By Monica Chard | Photos: Nicola Ann Photography
It was a night of glitz, glamour and excite-ment. Finally, after two years, we were back and celebrating the cream of Spelthorne business-es at the Spelthorne Business Awards. I know personally how important this event is as a local business, as Village Matters had been crowned both Best Business in Sunbury/Halliford and Runner Up Best in Spelthorne in 2019. It is a huge accolade to be recognised locally.
There was a change in venue this year. The newly refurbished Holiday Inn hosted the event and it was a chance to show off the significant changes. The refurbishments are stunning. The venue is very much going to be a destination now and I urge you to visit for lunch, dinner or for one of the many events the hotel puts on.
After welcome drinks and photos we were ushered to our tables. A few welcome speech-es culminated in a welcome from ‘the manag-er of the hotel’ who explained that this was his first and last major event as he had to return to his native Italy, but asked if he could give us a farewell song. He proceeded to belt out ‘Nessun Dorma’ to a standing ovation. This ‘manager’ was pretty good. He continued to sing, rousing the crowd to join in. When two of the waitresses joined in, we realised that this was part of the entertainment. They had us standing up dancing and clapping…..it was only 8pm. This was quite a party already! The food was fantastic, served very hot.
But on to the awards.
The competition this year attracted a lot of new entries and judges had a tough job. Sunbury was well represented and took three winning trophies. Congratulations to KH Dance who won the Healthy Business Award. Kathryn seen below looking delighted. Best Business in Sunbury/Halliford was this year awarded to Animateys (pictured bottom left), which offers children unique story experiences. They will be at the Sunbury Christmas market on December 9th so go and find out more. Ad opposite too. Sunbury based Acacia Homecare took the Best Corpo-rate Social Responsibility trophy.
Palmers Dog Grooming salon in Shepperton took awards for Best New Start up. Best in Shepperton and Best Small Business. Overall winner of Best in Spelthorne was Taste Crea-tive, a relatively new Staines based catering company which has diversified from catering to delivery and gifts during the pandemic. They use local and home grown produce where possible. Having only launched in 2018 they had only just started becoming established when they had to contend with the world coming to a standstill, and we know how hard the catering industry was hit. But we have it on good authority that Geoff’s homemade fudge deliveries sweetened many a dark time.
Congratulations to you all. Awesome!