Lots of news so here it is....

1. Welcome to our new member of staff and other changes
2. The newspaper story
3. Sunday closing times
4. 150 Club news
5. Fresh products at bargain prices
6. We are training up a new member of staff, Maureen Harness. Some of you will know Maureen as she has worked in Foxton and Harston village shops for many years and is currently serving her notice out at the Melbourn Co-Op. She will officially start in October, but we are taking the opportunity to get her involved now on a few days training. Maureen will take over from Keith when he retires in December but can cover for sickness, holiday and other absence (and there has been lots recently!) before then.

Separately, we say thank you to Gill MacDonnell for helping us through the school holidays to cover Sue’s illness and everybody else’s holidays, and we will be saying goodbye and thank you to Jenny Heinzelmann later this month after she retires again following quite a few years of early morning work to get the shop ready for opening in the early morning, much appreciated by those of us who turn up to a nice well-prepared shop at 7am!

2. Newspapers, an apology and update. We think we have finally sorted out a deal with the unhelpful Smiths News company who are a monopoly supplier of newspapers and magazines in our area. We are being allowed to set our own order numbers for titles, and they have promised their computer will not interfere as it has been doing, by cutting down our deliveries. It is early days yet but we will watch and see, hopefully you will be able to get the newspapers you want.

However, if you have reserved a newspaper, it is STILL important that you collect it or let us know that you will not be doing so (call us on 208958) unless you have made an arrangement to collect and pay for it later in the week. We are monitoring this and will be cutting out reserved newspapers for those who consistently fail to not collect or notify us.

3. Just a reminder that Sunday and Bank Holiday closing time is now noon.

4. The winners of the August draw of the 150 Club were Steve Whitmore, Mark Richer, Michael Braithwaite and Peter Collins, well done to all of you. We will now be collecting entry fees for next year’s numbers, so if you would like to retain your numbers, or buy a number or two for the draws starting in November, please give your £15 per number (£1.25 per draw for 12 months) in at the shop. You can charge it to your Prepay account if you wish. Prizes worth £50, £30, £20 and £10 are given away each month. This is a really important fundraiser for the shop – be in it to win it as they say!

5. Fresh produce. We have been very lucky to get contributions from local gardens and farms this summer and the produce we get are not only extremely tasty locally grown varieties but is cheaper than Tesco. Robert Smith brought three bags/varieties of washed potatoes in again this morning. They look delicious and are an incredible 60p/kg – Tesco cheapest are 80p - £1.20/kg and ours are fresh from the farm. Today for example we also have beautiful blackberries (one third the price in Sainsbury’s), yellow cherry tomatoes (20p/kg), courgettes, runner beans and chillies, all locally grown by village people. Thank you to everyone for contributing your “Crop for the Shop”, it is appreciated.

That’ll do for now.

Kevin and TVSA