Valentine’s Day – Graffiti Wall of Love 2016

Love is in the air again at Nextra Chermside Newsagency. Be bold and share your feelings for that special someone with the world! Simply purchase any Valentine’s Day greeting card and make your mark on our Graffiti Wall of Love.

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Staff Member Jessica Recognised as ‘Young Citizen of the Year’ in the 2016 Lord Mayor’s Australia Day Awards

Jess Hickey

Our Customer Service Leader, Jessica Hickey, was recently awarded the ‘Young Citizen of the Year Award’ in the Lord Mayor of Brisbane’s Australia Day Awards 2016. Jessica is a motivated 22-year-old studying speech pathology at university who still finds the time to work part-time and volunteer to assist the Community.

Jessica joined the Ecumenical Coffee Brigade in 2011 and volunteers monthly to go into the City with the Van at 6 o’clock in the morning to deliver tea, coffee, sandwiches and companionship to Brisbane’s homeless. She also volunteered at Homeless Connect in 2014 and 2015 on the Ecumenical Coffee Brigade stand, sharing information about the services they offer.

Jessica also became part of a group from St Joseph’s Bracken Ridge who visit Jacana – an acquired brain injury centre at Bracken Ridge – every three weeks to provide an ecumenical service followed by a sing-along for the residents. Jessica plays the piano and sings which the residents greatly enjoy.

During 2012, she and five friends formed an a capella group called The Notabelles.  These girls perform free of charge for a variety of community events such as Einbunpin Festival at Sandgate, fundraising events for Motor Neurone Disease, at Retirement Villages, childcare centres and any other community event who enjoy the love of music and much as they do.

In 2011 Jessica became a part of the planning committee for JAFA – the Joseph and Anthony Fellowship of the Arts.  This is a performing arts group that presents musicals every two years and concerts in between for the local community to enjoy.  Jessica has been involved with five productions.

Jessica is a member of the Music Ministry at St Joseph’s Bracken Ridge Parish and shares her musical talents in many ways. She sings and plays piano regularly at mass, she plays and signs at major celebrations in the parish such as Christmas, Easter, funerals, Weddings and celebrations like Confirmation and First Eucharist.  She co-ordinates a group of young musicians to lead a youth mass every six weeks.

Jess is also a member of SALT (Young Adult Group) which is open to 18 to 30-year-olds. The group meets once a fortnight on Sunday evenings for coffee to discuss social justice topics.  This group has been involved in outreach projects including the organising of Christmas hampers for the families of prisoners.

Overall, Jessica is a fine young woman who always puts others first and enjoys volunteering to help the community.  She is an inspiration to her generation.

Cake Celebration: Australian Medium Retailer of the Year 2015

Thank you to our wonderful industry partners, customers and staff who joined the Management Team to celebrate our victory as the Australian Medium Retailer of the Year 2015. We appreciate your ongoing support and encouragement as we endeavour to the lead the Australian Newsagent and Retail industries. It was a privilege to enjoy the company of Mr Trevor Evans, CEO of the National Retail Association. The NRA continues to steer the Australian retail sector from strength to strength, shown by their initiative through the esteemed Awards for Excellence.

We Are Australia’s Best Medium Retailer

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

We are extremely proud and humbled to officially announce that Nextra Chermside Newsagency has been recognised as the Australian Medium Retailer of the Year 2015 by the National Retail Association. This award represents a significant milestone for our business. In the past, we have been fortunate to achieve success in many industry awards programs that are exclusively for newsagents. However, nominations for this latest accolade were open to retailers from all Australian markets. To attain first place is a credit to our wonderful team of 60 staff, our valued business partners and of course, you as a loyal customer. Indeed, just as always, this is a win for the Chermside community as a whole.

Mitch Hughes, (Marketing and eBusiness Manager) with Shannon Hickey (Area Manager) accepting the esteemed award.

Mitch Hughes, (Marketing and eBusiness Manager) with Shannon Hickey (Area Manager) accepting the esteemed award.

The Australian Medium Retailer of the Year Award recognises the retailer who demonstrates the highest levels of individuality, innovative merchandising, financial success and quality service based on a keen understanding of their customer base. This category contemplates businesses that have between 20 and 199 employees. The Rewards for Excellence Dinner was held on 02 June 2015 at the Pullman Melbourne on the Park. As you may likely be aware, the National Retail Association (‘NRA’) is Australia’s largest and most representative retail industry organisation.

For almost 100 years, the NRA has represented the interests of the retail, fast food and broader service sector, delivering critical information and advice to thousands of businesses nationally – from the smallest corner store, to the majority of Australia’s largest retail chains and franchise groups.

We would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank Trevor Evans (CEO), Bianca Seeto (Deputy CEO) and the dedicated team at the NRA for their profound support of the Australian retail industry. Your visions and goals for retail are inspiring and keep us motivated to be the best business operators we can be. A further congratulations should also be extended to our fellow awardees at the ceremony:

  • Small Retailer of the Year: Sleepdoctor & holy Sheet! Campbelltown
  • Large Retailer of the Year: Supercheap Auto
  • Franchisee of the Year: Boost Juice Sunnybank and Boost Juice Toombul
  • Employer of the Year: Billabong Group
  • Multichannel Retailer of the Year: The Co-op
  • Training Excellence Award: Jeanswest
  • Innovation Excellence Award: Scotch & Soda
  • Sustainability Excellence Award: LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics
  • Safety Excellence Award: Harris Scarfe
  • Golden Anniversary: celebrating 50 years of NRA membership: Wallace Bishop Group
  • HR Practitioner of the Year: Stewart Silk, Michael Hill
  • CEO of the Year: Anthony Lowings, KFC Australia
  • NRA Supreme Award – Retailer of the Year: Super Retail Group

On behalf of the Hickey Family and the team at Nextra Chermside Newsagency, we thank you for supporting our business.

