Expanding Stewarts Garden Centre invests in management training

Terry Head, retail and marketing director at Stewarts Garden Centres, has been presented his certificate following an 18 month course for developing business leaders endorsed by the Institute of Leadership and Management.? Currently another a further 6 of Stewart?s centre managers and senior team? members are pursuing an 8 day Management Development course running for? 12 months.

Lindsay Muir, director of Warwickshire based training company Cedar Associates, congratulated Terry on his success within the 18 month course which involved both training and coaching.

The company is now set to provide a further three courses for supervisors from all of its centres, including staff from the recently acquired Abbey Garden Centre at Titchfield, and the Christchurch and Wimborne centres, that will involve planning exercises with focus on time and resources management.

?This training helps to ensure that we maintain our standard and values for the benefit of our customers,? said Terry: ?Lindsey and Cedar Associates have been actively developing courses encouraged by the Garden Centre Association, to develop the professional standing within our sector of retail.? Becoming a bigger business should not limit our focus on customer service.?

The passion for horticulture (the company still operates commercial nurseries) has been in the Stewarts family for 8 generations.? The business can be traced back to 1742.? Stewarts claim to have created the earliest dedicated garden centre opened in Ferndown in 1955 before their first out of town centre at Christchurch opened in 1961.