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Charity skydive In other news, volunteers from Hughes are taking part in a sponsored skydive in Suffolk in August to raise money for The Benjamin Foundation, which helps those facing challenging situations.


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Hughes Electrical completes £750,000 refurbishment of Ipswich store


Hughes Electrical has finished a £750,000 refurbishment of its Ipswich premises. The facility is 33,000sq ft, on Felixstowe Road in the town, has 150 staff who work in web management and call centre, trade, retail shop, depot and a new rental call centre. There is also a training and meeting facility. On the roof of the building there are 774 solar panels with an output of up to 301kw, which will help Hughes’ commitment to reach net zero customer deliveries. The company already has a 100 per cent electric cars, and it’s soon beginning a trial of electric vans.


Hughes has been in the same building there since 1998, and Chairman, Robert Hughes, had several reasons for investing in the premises. He said it is vital to the company to serve the geographical area for now and the future.


“It underlines our long-term commitment to Ipswich as we want to be an integral part of its development and growth,” he said. “We see it as both a cultural and operational centre for Hughes. It is also the ideal location for our newly-created rental call centre, underlining the importance of the rapidly growing rental side of our business.”


Sirius Buying Group celebrates successful 2023 conference


Sirius Buying Group is flying high following the success of its 2023 UK Conference, which took place at the Concorde Conference Centre in Manchester in May. The event provided independent retailer members with exclusive promotions to increase margins, and leading appliance manufacturers with new business opportunities for the year ahead. Visitors throughout the day even got the chance to enjoy a tour on board a retired Concorde aircraft from the early 2000’s! The conference had record attendance, with 28 separate booths from leading suppliers of MDA and SDA, including Bosch, Caple, CDA, Franke, Hotpoint, Liebherr, Rangemaster, Samsung, Smeg, Bluestem, RKW, D.A.D. and more. Steve Jones, Managing Director at Sirius Buying


Group, said: “It is so rewarding to see so many members and suppliers supporting each other and learning from each other in our business community in real time.” In the evening following the conference, Sirius held its Gala Awards Dinner under the wings of Concorde. Mark Veysey, Head of Operations at Sirius Buying


Group, said: “The Sirius Awards celebrate the leading brands and businesses that make up our industry with a series of well-deserved accolades. The results speak for themselves, as we wanted to shine a light on some of the most influential leaders across seven major categories in electrical retail.” The 2023 winners were: Large Manufacturer of


the Year – BSH; Medium Manufacturer of the Year – Caple; Distributor of the Year – Bluestem Group; SDA Distributor of the Year – RKW; Large Retailer of


the Year – Appliance World NW; Medium Retailer of the Year – Bargain Buyz; Representative of the Year – Andy Wilson, Bluestem Group; Special Recognition Award – Stuart Hopwood, Lingua Franca. You can watch ERT’s highlights video of the Sirius 2023 Conference and Gala Awards Dinner on the ERT LinkedIn page: linkedin.com/company/ert-online During the evening, over £9,000 was raised for the DEC Turkey-Syria Earthquake Appeal, which will provide essential humanitarian aid for those in need.


They have set themselves an ambitious fundraising target of £10,000, with Hughes Electrical matching pound for pound up to that amount. Nine people from the retail company and one from The Benjamin Foundation will make the jump. One of those includes Jack Phelps, Director of Retail at Hughes, who said: “Last year we raised nearly £16,000 for The Benjamin Foundation by undertaking a five day, 450 mile bike ride. “So, this year we were looking for a different type of challenge and jumping out of an aircraft at 13,000 feet seemed ideal! I am pleased to say we have a representative of each of the divisions at Hughes taking part – even though none of us have ever parachuted before.”


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