A TEAM of Garden Centre Association (GCA) members is celebrating after being crowned the winners after an afternoon of horse racing and helping to raise £12,000 for Greenfingers (January, 2020).
Teams competed for the Greenfingers Challenge Cup during an afternoon of ‘orse racin’ to mark the start of the GCA annual conference, which saw The Pansies team, all garden centre staff, take the crown.
Ian Flounders from Woodlodge Products, who captained The Cabbages team, which was made up of staff from garden centre suppliers, said: “In the spirit of recycling and reusing and in keeping with the theme of this year’s conference, we decided to bring back our favourite event from conferences gone by.
“The Cabbages team, headed up by myself, and The Pansies, headed up by Guy Topping competed against each other in a variety of horse races, taking on the roles of jockeys, trainers and owners to race on the brand-new course ‘The Greenfingers Grand’.
“It was a fantastic event. We also held a quiz night and an auction, and it is great news that such a substantial amount was raised for such a worthwhile cause. I’d like to congratulate the Pansies on their win, but most importantly I’d like to thank everyone who took part or sponsored the event and helped raise much needed funds.”
Established in 1999, Greenfingers Charity supports life-limited children who use hospices around the UK, along with their families, by creating outdoor spaces for them to enjoy with family, friends and siblings, whether through play and fun or therapeutic rest and relaxation.
To date it has created 58 gardens and outdoor spaces in hospices around the country and has a waiting list of hospices that need its help now.
The GCA represents nearly 200 garden centres nationwide.
Through sharing information and its inspection programme the GCA helps members to achieve high standards in customer service, plant quality and reliability.
For other information, please call 01244 952170, visit www.gca.org.uk, log on to www.facebook.com/pages/GardenCentreAssociation or follow the organisation on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GC_Association.
