St Albans Gift-Card has launched!

The St Albans Gift Card

What is it?
The St Albans Gift Card programme is provided by St Albans BID and is free of charge for BID businesses. The programme is geographically linked to St Albans meaning it can only be used in St Albans businesses, creating additional revenue opportunities for participating businesses, whilst encouraging people to shop locally and invest in their High Street.

Who’s it for?
Consumers and Businesses can purchase The St Albans Gift Card as a present for friends, family and colleagues. The lucky recipients will be able to spend their gift card at participating St Albans BID businesses. The programme uses the existing MasterCard infrastructure making it highly efficient for participating businesses.

Will it cost me anything?
If your business is in the BID area it will not cost anything to join the programme and there are no additional charges for accepting the gift card as a form of payment. You will be charged the same fee as you are normally charged for accepting MasterCard or Debit Cards.

Why should I sign up? 
A list of all participating businesses will be available to view publicly on the St Albans Gift Card website www.stalbansgiftcard.co.uk. So get involved, get on the list and don’t miss out!

Important! The gift card will ONLY be able to be spent in registered businesses. So please contact us to get set up. (Set up is easy and only takes a couple of minutes.)

Christmas Lights Switch-On Celebration: Sunday November 18th from 12 noon – 6pm

As promised over the last year (yes even in the Summer!) we’ve been working hard to deliver an improved Christmas Lighting display to cover the whole BID area.

We’re happy to report that we’re able to deliver the majority of what we had planned, with a vision to expand further into all BID areas by Christmas 2019.

Come along on November the 18th and enjoy a great afternoon for the family culminating in the Christmas Light Switch-On moment at 5pm when all will be revealed! For more information visit the Enjoy St Albans website.

Purple Tuesday – November 13th – Join in with Britain’s first ever accessible shopping day!

Purple Tuesday is an initiative coordinated by the disability organisation ‘Purple’. It’s estimated that nearly 1 in 5 people living in the UK have a disability or impairment with a combined spending power worth around £249 billion. However, this potential is not being fully realised as there are still barriers preventing disabled people from working, shopping and enjoying a drink or meal out.

The aim of Purple Tuesday is to make customer-facing businesses more aware of these opportunities and challenges and inspire them to make changes to improve the disabled customer experience over the long term.

Get involved!

To discuss your involvement in Purple Tuesday, please email info@purpletuesday.org.uk, or Tweet us @purpletuesdayuk. For more information please visit their FAQs.

Close the Door to energy waste!

Whether you’re an independent business or a large chain, join some of the most successful high street retailers who are already part of the ‘Close the Door’ scheme. This scheme promotes the benefits of closing your street facing door, as this can:

• Save money
• Cut down air pollution hazards
• Demonstrate environmental responsibility
• Make customers comfortable
• Provide healthy working conditions for staff
• Cut down on shoplifting

‘Close the Door’ will provide you with help and advice so this doesn’t impact your footfall or profit. They’ll also provide you with positive publicity through their website, national and local media as well as their social networks. For more information visit their website and view their FAQs.

St Albans City of Expertise Barriers to Growth Breakfast Workshop:

What: Breakfast Workshop – Recruitment and Staff Retention – Problems and Solutions
Where: Café Rouge, Holywell Hill, St Albans, AL1 1HD
When: 13^th November 2018 at 8:00am – 9:30am
How: To register your interest please email – rsvp@csy-ip.com (seats are limited)

With 20% of local businesses finding recruitment and retention of staff their biggest barrier to growth, businesses now more than ever need to find new solutions to this long-standing problem.

To find ways to resolve the issues, the St Albans City of Expertise is bringing together the brain power of local business leaders, HR specialists and recruitment advisers at a breakfast workshop. It’s the perfect opportunity to share ideas on how companies can overcome their difficulties in recruiting the right staff and keeping the people that will help drive their business forwards.

The workshop will generate a report ‘Recruitment and Staff Retention – Problems and Solutions’ which will be publicised and shared throughout St Albans via PR, the City of Expertise website, social media and through the City of Expertise partners. (All those involved will be mentioned in the report.)

We are all looking for local leaders and specialists in attracting and retaining employees to join us to discuss how we can break these barriers, continue to grow, and showcase St Albans as the thriving city it is.