A team from the Marks and Spencer store at Weston’s Flowerdown Retail Park has redesigned four Weston Hospicecare shop windows as part of the nationwide chain’s Making Every Moment Special In The Community scheme.

The project’s intention is to interact with good causes and charities within the  communities served by M&S stores around the country, and saw M&S experts lend some of their expertise to hospice shops in Weston and Worle.

They are also offering a chance for  people to win a gift card to be used in store by voting for their favourite among the four new-look window displays. For a chance to win one, head over to the pinned post on the Weston Hospicecare News Facebook page to vote for your favourite shop window.

The scheme encourages M&S stores nationwide to engage and support their local communities.

M&S Flowerdown store manager, Emma Clawson said: “We have chosen Weston Hospicecare as our chosen charity in the local area and as part of our project we have organised a window dressing competition involving four stores within the Weston-super-Mare area.

“It’s a charity that is close to a lot of people’s heart in our store and I know it is a very well-respected charity within the community. Various members of staff at our store have had support from Weston Hospicecare and we have had Weston Hospicecare as our store charity in the past as well.

“We are having a glorious summer so far and it is festival time as well. The Waterloo Street store is very close to the Weston College campus and when we had initial discussions about ideas we felt a festival theme would be a great fit for that store’s demographic.

“The High Street store has a visitor-focused demographic so we have built a shopfront with the beach theme for that store.

“The Milton Road store has a lot of ladies shop here so we decided to go with a 1920 ladies theme with flapper girls and afternoon tea items.

“The Worle store has a demographic of young mums. There are a lot of children’s items in that store so we have designed a storefront with kites and balloons, as well as children’s clothing.

“We interacted with our customers whilst we were building the windows to let them know about the making every moment special in the community scheme.

“Anyone will be able to vote and one voter from each store will be picked at random to win an M&S gift card.

“It is a fantastic cause that we are working with and we would just like to encourage as many people into your stores as possible with this scheme to make as much money as possible for the hospice.”

Weston Hospicecare’s director of retail Gemma Turner says she is delighted to be able to work with M&S on this project and it has been great fun.

She said: “As a charity, the hospice welcomes any support and assistance with open arms. But to have had guidance from a company such as Marks and Spencer is invaluable to our shops.

“All the shop windows look fantastic and we are extremely grateful that M&S chose to help us as part of their Making Every Moment Special In The Community scheme.

“The lasting legacy of this though is it will give our shops the innovative and creative mindset to display items in our shop windows in the future.”

Voting will close on Monday 2 July 2018 and the winners will be selected at random and contacted shortly after.