A Message from Hickory

HICKORY NEWS • APRIL 2020

Hi! From Hickory

It’s hard to believe that only a few weeks ago we were as busy as we’ve ever been. 

Our full time team of 40 and our part team of 250+ were working hard to prepare for the upcoming wedding season, scheduled to be our busiest EVER. We were also developing some exciting new initiatives and reaping the benefits of 2019’s investments in our new logistic warehouse, our new uber intuitive CRM, and our luxury new venue Cairns Farm Estate, nestled at the foot of the Pentland Hills.

cairnsfarmestate.co.uk

Little did we know that this was all about to change?

Today, all of our business bases are closed and our teams on temporary furlough leave, with just 8 of our permanent team working remotely to manage client requirements and our Spring/early summer clients to reschedule their dates to later in the season. 

It has been so tough seeing and hearing of the challenges our clients have had to face with the need to re-schedule –  emotional, financial and the practicalities of getting dates that will ensure their family and friends can make the new dates. We’re delighted to say that so far, we’ve managed to reschedule 100% of our clients whose dates are affected. 

We’re looking out for each other with daily and weekly check ins, Friday@Four drinks with team quizzes and, to give something back, we’re lending a hand in our East Lothian community, working in partnership with the Musselburgh Resilience Team delivering nutritious cooked meals to the most vulnerable in our local area. 

And, in a small way, we’re hoping to bring some joy for the future, launching a competition for an NHS worker to Win a Wedding at our Eskmills Venue in East Lothian. We’re bowled over by the support of our amazing suppliers to help make this a Wedding to remember.

eskmillsvenue.com/nhs-win-a-wedding

Team Hickory 

We have been astonished at how our team have risen to this challenge, focusing on positive solutions, creatively solving problems, and keeping focused – recognising that we are all in this together and that we’re facing this as one strong and connected team. Back in January (it feels like a different year!) we hosted a series of workshops to revisit our Vision and Values.  

We are full of praise and admiration to see the team collaborating in this way and inspired that the chosen vision is ‘to be the leading Scottish event catering company, renowned for quality, creativity and innovation.’

Collectively it was agreed that our values should be Consistency, Great Communicators, Respectful, Creative and Winners. The hard bit was knowing how to translate these from words on a flipchart to something real. Well, looking back over the last few weeks it’s humbling to see that every single member of our team is truly living and breathing these attributes! 

We’ve never been more proud or confident in our team, and we’ll be using these values to make sure we come out of this in a strong place, allowing us to be there for all our clients and achieve our vision. We’re already starting to look to the future, considering what our first month back will look like, what the next 3 months and eventually how our year will end, how we enter 2021 and what this might mean for the business, our teams and our clients in the corporate and festival sector.

For a bit of fun, we’re posting a cocktail recipe on social media every week. So, head to our Facebook and Instagram pages to try out the cocktail yourself and this week be in with a chance of winning a bottle of prosecco! 

In the meantime, stay safe and stay in touch.

 

The Hickory Board 

Susan Ireland, Brian Galbraith,
Stephanie Stubbs & Adam Davies