Peter (known As John) Waddington

The Lee Valley Park Authority is a large organisation set up in the late 1960's to manage the open spaces in Greater London.

The portfolio includes 3 campsites, 2 marinas, the Olympic Velodrome, Hockey and White Water centre as well as the Ice centre, Horse riding centre and many parks.

I am responsible for all aspects of the day to day running of the marina.

I produce annual budgets and requirements that the marina may need during the year as well as being responsible for the profitability of the marina looking at ways to increase or create new income streams.

When I arrived the engineers had nothing to do, so I tasked them with repairing and restoring all equipment on site, including on the pontoons saving money, whilst I promoted our engineering services to local and visiting boat owners.

I have 3 engineers, 1 assistant Manager, 1 business support officer and 4 Marina assistants to manage and have given them all specific priorities within the team that they take responsibility for, encouraging teamwork and ownership.

All Health and Safety is monitored by an external company, and it is my duty to ensure that everyone is trained to the required standard, following HSE guidelines and safe working practices. I am audited every quarter and achieved 100% in the last audit, a first for the marina and authority.

I live on site and am, therefore, responsible for dealing with issues, when on-site, regardless of time or day.

I am also responsible for outside contractors working on boats or the site, ensuring that they have the required insurance and produce risk assessments and method statements for the work they are doing.

I have no problem removing incompetent contractors or those who don't have the relevant paperwork.

The berth holders had been severely overlooked for several years and I addressed this, very quickly, by producing regular, informative newsletters and repairing all the items that had been bothering them and that should have been addressed as they occurred.

These newsletters have been very well received and not one person has unsubscribed since I started them.

The marina is set in a site of special scientific interest and I have worked to manage the grounds maintenance to protect this. I have banned the team using herbicides and will not strim anything when it is in flower.

I have also created 'bug hotels' around the site.

I also regularly involve berth holders in site clean ups, which they are happy to get involved with.

It is a very varied role and no two days are the same.

I was particularly excited by this role since I have always had a passion about plants in the working environment as well as creating green spaces in otherwise 'concrete jungles'.

On my first day, it was clear that the Nursery Manager had not been told anything about me or what my role was going to involve, making it very awkward.

I therefore had to identify where my skills would lie and try to 'fit in', knowing that the manager preferred the practical aspects of his position,

Currently the manager likes to start at 6am and leave at 2pm so I decided to start at 8am and work until 5pm so at least the nursery is open for deliveries and collections all day.

I spent the first couple of months reviewing and creating, where necessary, COSHH files, risk assessments, toolbox talks, monthly and weekly checks and policies etc and updating or creating files for them. I also read all I could about the various systems used to create and fit the walls.

I had been made aware that the lease on the nursery runs out in November 2024 so asked the Operations Director, in December, if I could help find a new home, as I knew or knew of most of the growers in the area. He agreed and so I spent December looking for a potential new home.

After many visits, emails and 'wanted' adverts I found a very suitable nursery which was liked by the Director and my Nursery Manager.

The family were happy to rent to us whatever glass we wanted, which gave us the opportunity to expand as the business grew.

It was decided, though, that they wanted their 'own' site and so are currently negotiating with another nursery.

My current activities are limited to fairly manual tasks including loading and unloading lorries.

I felt that my talents here were somewhat wasted and could be put to much better use elsewhere, which is why I applied for the role at Springfield Marina

I started as a part-time delivery driver and within a year was promoted to the Regional Flexi-Team Assistant Manager, becoming Manager after some restructuring.

The role was to manage 'flexi-team' employees including: store Managers, Assistant and Trainee Managers, Retail assistants and Drivers, providing staff and support to short-handed or struggling stores throughout the South West region (50+ stores) to prevent store closures or lone working scenarios.

I was asked by the Regional Manager to produce a manual for how the 'flexi-team' and stores should work with each other to continue to provide seamless first class customer service, whilst working towards putting stores back in to compliance. I also produced the criteria required by stores for requesting Flexi-team help and in weekly calls gave senior Managers and Directors my opinions on what caused individual stores to request help and report failures of store Managers.

I provided guidance and support to struggling stores on better rostering to avoid staff shortages and helped them complete mandatory Health and Safety checks on store equipment as well as weekly van and alarm checks for head-office.

During this time I studied and gained a WSET Level 2 in wine.

Whilst I enjoyed this role, the reality was that I was travelling up to 20,000 miles a year, 10,000 of those for only 25p per mile, making it uneconomic for me. They also changed the areas making future visits even further away.

This is a part-time 'agent' role which my wife runs during the week with me getting involved evenings and weekends.

We live on our boat in a large marina so our customers are all around us.

Promoting our services to boat owners and securing listings.

Photographing vessels to accurately reflect the type and condition of the boat.

Listing the boat details, photos, video and accurate description onto the website ‘back-office’

Up-loading relevant documents to the website, including signed sales agreements, proof of VAT payment, bills of sale.

Organising and conducting viewings at times convenient to the customers.

Putting offers to owners and managing negotiations between buyers and sellers

Organising sea trials

Producing sales and purchase agreements.

Handing over vessels to new owner

Supplying event and wedding florists with British grown cut flowers, foliage, and plants.

I started this company with my wife in 2014, because of our passion for British grown produce and having seen the increasing demand for British grown.

