CEO Steve Gelder accepted Award from HRH The Princess Royal

Gelder Group is celebrating after being amongst just 46 recipients of the 2018 Princess Royal Training Awards granted for their commitment to training and skills excellence by Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal at a ceremony at St James’s Palace in London on the 31st October 2018.

CEO Steve Gelder, who accepted the award on behalf of the company commented:

I am grateful for everyone at Gelder Group who made this possible, it is a great honour.

I’d urge other organisations to enter in 2019, not just because the feedback helps you improve but the auditing process is so thorough. So many awards ranging from the Times Top 100 to regional awards have become too commercialised, this award is completely free to enter, the auditing process is unbelievably intense and the judging is very challenging, so I’m delighted we made the 2018 cut.

The Princess Royal Training Awards are delivered by the City & Guilds Group, to highlight the value of training and employee development and celebrate examples of best practice. Applications are assessed against three Hallmarks of Excellence by the Princess Royal Training Awards Commission, which comprised of HRH The Princess Royal and seven leading figures in the business and training community. For the full list of recipients and their training schemes, please see the link here.

Commenting on this year’s recipients, Chris Jones, Chief Executive of the City & Guilds Group said:

It’s fantastic to celebrate the third annual Princess Royal Training Awards and honour Gelder Group. In an ever changing world, it continues to be important for Britain’s businesses to invest in training to boost their productivity, address skills gaps and further develop their teams. I congratulate all of the 48 organisations who have achieved the standard this year and presented examples of the innovative, inspiring and impactful training that’s taking place across the UK today. They are truly worthy recipients of this rigorously assessed royal award and we are delighted to be able to honour their achievements.

Left to right: Steve Gelder, CEO Gelder Group, Martin Philips, Development Manager ONGO, Diane Krochmal Housing Strategy and Supply Manager West Lindsey DC, David Bishop, Founder DBA

Gelder Group is to develop 24 retirement flats on its site at North Marsh Road in Gainsborough in a partnership with Ongo Housing Association.

The project, which has been a number of years in the making, will deliver much needed retirement properties in the town and also employ students from the Gelder sponsored Construction Careers College.

On the project Group CEO Steve Gelder comments:

Thanks to everyone involved for getting this scheme over the line, negotiations begun back in 2014 despite hold-ups at every turn we are now on site and delivering a major local project in the town.

If you would like more information about this project, please get in touch.

New Lidl store Shirebrook

The development of the 9,900m² waste ground in Shirebrook has been completely transformed to create the new Lidl store. The store boasts a 1,106m² sales area and facilities such as an in-store bakery, longer-style tills with dual packing, customer toilets, baby changing and parking for both cars and bicycles.

The build which commenced in Feb 2018 took just 7 months to complete and is now ready for its grand opening on the 1st November. On the build for the project, Joe Allmond (Contracts Manager) said:

Despite the heavy snowfall early on in the project we managed to stay on schedule, we had a great team working on the project from the site manager to the sub-contractors, and everyone delivered.

If you would like to become one of our sub-contractors please consider joining our Safe Partner Scheme.

Left to Right: Chris Kent (Branch Manager), Nadine Fehmer (German Apprentice), Steve Gelder (CEO).

In partnership with Lincoln College, Gelder Group have taken on their first apprentice from Germany. Nadine Fehmer who is 17 and from Coesfeld, West Germany is in the second year of a joinery apprenticeship and will be spending 3 weeks working at Gelder Group alongside experienced joiners in the field.

The programme which is funded by the Europe Commissions Erasmus+ funding which is for vocational education and Training. The funding enables students and apprentices to gain work experience in another country.

On the experience Nadine said:

From being very little my dream job was to be a joiner, and I am very interested to see if there are any differences in the work over here.

On the partnership Steve Gelder, CEO commented:

I’ve always been a huge advocate of apprenticeships, having been an apprentice myself, so I was very interested to learn of this exchange program Lincoln College have been running, and I’ll be very interested to see what feedback Nadine has for us after her 3 weeks

European Officer at Lincoln College Ann Stanley commented:

Close collaboration with employers in support of the project in both enabling their own apprentices to participate and in receiving apprentices and vocational students from our European partners is so important.

Nadine on her 1st day at work for Gelder Group.

For further details on the project please contact astanley@lincolncollege.ac.uk

The project to demolish and build a new Newark Fire Station was undertaken in two phases. Phase One completed in April and saw the Fire Brigade move to their new facilities. Phase Two, which included the new training tower, RTC compound, new sliding gate, additional parking and fuel tank etc, was completed mid-July 2018. The £2.4m project was completed on time and a representative from Nottingham Fire and Rescue Service said;

“As well as housing our two fires engines, which are crewed by both whole-time and retained staff, the new station will also house our technical rescue unit and is a clear sign of the Service’s commitment to keeping Newark and the surrounding areas as safe as possible.”

