In Your Shoes - Malcolm Angus

Kickstart with a cooked breakfast at F&B's!

The new week begins with a strong coffee and a Frankie & Benny’s cooked breakfast! The perfect kickstart to the busy day ahead. After much planning, Frankie & Benny’s recently opened in Overgate and is going down a storm with customers.

Much of the first half of my typical Monday is focussed on admin and includes retailer debriefs from the weekend, updating the centre’s analytics on areas such as footfall and revenues, reading weekly reports and replying to emails.

After this we have our Overgate management team meeting to discuss the week ahead with input from Operations, Marketing, Technical Services, Customer Services, Security and our newly appointed Guest Services Manager. The festive period is top of everyone’s agenda now so lots of conversations around this.  Last year’s Black Friday weekend alone saw over 117,000 people come through Overgate’s doors so being organised is essential!

Beechgrove Garden come to visit!

The morning is spent with Overgate’s new Guest Services Manager Craig Cummings, showing him the inner workings of the centre and introducing him to his team and some retailers. We work hard to ensure our customers have an enjoyable experience when in Overgate and Craig’s appointment reinforces this.

Hoping the weather is on our side today. I’m outside with Overgate’s Operations Manager Morag Dennis to see how our William Gardiner Square project is looking. The square is named in honour of Dundee’s pioneering 19th century botanist and took two years to complete by volunteers from Bonnie Dundee and Dundee and Angus College, with Morag coordinating. We were delighted to have Carole Baxter of BBC’s Beechgrove Garden officially launch the Square with us recently, and it is proving popular with the public who can help themselves to the free herbs.

After the garden inspection it’s back into the centre to meet the Reverend Geoff Findlay and see how Overgate’s collaborative Workplace Chaplain initiative is being received.

The afternoon is focussed on a Monthly Fund conference call, updating the Client on centre performance and on-going initiatives.

Christmas is coming...

It’s been a busy time at Overgate with new openings, from Five Guys and Frankie & Benny’s to Schuh, Footasylum, Smiggle, Little Thistle and Menkind. I spend the morning meeting store managers and listening to their feedback. All positive which is good.

Christmas is literally around the corner so the afternoon is spent with Metta Ramsay, Overgate’s Retail Marketing Assistant to decide what magic we can bring to the centre this year. Metta joined Overgate through our Graduate Scheme and has really hit the ground running. She recently coordinated our Student Night which saw close to 8,000 freshers through the door with student spend nearing the £200k mark. A great addition to the team.

The latter part of the day is spent completing Overgate’s STAR Performance Systems. This hot spots Overgate’s retailing performance and benchmarks this against national trends.

Overgate has a new partnership with The Dundee CCS Stars

The day begins with a check in on The Dundee CCS Stars, the city’s professional ice hockey team. Overgate has confirmed a new partnership with The Stars through 2016/2017 and after such a successful summer it is great to see the team continuing to go from strength to strength. Overgate will help promote The Stars’ forthcoming matches, help increase exposure of the team’s developments across our social platforms as well as raising awareness of the team through in-centre appearances.

After this it’s off to speak to our retailers. Throughout the week we will regularly pop in and speak to them on store performance and any additional issues.  We recently sent out Retailers Satisfaction Surveys so I am keen to collate this information. Many of the stores have launched their festive season recruitment drives so I also catch up on how this is going.

Help for Kids!

The afternoon is occupied with planning for next week’s Manchester Management Meeting. I’ll be down to Head Office for two days to catch up with all the Fund on a wide spectrum of issues such as accounts, marketing, stakeholders engagement, sustainability and team performance to name but a few.

Finally, the day is completed with a Help for Kids strategy meeting. The charity was co-founded by Overgate and Wave 102 in 2011 and over 2,000 disadvantaged children living in the Dundee area are supported annually. Last year close to £14,000 was raised and we hope to surpass this amount in 2016.