I wanted to achieve the same level of professionalism as Dutch exporters.

I built a very customer interactive website and eCommerce platform and developed a strong social media presence We worked with small British flower growers, helping and encouraging them to better develop cropping to suit the current market demands.

Argo Flowers Ltd grew very quickly, and turned over in excess of £250,000 in its first year of trading.

I achieved this by targeting customers who were identified as being supporters of British Flowers and associating the company with them on social media.

I would then make contact with them and visit in our refrigerated van filled with flowers and foliage - much of it scented.

Instagram alone was responsible for attracting over 80% of customers due to the visual nature of the App. Within 6 months the company was supplying many influential customers including the Royal Household and Royal Florist Shane Connolly, Petersham Nurseries and many large event florists in London and across the South.

We actively sought out smaller niche growers, including a producer of Christmas trees in Wiltshire, who, at our suggestion, would cut the branches off trees that would never make the grade as a decorated tree ,and sell them to us in 5kg bundles for wreath making. We sold over 7000 kilos in our first Christmas. Much of this would go to the Royal Households.

Unfortunately we were too reliant on one large producer of foliage and flowers, whose husband is a large arable farmer. She had given us many verbal and written assurances that she would not compete with us directly.

However having seen how well we were doing she did.

Despite our work trying to encourage other growers to produce for us it was too late and we had to close.

According to her nursery manager she deeply regretted this move, underestimating our popularity with all of the customers.

Holland's largest family owned cut flowers exporter with an annual turnover of £75 million

As General Manager of Copseys and owner of Nursery Fresh, this company was one of their major suppliers of flowers and plants who invited me to join them after Cospeys closed.

I was responsible for finding new wholesale clients, checking their financial stability and handing them over to the appropriate Dutch based sales team.

I maintained regular contact, by phone and visits with new and existing customers and assisted the sales team with customer retention, providing them with client comments, both good and bad, as well as suggestions from me on how to improve the service.

I established a new area of business supplying UK garden centres for the plant side of the operation, and secured Hilliers as a customer after long discussions with their buyer.

I attended regular trade shows, both for flowers and plants promoting all aspects of the company, writing regular 'market' reports for the MD, highlighting new trends within the industry.

I rearranged the sales offices in Holland to promote a more inclusive and supportive environment for the sales team to work in. This created a happier but competitive and more profitable team.

I re-wrote the website to better reflect the company, their family and customer focused ethos.

In 2014 I could see the growing interest in British Flowers so left to start Argo Flowers

Manage and develop a new direction for this 3rd generation, 13 acre cut flower and plant grower and wholesaler.

Evaluate crop viability and make necessary changes to reduce financial exposure and increase profits.

Manage 50 permanent sales, production, maintenance and administrative staff as well as 15 seasonal staff and contractors.

Implement Risk assessment and COSHH recording to the business.

Achieve LEAF accreditation and introduce the business to major retailers B&Q and Waitrose who became regular customers

Establish a much better working environment for staff stamping out historic bullying by a few section managers and even Directors.

Made sure that I spoke with every member of staff at least once a week and established a completely 'open door' policy.

Involved staff with major decisions regarding major crop changes etc.

I provided ‘spare’ growing tunnels, land and resources for the charity The Beneficial Foundation who had lost their nursery and were waiting for new premises. The Beneficial Foundation introduced those with severe learning difficulties into employment through horticulture. I used my contacts within the wholesale flower markets and Waitrose to promote and sell produce grown by the students and provide them with an income.

I closed down the loss making wholesale flower delivery side of Copseys, re-branding it Nursery Fresh, suppliers of flowers to weddings and large events across the UK.

I approached Chichester Cathedral, who had a biannual, fund raising flower festival, and provided them with a system whereby the 300+ volunteer arrangers could order from Nursery Fresh individually and the flowers were then conditioned and delivered en-mass to the Cathedral, where a team of our staff would be on hand to distribute to the arrangers areas within the building. I organised an open-day at the nursery prior to the event, where the arrangers could come and meet and discuss their orders with the staff. This proved very popular as the quality provided the designers with consistency, the Cathedral didn't have to reimburse hundreds of arrangers with retail priced flowers and staff were on hand throughout the set-up.

I went on to sell and deliver the service to many festivals including: Portsmouth, Guildford, Winchester, Salisbury, Manchester Cathedrals as well as Westminster Abbey and Hampton Court Palace.

When Copseys sold up for building, I bought this side of the company and opened a large cold-store in Portsmouth paying a team to run it whilst I worked for the Dutch suppliers

Having turned the company from a loss-making to a profitable business, I had to make everyone redundant after the Directors 'lost some assets' and sold the land for housing.

Oversee the sale, Importation and distribution to UK wholesale florists, supermarkets and box flower companies of cut orchids from South East Asia, New Zealand and South America.

Worked closely with suppliers, airlines and transport companies to grow the company into the largest importer of cut Orchids in Europe shipping in excess of 7500 kg's per week.

Built a fantastic relationship with all b2b and b2c customers over many years based on quality and trust.

I had to close the company after suddenly becoming a single parent

Account management of flowering indoor plants to multiple store customers including M&S, Waitrose and Tesco.

Responsible for sales, purchasing, distribution and introducing new products, as well as managing a team of 6.

Introduced cut flowers into M&S, Tesco and Waitrose.