Personality strikes at the NMT Awards in London

It was a wild night at the NMT awards in London on Saturday evening, as we headed in with Alice, James and Max each looking to take home a prize in their respective categories.

With directors Paul, Rosemary, James & Jen, as well as Weston management team Hayley & Kim accompanying them, they enjoyed a delicious three course meal to start the evening. Surrounded by the best of the best in the childcare sector, there was bound to be some stiff competition for our candidates, and the tension was mounting as Gethin Jones took to the stage to start the awards presentation.

Max Bendall looking sharp before the ceremony.

First up was ‘Mad’ Max Bendall, Head of Parrots & Out of School at Weston and looking to scoop the early category of Room Leader of the Year. The category held some tough competition though, with Adam from Evolution Childcare eventually winning the judges’ votes.

James Fulford, looking on nervously as his category approaches.

James Fulford, Nursery Nurse at Weston, began to feel the nerves as the night went on, with a long wait until his category was called. Up against a good group of candidates, he was unlucky to lose to Georgina Elton at Kiddy Caru, but he was happy having made it this far and been considered worthy enough to be on the shortlist.

Alice Collard, from our Keynsham nursery, and recently married to (Creative Director) James, was our final candidate of the night, in what was perhaps the trickiest category - or at least the most difficult to quantify - as she was up for Nursery Personality of the Year. Convincing herself she had no chance of winning, the sense of shock on her face was palpable as HER NAME WAS READ OUT AS THE WINNER! 

Alice proudly shows off her new award.

The next ten minutes were a bit of a blur for Alice, as she collected her award on stage and tried to understand what had just happened. But we all knew Alice was in with a great chance - she didn’t get shortlisted for the award for no reason and she can now finally claim to have “a winning personality”.

Congratulations to all three of our amazing finalists and we can honestly say that we couldn’t be prouder to have you as part of our fantastic teams at Snapdragons.