International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world every year on 12th May, the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth. In the UK, it is promoted by the Royal College of Nurses.
They say that Nurses’ Day is for everyone who cares… At House of Dorchester we care too and were delighted to be able to help to reward the wonderful nurses and care staff at The Children’s Trust celebrate their very own Nurses Day with a special chocolatey thank you. We donated over 250 packs of our lovely House of Dorchester Spring Friends mini chocolate bar packs which went down a treat with the nurses! Well done everyone at The Children’s Trust and keep up the good work.
For more information about The Children’s Trust and to find out how you can help please visit http://www.thechildrenstrust.org.uk
We were hardly surprised to learn last month that the former Kate Middleton – now Catherine, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge – had a love of chocolate. During a visit to Fortnum & Mason accompanied by The Queen and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and The Queen, Kate giggled “I love chocolate, I think all girls like chocolate,” although she had to make do with trying a small, crystalised, rose petal sweet, as anything sticky and likely to mess up the royal outfits was strictly off the menu.
With Kate and William’s wedding anniversary fast approaching our chocolatiers got to work and created an extra special luxury box of our House of Dorchester chocolates just for Kate. During the Fortum & Mason visit Camilla was pining for her childhood favourite chocolates, violet cremes, so we included one of our Great Taste Award winning violet cremes (if Kate wants to share!) along with forty-seven other luxury hand finished chocolates from our House of Dorchester range.
We’d like to take this opportunity to wish Kate and William our congratulations for their first wedding anniversary on Sunday 29th April and hope Kate loves the chocolates.
27 Apr
Today we visited the Children’s Trust in Tadworth once again but this time with a giant handmade chocolate hare strapped into the passenger seat of our car – quite a surreal experience – to be delivered freshly into the hands of Tina. The Trust are planning on using this as an extra special raffle prize for their Spring Fair on Saturday 7th April 2012 http://bit.ly/f38iAG . As the hare weighs in at a delicious 3kg we hope that it helps to raise lots of money for such a worth cause. To read more about the Children’s Trust and to find out how you can help simply visit http://www.thechildrenstrust.org.uk/
UPDATE 12th April 2012: We are thrilled to hear that the hare raised £170 for The Children’s Trust!
02 Apr
Yesterday, on possibly one of the hottest days of the year, Inga and Natalie delivered a hand made giant chocolate hare to a local charity very close to our hearts – Julia’s House the Dorset Children’s Hospice.
We are pleased to report that the hare just survived its delivery to Julia’s House HQ in sunny Poole, Dorset and next week will be auctioned for the charity by Barclays House who will, in turn, double the amount raised. The hare is the size of a small child (we’ve checked!) and weighs a whopping 3kg.
Julia’s House was orginally set up by Julia Perks, a dedicated paediatric nurse who identified the need for facilities and services for children with life-limiting and life-threatening illnesses in the area, and particularly sought to raise awareness of the need for more respite for the families of these children.
Following her sad and premature death from cancer in 1997, Julia’s family, friends and colleagues took up the mantle and set up the Julia Perks Foundation, now known as Julia’s House, the Dorset Children’s Hospice. As well as the hospice itself, Julia’s House also concentrates its efforts firstly on providing care in the families’ own homes. This meant that children and their families receive care and support much sooner than would otherwise be the case.
For more information on Julia’s House simply visit http://www.juliashouse.org/
For more information on how to bid for the giant hare simply contact Julia’s House HQ on telephone number 01202 607400.
UPDATE 12th April 2012: We are thrilled to learn that the hare was raffled to raise £313.00 and Barclays House match funded this making a total of £630!
