Your Square Issue 3

YOUR SQUARE ISSUE 2 2015 ISSUE 3 2015

Coming Soon: Halloweâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;en and Christmas spectaculars

Recent Events: Mr Bloom and The Chilli Festival in pictures

Specsavers: A super-modern new store

Michele Pucci: The man and the restaurant

News: Stories from around Swinton

PLUS GREAT OFFERS & BARGAINS

Your Square/Centre Information

Your Square/Centre News

WELCOME

SWINTON SQUARE SPOOKTACULAR

A WORD FROM THE CENTRE MANAGER - DAVE SIMISTER Welcome to issue 3 of Your Square magazine and quite a lot has happened here since the last issue. We have had a visit from TV’s Mr Bloom and a record turnout for our ‘Garden in the Square’ event, a busy warm day saw record crowds in the Square. Then we had a taste of South America down in the Square with our ‘Chilli Festival’, treating you to a Samba Band, everything Chilli and some very hot sauces, so it has been a busy summer. If you missed any of those fantastic family

days you can catch up with the pictures in this issue. A big thanks to everyone that came down and supported these events and contributed to our charity this year; The Agnes Hopkins Centre. Watch this space as we will be dropping our cheque into them before the next issue. Looking ahead we have a feast of fun in store for you. This month of course, is Halloween and we have our ‘spooktacular’ on Saturday 31st October, with face

SATURDAY 31ST OCTOBER painters and a ‘spooky kid’s workshop’, plus we will have a scary disco for the kids, as well as a Halloween Parade at 2pm, so get the kids dressed up and we will see you then.

We have a spooky treat in store at Halloween as it gets scary down in the Square. Get dressed up and come down for a day of fun activities including a spooky workshop and loads of spooky face painting. At 2pm we have the Childrens’ Halloween Parade around the centre with the wicked witch and the whole event is rounded off with our kids spooky disco

Looking ahead there is more fun in store at Christmas and all of that is laid out for you in this issue. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing you all down here in the square to come and experience some of our exciting new shops and offers..

Contact Dave: 0161 728 4388 dave.simister@gvafm.co.uk Other resources: swintonsquare.co.uk @swintonsquare facebook.com/swintonsquaresalford Read YOUR SQUARE online at www.yoursquare.org

YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD MANAGEMENT TEAM We work with residents across Swinton and Pendlebury, making sure they feel fully informed about what’s happening in their area, empowered to have their say in the decisions being made and able to get involved in improving things for themselves. Community Committee Local priorities 2015-16 • Working to increase footfall and improve the vibrancy of Swinton town centre. • Supporting young people to get engaged in positive activities • Maximising the use of green spaces in the neighbourhood • Supporting community groups and individuals with growing projects

Karen Smith Neighbourhood Manager Kelly Wray Neighbourhood Development Officer Jo Skeets Admin Officer

SPECSAVERS OPEN NEW STORE Specsavers have moved across The Square to an impressive new unit which has allowed them to offer the public an even greater range of services. While the old unit had two test rooms, the new one has no less than six, not to mention two hearing booths which form part of their Audiology service. With a total of 13 staff, visitors will always find someone to answer their questions and the added space means that the huge range of frames are now displayed to fantastic effect. To mark their move into the new unit, Specsavers are currently offering eye tests for just £10. 40-42 The Parade 0161 794 1887

CHRISTMAS FESTIVAL Every Saturday up to Christmas we bring you a ‘Winter Wonderland’ down in the square, there’s loads to see and do including: • Elf’in Around- A free Elf Makeover for the Kids

0161 607 1965 salford.gov.uk/communitypriorities @salfordcouncil

• Letters To Santa: Come along to our workshop and write your own letters to Santa and we will post them off to Lapland. • Hello Christmas Kitty will be wondering around along with Sidney our festive Swinton Squirrel • Kids Fairground and Christmas Roadshow with singers and dancers and some very special guests including:

Saturday 28th November: Snowflake Sisters Frozen Show and Princess Parade Saturday 5th December: Britain’s Got Talent’s Bailey McConnell plus Jazz Master Alexander Stewart Saturday 12th December: Real Life Toy Soldiers and music from Jazz Master Alexander Stewart Saturday 19th December: Snowflake Sisters Frozen Show and Princess Parade

CALLING ALL LOCAL PERFORMERS!! While it’s great to have national stars appearing in The Square, we’d love to have some local performers appearing too. We’re looking for choirs, brass bands, dance groups, acoustic acts and singers to perform in The Square on one of the Saturdays in the run-up to Christmas. Please pass this on to anyone or any organisations you know who might be interested. Contact us at info@shoutmediauk.com (please note, this isn’t a talent competition!)

