On Monday evening, around 500 Boots colleagues from across the UK and ROI were joined by members of the Executive team in Manchester for the highly-anticipated annual Best of the Best gala celebration. The awards ceremony and dinner celebrates and recognizes colleagues who have consistently gone above and beyond to champion everyone’s right to feel good.

The night’s big winner was Store 1736 Westport, in The Republic of Ireland, which took home the prestigious Store of the Year Award. The team is well known for its blend of professionalism, friendliness, expertise and fun, and to date they’ve raised over €100,000 for the Irish Cancer Society.

Commenting on the award, Store Manager Ann Mullarkey said: ‘We are delighted to have won the award, and I am very proud of our team here and excited to bring our trophy home to Westport where it will have pride of place in our store. Our customers have been incredibly supportive and we have been inundated with congratulations. We’re honoured to be part of an amazing community here in Westport’.

Bernadette Lavery, Managing Director Boots Ireland commented: ‘Our store in Westport is a very special store and this award recognises the tremendous dedication, hard work and focus on customer care from each member of the team under the guidance of store manager Ann Mullarkey.

Meanwhile, the HPV Vaccination Service Team won the Cross-Functional Team of the Year Award for developing and launching the new private human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination service. On the night, Boots also recognized some members of the inaugural 50 year club, which was established this in June of this year. In addition to the presentation of the big team awards, Boots celebrated a number of regional and support function winners on the night including No7 Team of the Year, Legendary Leader, Community Care, Colleague Care, Customer Care, Healthcare Team of the Year, Healthcare Colleague and Team of the Year.

Nathan Clements, HR Director, Boots UK, and Kevin Birch, Retail Pharmacy Operations Director, Boots UK, served as masters of ceremony, while Elizabeth Fagan, Senior Vice President & Managing Director, Boots UK, joined them onstage to present the awards. In total, over 1,700 colleagues were nominated in ten different categories across support office functions and in stores, with local celebrations taking place across the regions over the past few months.