – at Glee. 

 

The set comes with a poem I have written and a merchandise range to support Betty and Friends (other wildlife animals and insects that are also on the conservation danger list; we will add to the range over time)

 

We are truly excited about this project; it will make a great gift for Christmas and it’s a superb product for gardeners, kids and anyone who just wants to jump in and help to “save the bees” I am honoured to be able to help these young adults who have their own daily battles to overcome.

 

I have also designed a distinctly different range of wildlife houses and feeders for birds, hedgehogs and insects.  We have 26 in the range, all made by the H&H WoW Learners and myself.  We have already landed our first order with a major garden centre and hope that many more follow suit. The learners go foraging for the components for the insect houses, so we find pine cones, bark and acorns to add to the boxes, we then add fallen branches and drill holes for the insects to live.  Every inch of our insect houses are natural, literally picked off a forest floor. Then as a team we cut the wood, glue the wood, staple the wood, add screws and and send it out with love towards its new home.

 

We also already make more than 11,000 hobby clothing and gift ranges for retailers to add something different to their offers.  We design and print in-house.  We offer a print on demand service to all our retailers if they need it.  We make furniture, crates, planters, and outside bars, as well as a vast clothing range of T-shirts, hoodies, and giftware galore.

 

These words have been really hard to write (the English terrible and the grammar even worse) but the need to help others is paramount. I want to show the world that having a disability or disorder or difficulty is NOT the end of the world if you can be guided and shown the way.

 

Thank-you for reading this.

 

Contact Sammy by email here : hobbyandhandmade@gmail.com

 

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