Bailey McConnell will be appearing in Swinton Square on 5th December

Your Square/Meet the Tennant

Your Square/Events

MICHELE PUCCI PUCCINI RESTAURANT

MR BLOOM The CBeebies star left his allotment to join us in The Square

Michele Pucci is a restaurant operator of the old school. He works extremely hard and he values the satisfaction of his customers above all else. It’s a simple formula but as the photographs that cover his restaurant wall indicate (Sylvester Stallone, David Cameron, Joe Frazier and every footballer you’ve ever heard of) it’s one that works amazingly well. Have you always been in the restaurant business? I went to catering school in Italy and worked in Venice and Tuscany and then moved to London. My wife is from Manchester so I came up here and worked in hotels before I decided to open a restaurant because I wanted to do something for myself. When did you buy this site`? I bought the business in 1990 but it was where the Halifax is now. We moved to this site in 1993, but it was much smaller then. We’ve expanded the restaurant twice since then. It’s obviously a very successful business, was there a point when you thought, ‘that’s it, we’ve made it’? No, you can never think like that. You might have made it today but you have to make it tomorrow as well. The food has got to be good and you have to put in a lot of effort. You can’t work 40 hours a week like some people. You have to maybe work 80 hours a week, you have to do the shopping

yourself to make sure you get fresh products every day. Puccini attracts a lot of very famous people, is that down to word of mouth? Yes. They come because they enjoy it. If they didn’t enjoy it, they wouldn’t come. We have people coming here from all over but every time they come you have to make sure they enjoy it. But for all the famous people that come here, our regulars are local people who have been supporting us for years. How many people do you employ here? We have seven chefs and a total of 40 staff. On a Saturday night we’ll have 30 staff in here. If you’re serving 120 people you want to make sure they’re being looked after. You host very successful charity events here as well... We’ve raised £360,000 for charities up to now. We choose a charity every year and this year it’s The Christie. Last year it was The Salford Foundation, before that Muscular Dystrophy, etc... We get great support from a lot of our customers and regulars such as Alex Ferguson, Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville and Fred Done always bring a lot of people here. I supply the staff, the food and the drink and the guests write cheques direct to the charity. How do you manage the menu? We have a regular menu and a special

list that we can change whenever we want. You have to be careful because if people like a dish and they come again, we want to make sure we can give it them again. But if you have the products you can do anything, you don’t have to stick to the menu, the menu’s just a guide.

We had a garden party in The Square in August when CBeebies sensation Mr Bloom turned up to give us his unique brand of vegetable-based entertainment. A gloriously sunny day saw a great turn-out on and while the kids crowded onto the ‘grass’ in front of the stage, the parents could sit back in a deckchair and enjoy the show. Elsewhere there was a Punch & Judy show in Market Area, also with deckchairs and picket fencing. The gardening theme was completed by the presence of IncredibleEdible Swinton, who came along to let people know about their great work in the area.

171-175 Chorley Road, M27 4AE www.puccinirestaurant.co.uk 0161 794 1847

CHILLI FESTIVAL

It got a bit spicy in The Square in September, when we hosted our first Chilli Festival

Your Square/Square Deals & Special Offers

4 x Sausage Rolls for the price of 3: £2.70 2 x Meat & Potato or Meat pies: £2.64 4 x Scones: £1.50 3 x Gingerbreads: £1 13 The Parade

FREE contact lens trial

40-42 The Square

Various Offers Instore

75-83 Upper Parade Square

THE CHOP SHOP

MOBILE 4 U Selfie Stick £9.99 iPhone 4 4s LCD screen replacement £25.

25% off any photo gift from a portrait taken in-store

Extra Lean Skirt Mince £2.20/ Ib

14 The Parade

10 The Parade

Kiosk 5

GLEN’S CUSHIONS AND PILLOWS

Spend £10 and get 10% off your purchase 85 The Parade

Spend £20+ and get FREE pair of bounce back pillows open unit Kiosk 2

Free Heels with every Stick-on-sole Every second key ½ price

3 for the price of 2 on PS3 games

8 The Parade

9-11 The Parade

2 DVDs for £1

Introduce a Friend You get £50 they get £20 (with in store voucher) 1 The Parade

5% OFF Thompson Cruises

1 The Parade