Blue Spares 2020 Business Review & Colleague Awards

Blue Spares recently held their annual business review and colleague awards for 2020, albeit this year was a little different as it took place on Microsoft Teams. After a few (slight) technical difficulties, Ian Webber, Managing Director of Blue Spares kicked off proceedings with the business review of 2020.

2020 was probably the strangest and most difficult years in all our lives to date, working throughout the course of a global pandemic with multiple local and national lockdowns was no easy task. Despite operating in uncharted waters, Blue Spares performed exceptionally well during 2020. In fact, October and December saw the business’ highest ever sales numbers for those respective months, which is quite incredible considering the circumstances. 2020 also saw the Exports side of the business grow yet again, for the fourth year on the bounce.

The main contributing factor to the businesses success in 2020 was its people. In spite of all the obstacles in the road, our people rose to the challenge in the face of adversity. Blue Spares operated with a skeleton staff from their HQ in Warrington, and Stirling locations with many of the team working from home, which we all know presents a challenge of its own!! We celebrated with many of our long serving members of staff this year, with seven people having worked with us for 10+ years. This not only highlights that the business looks after its people, but it also showcases the level of loyalty and commitment we have within the business.

To recognise all the hard work put in over the last year, there were five Colleague awards up for grabs: ‘Outstanding contribution to Procurement’, ‘Finance Colleague of the Year’, ‘Sales Colleague of the Year’, ‘Warehouse Colleague of the Year’ and the ‘Ray Thomas Colleague of the Year’. All the award winners were voted and chosen by their peers.

Picking up the ‘Outstanding contribution to Procurement’ award was Nick Lowe, for the third year running… Nick is obviously doing something right!

For all her tireless work within the finance department, Maria Stones received the ‘Finance Colleague of the Year’ award.

The ‘Sales Colleague of the Year’ award went to… Adam Langley. Sadly, we recently had to say goodbye to Adam who has joined our capital equipment sales team at Blue Machinery Central. We wish him all the best and we are sure he will continue his successful career with the Blue Family.

It was a tough year for the guys in the warehouse, working right the way through the pandemic at our site in Warrington, often at 40% of usual resource levels. Colin McDowell was this year voted ‘Warehouse Colleague of the Year’, contributing towards the 13,500 orders processed by the team in 2020.

Last year Blue Spares decided to name their ‘Colleague of the Year’ award in memory of Ray Thomas. Ray sadly passed away in March of last year after a long illness. He was a fantastic servant to the Spares team for many years and a great friend to many, so this award is a fitting tribute to Ray, and it should be a real privilege to win this one.

The winner of the ‘Ray Thomas Colleague of the year’ for 2020 was… Helen Culshaw! Helen was fully deserving of this award and was a real asset to the team throughout what was a real tough year in many aspects. There were laughs, tears and frustrations along the way, but Helen has done an outstanding job in leading the Procurement team, whilst also taking a seat on the management team.