30 Mar
House of Dorchester have been long term supporters of The Children’s Trust for around 10 years. In both 2010 and 2011 we have chosen not to send out Christmas cards and instead send out an email and donate £500 to the Children’s Trust. Yesterday, we had the honour of being shown around The Children’s Trust grounds in Tadworth. The Children’s Trust provides care, education, therapy and rehabilitation to children with multiple disabilities, complex health needs and acquired brain injury. Their services include the UK’s largest paediatric brain injury rehabilitation centre, support in the community for children and young people with acquired brain injury, The School for Profound Education for pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties, short breaks, transitional, palliative and long-term nursing care. We were, as ever, in awe of the great work the Children’s Trust do. Our highlight was hearing Bee sing “The Wheels on the Bus” to us, closely followed by going up to the wheelchair accessible tree house and gazing down over the 24 acre snowclad grounds. For more information on The Children’s Trust and find out how you can help visit http://www.thechildrenstrust.org.uk/
House of Dorchester's Mark presenting £500 to the Children's Trust
10 Feb
The House of Dorchester team have been incredibly busy of late, yesterday returning from the Spring Fair International 2012. Held at the Birmingham NEC, Spring Fair is a retail buying event where buyers come to source their stock for the coming year and at House of Dorchester we exhibit every year. We braved severe snow and ice to bring our luxury hand finished chocolates wares to Birmingham where we enjoyed meeting some of our very loyal customers as well as introducing a great number of new ones to House of Dorchester. With the Jubilee and Olympics just around the corner, our Diamond Jubilee and Flying the Flag ranges in particular went down a storm.
House of Dorchester Spring Fair team
10 Feb
The team at House of Dorchester have just returned from ISM, the 42nd International Sweets and Biscuits Fair, held in Cologne, Germany. We were one of 1,412 suppliers exhibiting and the show was attended by 35,000 trade visitors from 130 countries… and we feel like we spoke to each and every one of them (although perhaps we did only met 34,999)! We were exhibiting in the UK pavillion with an array of British producers, flying our Union Jack high and keeping everyone happy tasting our delicious hand-finished chocolates.
10 Feb
Festive basket by Miles - age 4
In the run up to Christmas we have been running a Christmas competition via our factory shop. Since November customers far and wide have been picking up baskets from our shop manager Joan, making a donation for each basket, and returning the baskets for judging by our chocolatiers. Now we are proud to announce the lucky winners! Drum roll…
First prize: Eileen Lewis
Second prize: Wilma Goldstone
Third prize: S. McLuckie
We received some adorable kids entries and awarded surprise prizes of handmade chocolate santas to Miles Clarke, Morgan Pitfield and Sandra.
We are pleased to announce we raised £30 for Dorset West Country Hospital’s Boost charity 2011 digital mamography appeal. In addition to this, we have also stayed true to our values to do to the right thing to look after the environment and, rather than send out Christmas cards, we have again this year donated £500 to The Children’s Trust, a national children’s charity that relies entirely on the support of the community to provide the specialist therapy, education and residential care to children who have had a brain injury.
To donate yourself to either of these charities please visit:
Boost http://www.boostdch.co.uk/
The Children’s Trust www.thechildrenstrust.org.uk
Our offices will re-open on 3rd January 2012. Any orders placed through our online shop over the festive period will now be dispatched on 3rd January.
We would like to wish all our customers a very merry Christmas!
23 Dec
Thanks to everyone who made it along to the chocolate tasting at Windsor Farm Shop last week on Friday 9th December and met Laura, our area sales manager. We loved meeting you all and hope you enjoy your Christmas chocolates. If you are passing by don’t forget to drop in to pick up a few of our lovely chocolates http://bit.ly/cpLTRP Alternatively you can also visit our online shop www.hodchoc.com/shop
12 Dec
We were represented last week at the opening of a new Waitrose store by His Royal Highness Prince Charles just round the corner from our factory in Poundbury. Being just a stone’s throw away from our chocolate factory you might imagine that you can also buy a selection of House of Dorchester chocolates there and you would be quite right. At House of Dorchester we are no strangers to Prince Charles as our factory, which he opened in 1998 is on the same Duchy of Cornwall’s land. We also manufacture Duchy Originals chocolates. Prince Charles was accompanied by Mark Price, Waitrose Managing Director.
06 Dec
