Woodie's Heroes

2020

Children’s Charity STARTING

19th July

Fundraising Drive

FINISHING

16th August

Colleague Newsletter

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Calling all

Woodie’s Heroes So, it’s Heroes again for the sixth time. Wow... Here we go again, doing amazing work that no other retailer can come close to matching.

In a world of remarkable and unexpected change, I’m so proud that we’re raising the Heroes banner once again.

More than ever this year, our chosen charities need our support. Covid-19 could have stopped us in our tracks but we’re Woodie’s and we won’t let it. We’ve shown our character, grit and attitude these past few months.

I’ve no doubt that those same attributes will be applied to Heroes 2020 and applied very successfully too.

While it will be different, a lot of it will be the same. It’s going to last four weeks, it’s four children’s charities chosen by colleagues, every cent you raise in store is going directly to the charities as all costs have been covered in advance, the supplier sponsored cycle will go ahead yet again and, most importantly, the craic will be had!

I’ll tip my hat to everyone in advance for all the great work that you will do but I’ll reserve an extra tip for our till operators and our charity ambassadors. The mainstay of the hundreds of thousands we raise every year is the small army of till operators asking our customers if they’d like to support our charity drive.

Ladies and gentlemen, you do an amazing job and we’re looking to you again in 2020. Their brilliant efforts are supported by our charity ambassadors, who put together the extra activities that drive the cash and the craic. That’s going to be more of a challenge this year

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as we can’t make a noise in store with a static bike, we can’t do book or bric-a-brac stands for obvious reasons and we can’t get close to our customers. We’ll be relying on the inventiveness of our store charity teams to make activity happen in a safe, Covid context, and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens !

I’m sure it doesn’t need saying, but I‘ll say it anyway.

Everything we do needs to be done through the lens of colleague and customer safety. That, as always, is more important than anything else.

It’s going to be harder this year to approach customers and explain what it’s all about. It will be more difficult to explain it all through a sheet of perspex. We’ll do our very best to get you POS support to make that job easier. One thing we have this year which we didn’t have last is a lot of local PR. We never had a detailed PR plan before to support Heroes while it is taking place, but we have one now! We’re going to use digital channels a lot more, including yours ! This year we have an iDonate page and we intend to intensively market that in our communication with our customers. Of course, it won’t raise anything like our till ninjas raise, but its got to help.

You’ll find details on all the supports in this newsletter.

I’ve no idea how much we will raise this year but I’ve a feeling that customers will be very receptive to a charity message as it’s been hard for people to donate.

Thank you for all the good and hard work to come.

Declan

Let’s go to the moon for our Heroes!

Welcome to the Woodie’s Heroes newsletter! This year, because our Heroes do things that are out of this world, we’re going to the moon!

That’s right, together we’re going to travel the extraordinary distance of 386,400km to the moon and raise funds for our chosen charities in the process.

You can walk, run or cycle. You can measure the distance you cover in steps or in kilometres, whichever suits you. You can get sponsorship from family and friends using iDonate and you can log your distance on Workvivo so that everyone’s contribution is counted and together we’ll get to the moon.

Customers can join in too. We have estimated that the average customer clocks up 600 steps on a visit to our store. At the till they can contribute their 600 steps to our mission and make a donation using the till button.

We won’t have buckets this year as it wouldn’t be the right thing to do for everyone’s safety but we feel that contributing steps from their store visit will help customers get involved and enjoy the fun.

We will also be supporting Heroes with a big digital, press and radio campaign where we will be calling on the public to get involved too.

As always, we will be relying on your creative and brilliant interpretations of the outer space & moon theme to bring the whole campaign to life and make it our best year yet!

If you have any other ideas or suggestions, we would love to hear them.

Simply email katie.dutton@woodies.ie with the details.

Katie Dutton

Marketing administrator

Key dates This year we will kick the campaign off on Sunday 19th July and it will run until Sunday 16th August.

‘Heroes cycle’ The big Heroes charity cycle will take place in September this year and will contribute all kilometres travelled to the overall journey to the moon. It will run from Monday 14th - Friday 18th September.

