There was a focus on youth at the BMF Awards Dinner, part of its annual Members’ Day event on 23rd September, with prizes awarded to the best Apprentices, the best performing Diploma student, the best performing Online student — as well as Young Merchant and Young Supplier Achievers.
Taking a closer look at the reasons for their success, it’s clear that the future of the industry is in very good hands. This year’s winners succeeded despite the added disruption of the Covid pandemic. Many congratulations to all!
Young Achiever Awards (sponsored by Hafele, Bostik, Mannok and GfK)
These are open to anyone under 35 who has demonstrated an ability to go above and beyond in their business, for example introducing new ideas and concepts or identifying fresh opportunities that enhance the business. The outstanding quality of this year’s entries gave the judges a particularly hard job, but they all agreed on the two winners:
Young Merchant Achiever — Lindsey Hart of Norman Piette Group
Following a degree in marketing and management, Lindsey (29) successfully progressed her marketing career at Guernsey-based Norman Piette Group. However, she was nominated by CEO John Bampkin following her successful application to add sales management to her marketing responsibility.
John said he had “not seen a better job application in 39 years in the industry” and Lindsey has excelled in the new role, transforming team performance in just nine months.
The detailed award entry, including numerous customer testimonials, summed up Lindsey’s performance thus: “Leading from the front and putting the people first in her infectious enthusiastic way has created a real team dynamic which is bringing huge success.”
This is all the more impressive in her first sales role.
Young Supplier Achiever — Alex Barton of E. Tupling
Alex (24) frequently goes over and above her job role as Office and Accounts Administrator, immersing herself into projects to help colleagues and drive the business forward, striving for excellence in everything she does.
Such projects included one to enhance corporate sustainability, where she took it upon herself to analyse business processes and suggest ways they could be more sustainable. As a result, the company implemented 10 changes improving operational efficiency.
Another project, undertaken in her free time, drew upon her art degree to create a welcoming wall of art at the company’s new distribution centre. The wall, which features E. Tupling’s brand colours, has been a striking addition, increasing employees’ positivity during an extremely tough year for everyone.
Best Performing Students 2021
Taking the prize for Best Performing Student – BMF Diploma in Management (sponsored by the Worshipful Company of Builders Merchants) was Donna MacLean of MGM Timber. In awarding her prize, Donna’s tutors said: “Donna has been an exemplary Diplomas student contributing to both the face-to-face workshops and the online webinars. The quality of work within her assessments has been of a very high standard throughout, and her overall points score was one of the highest on record.”
Meanwhile, Sam Murphy of Mid Sussex Timber was named Best Performing Online Student (sponsored by Cortexa). Sam was incredibly consistent in undertaking the BMF Building Blocks online modules, completing a full house of six blocks with an average score of 87.2%.
2021 Apprentices of the Year
As sponsored by Brick Development Association and BMF Apprenticeships Plus, this year’s Apprentice of the Year Awards were made to two excellent Level 2 Customer Service Practitioners — Nathan Kacoulli of Embrass Peerless and Luke Hoyle of Carlton Manufacturing.
Merchant Training Company of the Year
Sponsored for the fourth year running by PBM, the BMF Merchant Training Company of the Year award recognises the BMF Merchant member company who has invested heavily in their team during the last 12 months by utilising a variety of BMF training courses and solutions such as the Branch Managers Forum, BMF Building Blocks, the BMF Diploma as well as apprenticeships and training courses.
There are 4 nominations for this year’s Award, one from each of the BMF’s 4 Regional Managers:
North East, Yorkshire & Scotland region – Harlow Brothers
North West, Midlands and Republic of Ireland region – EH Smith
South West, Wales & Northern Ireland region – LBS Building Supplies
London, South East & Anglia region – Huws Gray Group
All four Merchants have shown not only a commitment to training as a core element of their business but have demonstrated their support of the BMF by using the BMF for the majority of their Training solutions.
From these worthy nominees, the overall winner was chosen as…
LBS Building Supplies
LBS has demonstrated a substantial overall commitment to training and staff development across an impressive number of BMF courses, forums and other events. It has discovered the value of BMF Campus, developing its own Academy Platform with BMF’s training partner, Cortexa. In addition, it has made significant investment in sales and management training, running group programmes for the BMF Diploma in Merchant Management, the BMF Certificate in Merchant Management and an ISM Essential Sales Management course tailored to the specific needs of their team.
As well as showing its support for the BMF at events, it is a keen supporter of the BMF Young Merchants Group. Furthermore, it has 27 learning plans on the Government Kickstart scheme, which resulted in seven people being taken on full time.
The company is continuing to work in tandem with the BMF about its future training and development goals.
For more information on all aspects of BMF training, visit www.bmf.org.uk
The image shows award winners (clockwise from top left) Donna MacLean of MGM Timber, Lindsey Hart of Norman Piette Group, Alex Barton of E. Tupling and Sam Murphy of Mid Sussex Timber.
