The big day arrived and Kirsten Day and Sue Chapman travelled to Birmingham to represent Ilsington Village Shop at the National Farm Shop & Deli Retailer Awards 2025.  Sporting their green aprons (and fabulous hair), they nervously waited for the results to be announced.

As a finalist in the awards, we knew that competition would be stiff. There were hundreds of original entries and we were in the last 30 nationally and in the top 6 in our catagory. A big word: NATIONALLY. Judges thought we stood out but in the end we were beaten by a shop that does all the refills and recycling – something we can not compete with simply due to the space we have.

We can all be very proud of our efforts and all we do for sustainability and customer service. Well done to everyone and especially to Sue Chapman for writing our application. We should all be justly proud of making the short list and proving once again that our shop may be little but its heart is so big it can compete on a national scale with all the other shops and give them a good run for their money!

We are very excited to announce that our shop is a finalist in the National Farm Shop & Deli Retailer Awards 2025.

The Farm Shop & Deli Retailer Awards, championed by Fieldfare and in partnership with The Grocer, are renowned in the sector for recognising and  rewarding some of the UK’s best loved specialist retailers, pillars of their respective communities and champions of great produce and sustainable practice.

Supported by Fabulous Farm Shops, Farm Retails Association and Go Jute, the shortlist for the 2025 Awards has been announced, with businesses across the UK in line to win best in category, best in region and the overall accolade ‘Retailer of the Year’.

Regional winners will be selected from the category finalists and, with the ‘Retailer of the Year’ accolade, ‘Newcomer of the Year as well as ‘Best in Category’ and ‘Best in Region’ Awards up for grabs.  The winners will be announced on Monday 7th April, 15:15 at the Farm Shop & Deli Show.

Our shop is a finalist in the Independent Local Shop/Village Store catagory and the complete list of finalists is:

Grocery Post, London
Hampshire Deli, Coffee Shop & Cheese Shop, Tadley, Hampshire
Ilsington Village shop, Ilsington, Devon
Stella’s Emporium, Old Coulsdon, Croydon
The Village Refill, Yarnton, Oxfordshire
Turmeric & Honey, London

We will keep you posted as soon as the results are announced. Keep your fingers crossed!

 

 

 

 

We are very pleased to introduce our smart new hessian Ilsington Village Shop bags for sale at £8.50. These have been made by Print Stream Studio based in Bovey Tracey. Fletch and his team did a fabulous job getting our order done in super fast time. We think you will agree they are a stylish way to carry your purchases!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Festive cheer was in abundance on Friday as the Village Shop and  the Friends of Ilsington Primary School hosted an afternoon of Christmas fun. There was mulled wine, mince pies (and clotted cream, of course), cakes, raffle, music, Christmas crafts for children and performances by Ilsington School and Ilsington choir to lift the spirit and make everyone smile.

A big thank you to everyone who helped make the event possible and to our wonderful community who came along to support.

 

 

Welcome to Karen Mills, our new part time assistant. Karen lives locally and has been a volunteer at our shop for over a year. Karen has lots of retail experience after working at the Co-Op and we know she will be a wonderful asset to the team!

The best part of a Community Village Shop is undoubtedly when we are able to give back some of our profit to local charities and good causes. This year we had an amazing total Grant amount of £2015. This is only possible because of our lovely customers, who continue to support the shop, and our wonderful volunteers who give up their time to help us. We are delighted to announce the beneficiaries of the 2024 Community Awards are:

 

 

Ilsington Bowling CLub received £215 towards a new gazebo and some large folding tables.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ilsington Village Hall received £730 for essential maintenance to the play equipment in the play area to keep it safe and open to the community.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Twiglets Toddler Group received £330 towards hall fees for the group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Ilsington Primary School received £740 to enhance their music corriculum by providing a music teacher for an hour each week during the three half terms for all the children in the school.

 

On Wednesday 9 October, the Shop held another fantastic Volunteer evening at the Village Hall. It was a lovely way to say thank you to our Volunteers for all that they do to help keep our little shop open and serving the community. It is also a great way to introduce our new Volunteers and to share some delicious food and drink. New this time was a brilliant fun quiz by our Quiz Master Extraordinaire, Fiona! A great time was had by all and roll on the next one. And if you would like to join in, why not sign up to be a Shop Volunteer? Pop into the shop and speak to either Amy or Fiona for more information.

We have commissioned some new banners to be displayed on the fence by the hall and on our railings. Thanks so much to volunteer Sammi Blackhurst for all her incredible efforts in helping us get them done.

Sadly, we no longer have Post Office services in the shop. We were disapointed not to be consulted about this decision which was made by the Post Office.

Ashburton Post Office now supplies an outreach multi-purpose van outside the village hall on Mondays from 11am-1pm.

The silver lining to this development is that Graham, who has run our post office service since the shop opened, is already on our rota as a volunteer and will continue to supply all the lovely plants. Anyone who has worked with Graham will know that he is a fantastic colleague. He always got stuck in when he was here: helping on the till, shelf-filling, answering the phone and bringing up deliveries in his van on Fridays. Volunteers, Committee and staff got together on Graham’s last shift to say thank you and to present him with a cake, gifts and a volunteer apron with his name on, of course! So, welcome to the Shop Family, Graham!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although the shop celebrates its 12th birthday on the 18 July 2024, that refers to when it first opened its doors to the public. In reality, the idea of building a new Ilsington Village Shop began four years earlier. Suzi Norris was part of the original committee of people who got together to begin the process of planning, fund raising, building and managing the shop. She took on the role of Secretary of the Committee from the start and has done an amazing job over the last 16 years. Last night at the shop AGM, she stepped down from her role after giving an emotional speech full of nostalgia and memories of the shop’s journey since 2008. Thank you, Suzi, for all your hard work over the years and for your friendship and support. We know that you will continue to volunteer at the shop so we will luckily still get to see you.

Thanks go to Jane Turner who will now take on the role of Secretary.