Gavin Parker, Senior Contracts Manager on the 650m2 project commented;

“The construction works required continuous coordination, planning and liaison with all subcontractors and most importantly, the fire brigade. This ensured the building works progressed on time, whilst ensuring the existing ‘Live’ fire station remained operational at all times. We all worked well together on what has been a successful project.”

During the summer holidays, while the pupils and staff of Grange Primary School Scunthorpe were enjoying a well-earned break, Gelder Group’s Major Contracts Department set to work on the toilet facilities. The work involved stripping out existing boys and girls toilets, installing new mechanical plumbing and electrical installations, new roof lights, new wall and floor finishes, new ceilings, new sanitary ware and colourful Venesta cubicles and partitions.  A representative from ‘Engie’ who commissioned the work said;

“The achieved finishes are of a very high standard, with zero snagging and delivered on time” – Engie

Gavin Parker, the Senior Contracts Manager on the project also commented;

“The school were very helpful throughout the six weeks to ensure the refurbishment works could be carried out without any delays. All subcontractors performed well and the finishes were to a very high standard”. – Gelder Group

Newly refurbished toilets at Grange Primary School

Newly refurbished toilets at Grange Primary School

Newly refurbished toilets at Grange Primary School

Gelder Group staff from across the company took part in the 10k ‘Wild Warrior’ Tough Mudder on Saturday 22nd September 2018.  The event, which was in support of the Aviva ‘Mentoring’ programme, was held in Derby and despite the chilly weather, the staff overcame the 72 obstacles and completed the 10k in under 2 hours.  Supporting from the sidelines, CEO Steve Gelder commented “I am very happy to support the staff to compete in events like this. While I do think they are all quite mad, I applaud their sense of spirit and fun”.

Interested in joining the team at Gelder Group, check out all our latest vacancies: https://gelder.co.uk/careers/vacancies/

Wild Warrior 2018 – Gelder Group Team

The 23,700sq ft store due to be built in Dalton, Rotherham was secured by the Facilities, Maintenance and Building Department (FMB) this week and the 3rd project the Group have secured to build new stores for the global supermarket ‘Lidl’. The £3m project will commence on the 1st October and the new store is due to open in June 2019. The store will create 40 new jobs for the area and will be the second store the supermarket have in Rotherham.

Site Plan for New Store in Dalton

On securing the project Commercial Manager James Flintham commented:

The tendering process to secure this build has been particularly rigorous, however I feel our track record of previous builds for the brand was in our favour and we are delighted to have secured this £3m contract.

We are always keen to use the local supply chain on our project and this is no exception, in particular we are keen to make contact with local suppliers and subcontractors for fencing, paving, landscaping and decorating.

Artists Impression of New Store

The Group are currently completing the building of another store for the supermarket in Shirebrook, Mansfield which will be complete next week.

If you are a local supplier or sub-contractor please contact James Flintham on 01427 788 837.

City & Guilds Group has today released the names of 48 businesses commended by the 2018 Princess Royal Training Awards. Other companies given the prestigious award included River Island, John Lewis, RBS, and the Royal Air Force in recognition of their outstanding training and development programmes, which have directly resulted in commercial success.

From apprenticeship schemes, to gamified e-learning, to health and wellbeing programmes, each of the recipients had to display a unique dedication to developing their workforce.

The full list of recipients includes public and private sector businesses of all sizes, from areas including hospitality, banking and financial services, retail, education, manufacturing, not for profit, and healthcare. The Award recipients, who were all subject to a rigorous assessment process, will receive their Awards from HRH The Princess Royal at a ceremony in October.

Commenting on this year’s recipients, Chris Jones, Chief Executive of the City & Guilds Group said:

Congratulations to all 48 organisations who have achieved the Princess Royal Training Awards standard of excellence this year. Once again, it is evidence of the very real benefits that investing in staff development can bring to employers, large and small, private, public and not for profit. At a time of increasing economic uncertainty and reduced investment into workforce development it is great to see critical business issues being addressed through impactful L & D. Through the Awards we highlight excellent examples of training that have already proved to be effective and we encourage others to build on their success.

Commenting on being awarded Steve Gelder, Chief Executive Officer of Gelder Group said:

At Gelder Group we believe in training staff from within and progressing them through the organisation, we have a very established and successful apprenticeship programme which has been created to train and develop our staff. Myself and the rest of the Senior Management Team are thrilled that this has been recognised by such a prestigious award.

My hope is that this award will further highlight the apprenticeship programmes available in the construction sector, which is so needed.

For more information about our apprenticeships, visit our dedicated apprenticeships page.

On 9^thAugust, an external annual audit was carried out by George Lopez from PASMA to confirm that Gelder Training continues to meet PASMA’s rigorous quality requirements. Gelder Training successfully passed the audit with flying colours and were awarded accredited centre status for the 9^th consecutive year.

Gelder Training are thrilled to be able to continue to deliver our successful PASMA Towers for Users training. For future training dates please contact Katie Scott on 01427 788837, or email info@gelder.co.uk.