Store and support office fundraising target:

Our teams will start the 1,600km cycle this year in Adare on the 14th, where one team will go north west and one team will go south west before meeting in Mullingar on Thursday 17th September, taking on the final leg through Dublin and crossing the lunar finishing line at Woodie’s Tallaght. A schedule of store visits is available on page 17. More detail of the cycle schedule to follow.

€210,000

Good luck to all the Woodie’s Heroes on this mission to raise important funds for 4 fantastic children’s charities.

For your store’s fundraising target see page 11

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At Autism Assistance Dogs Ireland we change the world for children with autism.

Our dogs are specially trained to provide safety and companionship, reduce anxiety and suffering, promote independence, and improve coping mechanisms of children with autism who would otherwise live in a very isolated world.

1 in 65

â‚Ź22,000

92%

Over 1000

Children has autism

of our funds come from donations and fundraising

and up to 2yrs to train each autism assistance dog to the standard required

enquiries each year from parents desperate for our support.

Up to 30% â‚Ź0

of individuals with autism are non-verbal

We do not charge for our assistance dogs and provide aftercare and ongoing support to the family throughout the dogs working life.

With the help of Woodie’s

...we will be able to increase the number of puppies in our training program. This will help us ensure that more dogs than ever before are placed with families in desperate need of our support.

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ISPCC Childline is Ireland’s active listening service for children.

The service is here for children and young people 24 hours a day, every day.

Any child or young person up to the age of 18 in Ireland can contact Childline for free online, by phone, or by text, to chat about any issue which may be on their mind.

72,000

Support

Over 37,000

Any issue

Childline answered over 72,000 online contacts, phone calls and texts from children and young people during the period of peak Covid-19 restrictions (March 12th - June 28th)

Between October 2018 and September 2019, Childline volunteers donated a total of 37,438 hours’ service.

Childline works to strengthen children’s resilience, to help them cope with whatever challenges may come their way in life

Children and young people in Ireland can talk to Childline about absolutely any issue which may be on their mind – there is no topic too big or small

90%

Childline relies on donations for almost 90% of its funding.

With the help of Woodie’s

...the campaign will help to share a sense of hope, by letting children and young people know support is here for them and that they can access it however they feel most comfortable - online, by phone or by text.

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DSI offers support and services to people with Down syndrome and their families as well as the professionals who work with them throughout Ireland. We are a national organisation with a network of 25 branches, we have over 3,500 members which is made up of all age groups of people with Down syndrome. We have to fundraise 87% of the money we need to run national support programmes which is over €1.7 million this year.

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3,500

6

150

Regional resource officers currently working directly with our member families

members throughout Ireland

specialists provide children advice and support to people (approximately) with with Down syndrome from Down syndrome are born early childhood to old age each year in Ireland

80% of our 500 A clinical branches support families to nurse in Tallaght Hospital provide additional speech and language therapy for their children

With the help of Woodie’s

supporting over 500 young children with Down syndrome each year.

...we will develop a new National Feeding Programme for new babies and toddlers.

This is going to give so much relief to new parents at such a critical time in their baby’s life.

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CFI has been a driving force for Cystic Fibrosis care in Ireland. This has led to the development of much improved CF care from a position where most children did not live to their teenage years. CFI raises funds for CF units and specialist CF staff around the country, provides services and financial support directly to people with CF and advocates on behalf of patients and families affected by the life threatening genetic condition.

1,400 1in19 Ireland has the highest incidence of Cystic Fibrosis in the World

€14m

CFI has fundraised over €14m to support specialised CF Hospital Units

people are carriers of the CF gene and where two carriers parent a child together, there is a 1 in 4 chance of the baby being born with CF

2,500

It costs €2,500 to provide a CF family with a Fertility Grant so they can follow their dream of having a child

For every €10

raised, €9 is spent on the improvement of care for people with CF with €1 spent on the cost of raising this income.

With the help of Woodie’s

...we will support people with Cystic Fibrosis, a very high risk group from COVID-19 who are cocooning during this pandemic. They need our help through these challenging times more than ever!

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We’re over the moon about fundraising!

We know fundraising idea generation will have its challenges this year with Covid19 restrictions so whether you’re a fan of Star Trek or Star Wars or just love outer space we hope you will have lots of fun with the outer space theme.

