Where are the bees?

Jill Cordes, a co worker, from the Gateshead store brought up a really important environmental issue about the plight of the bees.

Here’s her article

“Bee colonies are in decline but do you know what this means to you?

Bees are responsible for pollinating many of the fruit and vegetables that we take for granted. If the decline continues at the current rate, within 20 years there won’t be enough crops such as apples, onions, almonds and cucumbers. We could even find ourselves without tea and coffee.

Bees contribute £200 million to the UK economy but over the last 20 years populations have halved and last winter alone we lost a fifth of our colonies.


So What’s bee-ing done?
All around the country people are starting to keep their own hives, including me! It’s easier than you might think and there are several local beekeeping associations who can support you.”

Later this month Jill will “bee” installing a bee hive on the roof of her store in Gateshead. I hope she saves me a jar of the first IKEA honey!

Money saving tip
Maybe its time to plant a few of your own flowers in the garden. You will not only help the dwindling bee population but maybe you can get your bee visitors to help you save a few pounds on cut flowers!

Run Charlie Run

Woweeeeeeeeeee what an amazing event in my life!!

I can’t believe what an emotional experience running this years London Marathon was, seeing all those people running for a charitable reason. Seeing my children at the 20 mile point was a real tear jerker.

Experiencing some people running in suits of armour, fire-fighting equipment and rhino costumes (and even a guy carrying a standard fridge on his back) made me marvel!!

Well I managed 5 hours and 32 minutes and ran the first 23 1/2 miles. After going through what is known as “the wall” at 15 and 19 miles, I had to walk a little.

Special thanks to Josie and Holly who I met along the way and helped me round… you were amazing guys!!

And today, well I wish I had a Stannah stair lift. Now I’m planning for next year.

But the most important part was the raising money for WWF. So thank you to EVERYONE involved in the fantastic fundraising effort. That includes the Cake & Bake sales in Milton Keynes IKEA and the IKEA Service Office in Wembley. I am on track to have raised £4000 with the pledged monies!

This has been an amazing experience for me, one I’d recommend you try yourselves if possible. After all it is said:

“If you want to build self esteem… do esteemable things”.

Money Saving Tip

Any money you donate to most charities will be tax deductable for the charity if given through Gift Aid. So you get to feel charitable twice over!

By Candlelight

This was our second year supporting WWF’s Earth Hour across all our stores in the UK. All stores switched off their unessential lighting at 8:30pm on 27th March. We even had Caribbean steel bands in our Edmonton store – don’t ask!

Switching off for one hour wasn’t about saving energy though, it was a symbolic act. The purpose was to send a message to politicians and governments that we as individuals care and want action on climate change.

On the day, myself and my children Connor, Laura and Niamh were with our friends from WWF for the actual switch off. We were not suddenly being pitched into darkness cometh the hour, but, seeing Big Ben on Whitehall going off was very symbolic for me personally.

A highlight for the children was being interviewed by the WWF film crew and receiving an increase in their pocket money to cover their appearance fees!

Over 4,000 cities took part in Earth Hour over 126 countries though, and considering the overall aim of Earth Hour is to send a clear signal to policy leaders that we need action on climate change. Tackling climate change is urgent and vital to both safeguard our environment and our children’s future.”

My colleague Peter Jones at the UK Service Office (a keen cyclist and environmentalist too) told me he held a candlelit dinner for friends and when Earth hour finished he went to turn back on the lights everyone said, “No leave them off it’s so nice!”

Not only can you have a pleasant evening by candlelight but by keeping in mind when to keep lights off you’ll be saving a bit of cash too.

PS Remember now the clocks have changed, so change your timers too!

Turn it off for Earth Hour

Something for our diaries… Saturday, March 27, 2010, at 8:30 pm is WWF’s Earth Hour.

At IKEA we are supporting this global effort by our corporate partner WWF aimed at encouraging everyone to turn off non-essential lighting for one hour. By doing this, we will save energy and money, but most importantly we will be joining hundreds of millions of others from around the world in calling for action, by showing our governments that climate change is a burning issue for all of us. Climate change caused by the emission of greenhouse gases is one of the most pressing issues facing the planet – and one everyone can do something about, starting with turning down the thermostat.

WWF has lobbied long and hard to get word leaders to act against climate change, especially in the lead up to The Copenhagen Summit last December. Although the results of the summit were frustrating, Copenhagen made it clear that individuals can take action against climate change. So what can we do?

Here is one easy tip for you this week:
When you are considering what to turn off, look what you can keep switched off! For example, a TV left on standby will still be using about 70% of its energy and cost on average about £35 a year.