| October 2008 |
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We opened our latest shop in Heywood Greater Manchester, right in the heart of the town and adjacent to Wetherspoons, with our own customer’s car park this time, and the usual array of air con, plasmas, free vending.
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| September 2008 |
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Here we see Katherine Sneddon a student of Heriot Watt University Edinburgh reading (Degree) MA Management with Business Law spending her summer holidays as a Shell Step placement student overhauling and updating our training manuals to keep us up to IIP standards. Kath did an excellent job and everyone was impressed with the result.
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| July 2008 |
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Sale and we opened another shop in Manchester as we predicted on our website. It's packed with all the usual goodies and its been great to meet the locals in Sale. The operation of our business between the two northern cities of Manchester and Liverpool gives rise to much jocularity in our management and a new season is starting. Our MD Frank Seymour is a committed United fan, lives in Manchester and is sure MU will at least achieve the double this season. Dave, from Merseyside doesn't agree, and our ISP won't allow us to publish some of the internal emails that pass over football :-)
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| June 2008 |
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Our sixth Greater Manchester shop opened this month in Longsight, packed with the usual goodies, and more to come this year in Greater Manchester at Heywood, Stalybridge, Salford and Sale. Plus the ones too top secret to tell you about!
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| May 2008 |
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English football conquered Moscow in May 2008 when Roman Abromovitch took his Chelsea team to his home town to face Manchester United in the first all-English European Cup final. Fifty years on since the heartache of Munich and forty years since they first won the tournament, it was United that triumphed on penalties in a dramatic match, prompting scenes of celebration on the streets of Manchester, many happy that they had backed United with David Pluck's.
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| April 2008 |
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We now have over 100 state of the art roulette machines on our estate! As well as the ever popular roulette, at true casino odds, you can also play other popular casino games. The machines in fact enable you to play not just roulette at true casino odds dressed as casually as you like and completely anonymously, but also blackjack and poker for your enjoyment. Unlike our competitors, all our machines are also fully loaded with a selection of slot machines. Our machines also contain a variety of games to win £500 for just £1.
You’ve got to spin it to win it!!!!
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| March 2008 |
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This month we opened our new shop at Fearnhead Warrington, and as always its packed full of state of the art facilities for all our customers to enjoy. Three “roulette” machines , but as with all our machines you can also play Blackjack and Poker on them as well as lots of other games.
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| February 2008 |
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Our first picture of Lewis Robert, the new baby son of Brian Clarke who works at head office as trading controller.
Born 15th January at 2pm
Weighed 8 lb 10 oz's...
Brian says at last someone else to cheer the Liverpool on in Europe.
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| January 2008 |
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We opened our new shop in Droylsden Manchester, if your passing call in and see us. It has been well received by the locals and off to a good start, complete with a dedicated and heated smokers shelter to the rear, and the normal array of plasma TV sets and customer information terminal.
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| December 2007 |
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Here is Janella Thompson, wife of our General Manager Nick Thompson. She has just graduated from the University of Central Lancashire as a Registered Mental Health nurse, and will be taking her skills out into the workplace to help people across the North West.
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| November 2007 |
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Here is young Jonathan McSweeney, fresh from Ireland.
Jonathon has recently moved over to the Liverpool area and is training up to deputy manager. Here Jonathon receives his Loop certificate, for successfully completing the cashier training module, from General Manager Nick Thompson.
From left to right:-
Nick Thompson, Jonathan McSweeney
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| November 2007 |
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We opened our new 3,000 sq ft shop in the middle of Ormskirk, and its simply too big to show you in one photo. It’s packed with Lounge, Smokers Zone, Customer Information Terminal, 60" plasmas, multiple TV banks, free Wi-Fi Zone, free ATM, dedicated Gaming Zone, and lots more besides. We think it’s the best shop in the North West, look in and see for yourself if you can.
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| October 2007 |
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Poker, £500 Jackpot and Bingo games have been added to our roulette machines giving clients a greater choice, and the roulette games have been expanded so that there are several different types to choose from including the popular 20p Chip Roulette, Chinese Roulette, Expert Roulette, and High Roller Roulette which allows clients to hide their credit balance on screen for privacy. The new cabinets pictured here are a big hit with the players.
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| September 2007 |
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Our latest shop has now opened in Reddish, Stockport, opposite the Bullshead pub. We have some great opening offers on, as well as all our excellent standard trading terms. It has been fitted out to the highest standards, and is one of the most comfortable, state of the art shops around. This is our 4th shop in Manchester and we have a number of others on the way in that area! Watch this space. Unlike our PLC competitors we show ALL UK horse racing, all the time!
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| July 2007 |
Free Roulette |
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All our shops have these touch screen terminals in them some shops have as many as four, and we help our clients understand how to play them with regular customer competitions – we give all clients £10 worth of free chips to play with at no cost to themselves and the clients who wins the most with the free chips gets £50 free chips. If your local call in and check out the time of our next competition and have a tenner on us!
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| June 2007 |
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Our first picture of Imogen, the new baby daughter of Steph Roberts who works at head office.
Born 22nd June at 09:45am
Weighed 8 lb 6 oz's...enjoys her food (a lot!!)
Steph says "Oh yes, it hurt like hell, but she was worth every bit of it".
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| May 2007 |
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Daves a biker and the summer months see him out and about on a BMW 1200RT. Never been a fast rider so if you see some old codger wobbling down the M6 please give him a wide berth it might be our Dave!
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| March 2007 |
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Pictured here is our General Manager Nick Thompson, 32, completing the Liverpool Half Marathon in aid of charity at the end of March. It was the first time he has done this, but has already signed up to run the Blackpool Half Marathon in June, with a target of under 2 hours!
