A massive thank you to Belinda who collates and produces our wonderful Volunteer Newsletter each month (and our customer newsletters too). It’s hard to believe that we have reached our 50th edition already! Our newsletters are full of important information, news updates, exciting events and offers and are a great asset for all our volunteers (as well as a fun way to catch up on shop life).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a wonderful evening! Our New Year Volunteer Party was attended by 35 people including some Volunteers’ partners who joined in the fun. The main game this time was to “Guess The Youngster” – pairing photos of Volunteers as toddlers against a list of names. Congratulations to Kirsten Day for being in First Place! Great fun for all with delicious food, drink and many laughs. Thank you to everyone who participated an special thanks to Fiona for organising such a lovely evening.

 

 

 

Merry Christmas to all our wonderful volunteers and customers!
Thank you for all you do to support our Community Shop.

A heap of happy faces joined us on Friday evening for some late night Christmas shopping and some mince pies and mulled wine.
What a lovely way to celebrate the festive season! 

 

You know that Christmas has officially arrived when the shop puts up its Christmas Tree. This year, however, I think you will agree that it is HUGE! Our eternal gratitude goes to Alan and Kate Hobbs for their generation donation of such a superb tree and to Colin, Charlie and Henry Butler for helping to install it.

Thanks must also go to all the volunteers and Christmas elves who magically transform the shop with festive decorations.

If you have ever wondered what volunteering at our Village Shop actually means for our community, then look no further than this page. A simple thing like giving up a few hours of your free time directly equates not just to having a wonderful local shop open seven days a week, but also to having wonderful local services and facilities that benefit everyone in the parish. This year we had a grant total of £3070 and we are delighted to announce that the beneficiaries of the Ilsington Village Shop Community Grant 2025 are:

 

 

Ilsington Bowling Club who received £520 towards some new pushers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ilsington Tennis Club who received £300 towards a website and a noticeboard

 

 

 

 

Twiglets Toddler Group who received £500 towards annual running costs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ilsington Village Hall who received £1000 towards maintenance on the Millennium Garden and the Play Park.

 

 

 

 

And Ilsington Village School received £750 towards music lessons for all the children.

 

 

John Acres spent an hour in the shop talking to several volunteers as well as Fiona and Karen. He seemed very impressed with our lovely shop and how we provide for the community in so many ways. He bought an IVS bag and filled it with produce before he left. Well done to Sue Chapman for initiating this fantastic publicity opportunity!

 

The programme aired on 26 August and although no longer available online, you can listen to it here:

 

What a fabulous day! Thanks to everyone who helped to prepare for it and/or gave their time on the day. We gained one new volunteer and added to our customer email list. It was great to have a presence at the show and it gave us some more ideas for next year.

You are warmly invited to the Ilsington Village Shop Annual General Meeting on Tuesday July 1^st 2025 at Ilsington Village Hall Meeting Room at 7pm for a 7.15pm start.

Please do join us for tea, cake and refreshments.

Rachael Heathman (Chair), will welcome you to the meeting.

Amy Luxton, Fiona Coles and Karen Mills (Manager and Assistant Managers), will tell you about the exciting things that have been happening at the shop this year and our plans for the future. 

Alan Coles (Treasurer), will update you with the finances and would welcome any questions you may have.

This is a great opportunity for you to give us your ideas on how our Shop might improve and better support the Ilsington community.

Please know, our Shop Committee is currently full.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

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. We were the only entrant that was run by volunteers and judges thought we stood out and were “worth a visit”, 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!