Our year so far at Dales

I just wanted to take a few minutes to document just some of the tales from Dales so far this year - it really has been a crazy ride!

We have had an incredible year so far! Classes, Mascot visits, Tours alongside our normal busiest time of the year. I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to see the shop so busy! We've had the incredible HHVT Tour guides, tour customers alongside literally hundreds of visitors to Holmes Chapel all wanting to visit Mandevilles and Twemlow viaduct! It has been so much fun.

We were able to again sponsor Holmes Chapel junior cricket team and added to that Holmes Chapel Junior Rugby team too. We had cricket players collecting uniform and it was fabulous to see Dales emblazoned on the kit!

This Summer has seen us host classes to some of the most brilliant teachers and artists. We have had the lovely Naomi - teaching sewing machine skills to children and adults alike - Naomi's classes are always full and busy. We have had the brilliant Andrea hosting classes such as paper folded hedgehog, embroidery for children and of course her regular card making workshops. The incredibly talented Vicky from Needlessly Felted - running her wet felted landscape class alongside felted bee card making and bookmark making too! This Summer we were joined by the amazing Victoria from Victoria's Art studio - hosting a weekly kids Art class with amazing results! Inky Jellyfish, Portrait Art, Sketching and Doodle master (we still have that one to go!)

Our very own Amelie has been working again this Summer, with brilliant A Level results meaning she's leaving us shortly for Warwick University. Amelie has been hosting her decorate your own money bank classes! These have been full of joy and laughter. Joe has done a brilliant job of hosting Woodcraft construction kit class - his first class for us! These went so well, with parents and grandparents joining in too! This club will be a regular fixture for Autumn and Winter this year.

We have had a lovely team all Summer, with the addition of our Willow and Ben to our shop team. Ben will be replacing Amelie on Saturday's. It has been lovely to be a part of such a fun, smiling group this year!

Our classes had a deeper purpose this year too, we offered some free classes to children in receipt of pupil premium and also those with SEN. We were thrilled with the response and have seen lots of children attending! This has given us food for thought and we will be launching a SEN parent meet up group in Autumn and looking for ways to provide even more supported classes throughout the year and for next Summer holidays.

I wanted to thank HCCS this year also, particularly Miss Hughes, who has enabled us to help lots of families in receipt of pupil premium in a much better way this year. The comments from families have made us so happy and we really hope this scheme can continue to build and grow from here.

In addition to this scheme with school, we at Dales, for the first time ever, introduced our Trade in uniform scheme. This scheme is very special to us and the support we have received has been amazing! We launched for just HCCS to trial and were able to offer families uniform credit for bringing us good quality preloved uniform! This has seen some families clear out the store cupboard (us included!) and in some cases not had to pay for new uniform at all! This scheme only works when people purchased preloved too, and the response there has been incredible - please keep this up throughout the year! It is so much better to see uniform being reused, not going to landfill and to see families saving money.

We were also joined this Summer by the brilliant Alison and Will with their The Shed Crew initiative - which has now found a new home in our workshop! They have been an invaluable help in maintaining our building and grounds and we have so many plans for the future. They are an absolute inspiration to me and everyone around them. I can not wait for the Repair Cafe Holmes Chapel to launch soon (mostly because I keep breaking sewing machines!)

One initiative that's got off to a flying start is the recycle your bra scheme in aid of breast cancer awareness - with a bright pink bin next to the shop till. I had no idea there was such a demand and we have nearly filled our first bin already!

We are excited to continue working with Holmes Chapel Partnership, as Tour HQ and have really enjoyed being involved with them for the first time this year (other than our annual host the sleigh!) How exciting it's been to see the shop on national television and international! See our shop in videos, newspapers and all over tik tok (Thanks to Victoria again for our Harry window!) It has been a lot of work, including the painting of 400 slate hearts (more to go) but it's been such a thrill!

We are now looking forward to attending Harry Fest in London on 7th September, we have been invited to have a stall and will be taking our Holmes Chapel goodies with us, alongside other local businesses products!

Our classes will be back in full swing with a huge programme of activities already scheduled and up, and lots more to come.

We can’t wait to welcome back the lovely Jo Green and her morning art - we’ve missed it so much!

We have joined the Holmes Chapel Pride committee and couldn't be happier to be a small part of this historic Holmes Chapel event. The ethos of Dales is community and inclusivity - what could be more perfect for us! We will be there with a stall on the day, showing our support for this event and the lovely people that have organised it.

The Holmes Chapel Christmas market was such a success for us last year, we will be there again this year, same spot but perhaps a little earlier to avoid the chaos that we managed to create when setting up!

Just to say, we can not thank you enough for supporting our little business, we are approaching 98 years old, and retail is a very tough place to be right now. If you can pop in and get your greetings cards from us, attend a class or share a facebook post, we will be eternally grateful.

What a year so far!

Love 

Dales x