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| January 2007 |
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2007 looks like being a busy year for us. We have applications for new shops in Reddish Manchester, Sale, Manchester, Blackburn, two more too secret to reveal here, and a re-site of our existing Upholland shop into new, much larger premises.
We expect to end the year with over 30 shops. |
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| December 2006 |
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This year, as always, our shops were well decorated for the Christmas period. We ran a competition this year to find the most “Christmasy” shop and our team made a number of superb entries, and the winning shop was Rainford.
Pictured to the left are Sarah O'Brien and Julie Kearsley, who each won a TV for their efforts. Well done, and lets have the same again next year. Very creative!
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| December 2006 |
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To celebrate Christmas the company threw a party at Liverpool's Adelphi Hotel. Over 50 staff turned up to share in the fun and merriment, with a festive meal followed by a disco and the odd drink or three. Here you can see some of our staff from Blackburn and Preston taking a short break from the dance floor!!
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| November
2006 |
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Our Investor In People status has to be reviewed every three years, and although you will see many businesses today with the prestigious IIP logo not many started as long ago as 1994. Here you see Nick Thompson , our general manager receiving our FIFTH award for excellence in training and development. Pretty soon the big bookmakers in the country may start to do this.
Investors In People (www.iipuk.co.uk)
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| August
2006 |
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Congratulations to Dave Maddocks who won a TV in our latest staff competition.
Staff were invited to send in ideas to improve paperwork.
Dave was judged to be the best entry, and his suggestion has now been implemented.
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| August
2006 |
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It’s been a long hard summer for us, with our shops open 12 hours a day Monday – Saturday, and open Sundays too! But all good things come to an end and as August finishes betting shops will close at 6.30pm. A chance for us to start watching the soaps again. |
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| August
2006 |
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As an Investors In People organisation we are very keen that all members of our team receive a thorough training process. It’s really not like being at school, and people prefer to do jobs they are good at. Here cashier Gemma Wooley received her certificate on completion of her training. |
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| July
2006 |
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Deborah Liptrot with the first prize in our latest staff competition. Debbie, who works in our Billinge branch, won a TV set by having the best marketed office in the company celebrating this summer’s World Cup. Most certainly a better performance than the England team!
Well done to Debbie. |
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| May 2006 |
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Here Kayleigh Myles with Training Controller Brian Clarke is receiving her Loop Certificate.The latest cashier to complete her training. |
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| April
2006 |
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Management here spends quite a lot of time ensuring training is done to a high standard. Here Neil Bradshaw receives his certificate on completion of cashier training from Lynn Cairns [shop manager] and Duncan Bell [supervisor] presenting Bethany Billing with her certificate. |
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| March
2006 |
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Now it’s the turn of Bromborough to get plasma TV sets and a new Game Zone for the Roulette machines. They are slightly more expensive than the ones you use at home because they have to be modified to take a RGB signal instead of a TV one. But we reckon our customers are worth it! |
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| February 2006 |
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Here successful cashiers receive certificates on completion of training.
Left to right Tammy Kirwan and Sally Cawthorn |
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| December 2005 |
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Race horses have a rest at Christmas and so do we. We were closed 23rd, 24th & 25th December but back in on Boxing Day and here bravely on New Years day. Didn’t see too many clients in early though. |
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| November 2005 |
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November
was an exciting and busy month for us as we finally opened our new
shop in Prenton Village, at the location of the old post office.
Now a prominent shop in the village we are looking forward to saying
hello to lots of new customers and doing our very best to give them
a better service and facility than they have had elsewhere. We call
it competition! |
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| September 2005 Corporation Games |
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Some
of you will know that Hills have bought Stanley's, Corals are
up for sale, Ladbrokes have bought Browns and, er, Corals some
time ago. And Corals have bought Akins and Bet 365 shops. It
is confusing to know who you are betting with sometimes. But we have
not sold a single shop since started in 1980. No-ones going to buy
us out of anywhere! We are now the 6th largest independent bookmaker
in the country. |
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| June 2005 |
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We
take bets on the Irish Lottery, for example you win £500 for
£1 if you can pick 3 numbers right from the 6 drawn, a lot better
than Camelot can offer. A customer came into our Storeton Road Prenton
shop for the very first time, picked out 4 correct numbers and won
£5,000 for her £1. Sarah Hughes, pictured, had a simple way
of picking her number " I just put down the ages of my 3 kids and
my bra size" explained Sarah. That's how to do it! |
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| June 2005 |
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We
finally opened up in Sale Moor Manchester in June, and used
Plasma screens for the first time. We always listen to what our clients
want. As well as the plasmas shown here we did our usual job of presenting
facilities as good as possible. We are now looking forward to opening
the ex Post Office in Prenton Village. |
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| May 2005 |
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Most
of us support one football team or another, many of us support Liverpool
FC. So we were more than happy to payout on the Reds 5th European
triumph, with many clients taking odds of up to 80/1 for the Reds
to complete mission impossible. Didn't they do well? And you can bet
on them in any of our shops -:) |
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| April 2005 |
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What
were you doing when Hedgehunter won the national? Half of us
were working out the bets manually and half were in EPOS shops
with computers settling them.
Dave didn't get any bets wrong this year! |
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| January 2005 |
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We
have bought the closed down Post Office in Prenton Village
Wirral. We will move our business from 125/7 Storeton Road to
this building, about 100 yards away and in a more prominent position,
1,200 sq ft of client space will enable us to give the customers all
possible facilities. We plan to use the two upper stories as offices. |
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