We know that once you put your thinking caps on, the ideas will be out of this world but to get ball rolling here are a few ideas: ■ Create a rocket display instore using our product to create excitement, customers could guess how many products are in the creation and win a prize.

■ Organise a walk, run or cycle, either as a small socially distanced group or individually and add all the steps/kms together getting sponsorship using iDonate.

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■ A competition where colleagues track their steps in store one day and see who clocks up the most, then contribute the steps to the mission.

■ A Zoom quiz based on space and moon trivia, everything from the first moon landing to Star Wars.

■ Do a sponsored Trekkie Trek.

■ A sponsored Heroes walk.

■ Dress up as your favourite space traveller for the day to raise money.

■ Sponsored to speak like Yoda for the day challenge e.g. going on break I am.

Store charity ambassadors Region 1 Alan Tracey

Region 2

Caroline O’Connor

Region 3 Keith Duffy

Galway Headford Rd

JP Joyce & Ronan Gallagher

Glasnevin

Annette Preston

Sandyford

Janette O’Meara & Niamh Mulvany

Lucan

Amy O’Brien

Sallynoggin

Michael Duffy

Waterford

Liam Hartigan & Marie Coonan

Athlone

Linda Farrell

Swords Seatown

Sharon Connolly

Newbridge

Robyn Campbell, Emma Mc Grath & Shannon Daly

Tralee

Shannon Lawlor

Coolock

Shaun Martin

Carlow

Daniel Lawlor

Cork

John Willis

Cavan

Vincent Maher

Clonmel

Lisa Behan

Castlebar

Deyna O’Neil & Liam Mc Ellin

Drogheda

Sandra Gavin & Barbara

Naas Road

Catherine Britton

Nenagh

Jennifer Hogan

Navan

Bernie Kierans

Kilkenny

Robbie Crosby

Limerick

Bridget Nolan

Swords Airside

Jackie O Keeffe

Naas

Lisa McNally

Carrick on Shannon

Kerry Thacker

Dundalk

Catriona Stewart & Lauren Watkins

Bray

Ryan Cromwell

Galway Wellpark

Ashleigh Earley & Susan Roche

Blanchardstown

Samantha Chown & Aneete Pedreschi

Carrickmines

Remy McGuire & Jessica Smyth

Tullamore

Elish Kelly

Mullingar

Jenny Herety

Tallaght

Derrick Denby & Angela Wharton

Blackpool

Mary Hurley

Wexford

Ryan Doyle & Jake Clancy

Regional Ambassador

Regional Ambassador

Regional Ambassador

Support Office: Katie Dutton

Heroes health and safety Look after each other

Social distancing

No food or drinks

Mind the step

This year we can’t raise money using events that involve food or drinks.

Every attempt should be made to ensure there are no trip hazards that may cause customers to slip or bump into items.

Make every effort to keep each other safe abiding by Covid-19 guidelines and don’t undertake activities that could potentially cause harm.

We can only run activities that abide by social distancing guidelines, no bake sales, face painting or any events that will cause a crowd to gather.

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Social Media & Virtual Fundraising We love that your teams go the extra mile to create fun and creative events in your own stores and we know that you would like to maximise awareness of these through your own social media accounts.

This year we want to help you do that in a way that is consistent with the overall national campaign. We have created specific images for Facebook (available on Workvivo) which can be used on your own personal accounts. All you need to do is add a caption and details!

Just follow these easy steps when preparing your post: 1. Upload the image that is related to your local event.

2. Use the caption to give all details. Example: Visit us at Woodie’s Tallaght Saturday 1 August, to guess how many products are in our Spaceship display and be in with a chance to win prize. #woodiesheroes. Be a hero today, join us and donate what you can!

3. Tag Woodies IE on Facebook & woodies_ireland on Instagram

Virtual Sponsorship Cards This year Heroes will be making the most of digital marketing to help us overcome the challenges of social distancing and cashless fundraising. We will have a very strong digital campaign with display ads and social media activity encouraging people to get involved and support Heroes.

We will have an event page on iDonate, which will replace the paper based sponsorship cards and remove the need to handle cash. You can and set up an iDonate link for your event and all the money raised will be credited to your store. The iDonate link makes it really easy to encourage friends and family to sponsor you as you can share the link on your social media pages, people click on your link and support you. We will be issuing a full guide on setting up a sponsorship iDonate link on Workvivo this week.

Rebecca Stenson

Digital Specialist - Digital Marketing & Social Media Specialist

Let us know if your store is having a special event so we can also support it with material and also share it on the Woodie’s page.

Please send an email to rebecca.stenson@woodies.ie if you have any questions before sharing your posts.

Workvivo Our Heroes fundraising activities take place during the 19th of July – 16th of August. This year we want to share what’s happening in our stores with our customers!

We’d love to share videos from live events or activities happening in each of our stores on Facebook and Instagram stories! So if you have a chance to record a little video or photo from your mobile, please share it on Workvivo and we’ll repost with your local store.

2020

We’re going to the moon!

Over the next 4 weeks we’re going to cover 384,400km from earth to the moon and we need your help to do it and raise money for this years charities!

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START

FINISH

July

August

Get active. Have fun. Do some good.

Step 1

Walk, jog, cycle, hand cycle or swim.

Measure the distance you’ve covered in km.

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Step 2

Log your distance online at woodies.ie.

Step 3

Donate in any of our 35 stores through our till button or donate online at woodies.ie.

Store fundraising targets Our fundraising targets this year are based between store footfall and previous years fundraising efforts in order to achieve our overall store and support office target of €210,000. Best of luck to everyone with your fundraising efforts.

REGION 2

REGION 1

Code

2020 Targets

S008

Galway Headford Rd

€3,000

S009

Lucan

€5,000

S013

Athlone

€2,000

S015

Tralee

€3,000

S022

Cork

€5,500

S027

Castlebar

€3,000

S029

Nenagh

€3,500

S030

Limerick

€3,000

S032

Carrick on Shannon

€2,500

S090

Galway Wellpark

€4,500

S091

Tullamore

€7,000

S094

Blackpool

€7,000

Subtotal

€49,000.00

S002

Glasnevin

€4,500

S003

Sallynoggin

€3,500

S007

Swords Seatown

€3,000

S010

Coolock

€8,500

S017

Cavan

€4,500

S026

Drogheda

€4,500

S028

Navan

€4,500 €3,500

S085

Swords Airside

S095

Dundalk

€5,000

S096

Blanchardstown

€5,000

S097

REGION 3

Store Name

Mullingar

€5,000

Subtotal

€51,500.00

S006

Sandyford

€3,000

S011

Waterford

€3,000

S016

Newbridge

€3,000

S018

Carlow

€8,500

S019

Clonmel

€6,000

S020

Naas Road

€3,000

S021

Kilkenny

€4,000

S023

Naas

€5,000 €8,000

S024

Bray

S025

Carrickmines

€6,500

S031

Tallaght

€5,500

S088

Wexford

€3,000

Subtotal

€58,500.00

STORE TILL BUTTON TOTAL

€159,000.00

SUPPORT OFFICE (IDONATE FUNDRAISING PAGE)

€5,000.00

ALL COLLEAGUES (IDONATE FUNDRAISING PAGE)

€46,000.00

Total

€210,000 11

Finance process This year we have decided to go with three buttons on the till for €1, €2 & €5 charity donations. Amounts raised by these till buttons can be updated by running the Non Merch Report for each week – there will be no cash donations.

The fundraising tracker will be communicated on a weekly basis in the trading pack and will

include figures raised up to the previous Saturday.

For any finance queries, please contact joe.bourke@woodies.ie.

Thank you, Joe Bourke

Accounts Payable Administrator

Till donation button This year, there will be 3 donation buttons live on tills. Customers can choose to donate €1, €2 or €5 to Woodie’s Heroes and colleagues simply need to select the required amount.

On the main till page there is the usual €1 till donation button. If you need to access the other values, please select ‘Woodie’s Heroes Charity’ for the full menu of donation buttons.

Thank you...

Would you like to donate to Woodie’s Heroes Charity Campaign

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Ways to Donate poste is available onr Workvivo

POS will arrive in store on Friday 17th July.

Visit Workvivo/Marketing/Heroes for a full range of supporting material including: • Charity fundraising letters • A3 event posters …and much more

Proudly supported by:

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