Shannon Hickey and Mitch Hughes

Area Manager and Marketing & eBusiness Manager, Nextra Chermside Newsagency

TV Competition Winner

A huge congratulations to Dave from Aspley who won our amazing 50″ LED Smart TV competition! Thanks to everyone who purchased a Maxi Quickpick and entered our exclusive in-store promotion. Nextra Chermside Newsagency to proud to support the local community with exciting giveaways and prizes.

TV Winner - Dave from Aspley

TV Competition Being Drawn

Winners of New Year Hampers 2015

Congratulations to the three lucky ladies who took home the prizes for our 2015 New Year Hamper competition! We hope you enjoy the yummy treats and goodies. Thanks to the winners Victoria, Jenny and Sally as well as everyone else who participated. Well done! Keep an eye out for our next exciting promotion at Westfield Chermside.

New: “Our Love Was on the Wing” by Local Nudgee Authors

Our Love Was on the Wing

Our Love Was on the Wing – Jim Healy & Mizpah Closkey

At Nextra Chermside Newsagency, we endeavour to support our local community and share their creative successes with our wonderful customers. Today we are proud to announce our store at Westfield Chermside will stock Our Love Was on the Wing by Nudgee author Regis Hickey.

Regis Hickey, the principal author of Our Love Was on the Wing has taken the characters Michael and Mary from the famous Irish song The Fields of Athenry and created a novel set in the convict settlement of Sydney in the early 1800s. While Regis has used the last three years to write the novel he had been considering the idea for the past twenty. Currently he is living in the retirement village of Viridian at Nudgee, Queensland. This is his first novel.

Mary Murphy, the contributing author is currently teaching at Unity College, Caloundra. Mary would say her role was an advisory one and Regis was the principal author.

The pseudonyms the author, Regis Hickey, and contributing author, Mary Murphy, have used in Our Love was on the Wing are those of their grandparents, Jim Healy and Mizpah Closkey.

This novel successfully blends both the historical and fiction so that its readers will get insights into the personalities of authentic Governors and early English settlers of Australia as well as possible characters that could have existed at that time. There’s romance, pathos, failure and success with the heroes and the villains. You will think you have the plot worked out only to find out you have not: and finally when you have read the last sentence you will want to thank both Regis and Mary for having given you a most enjoyable read.

It is the type of novel that film directors and TV Mini-series producers are looking for as Australians are becoming more and more interested in their past. Make sure you read it before you see it. An ideal Christmas present and holiday read.

Our Love Was on the Wing can be purchased from Nextra Chermside Newsagency for $19.95. Hurry, limited stock available.

Nextra Chermside Crowned Australia’s No. 1 Newsagent

Australian Newsagent of the Year 2014

Our family business at Westfield Chermside has taken home the industry’s top award of “Australian Newsagent of the Year” for 2014. Over the last four years, our three stores at have won six other esteemed titles:
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  • Australian Newsagent of the Year (2011, ACP)
  • Queensland Newsagent of the Year (2012, ANF)
  • Australian Newsagent of the Year (2012, ANF)
  • Australian Newsagent of the Year (2012, ACP)
  • Queensland Lottery Newsagent of the Year (2014, ANF)
  • Queensland Newsagent of the Year (2014, ANF)

Join us next Thursday 23 October at 12:30pm to commemorate our award. We would love for you to come and share in cake and celebrations with us at our Main Store in Westfield Chermside!

On behalf of our family, we would like to thank you for your ongoing support. Every success in our business is a win for the Chermside community who have welcomed us in their neighbourhood for the last 30 years. We sincerely appreciate our 60 wonderful members of staff, our loyal customers and our brilliant business partners.

Further congratulations must go to the other finalists in this prestigious national event – we are proud to share the spotlight with so many of our friends and colleagues from around Australia. We look forward to seeing you soon here at Westfield Chermside!

Nextra Chermside Newsagency Staff

Thank you to the event sponsors who continually support the Australian Newsagent industry:

Sponsors

New Millionaire at Westfield Chermside

A huge $1,000,000.00 Monday Gold Lotto prize was sold at NewsExtra Chermside, part of the Nextra Chermside Newsagency family. The lucky winner was the only player in Australia who took home a 1st Division prize in the recent Golden Casket game.

In addition to the lucky player’s success, Nextra Chermside Newsagency was recently recognised as the 2014 Queensland Lottery Agent of Year and 2014 Queensland Newsagent of the Year. Shannon Hickey, Area Manager, was thrilled to welcome a new millionaire to his Golden Casket outlets at Westfield Chermside. “We’re really excited to see even more luck here at Chermside. It’s so humbling to see our customers’ lives changing!”

To date, Shannon’s team have sold over $62,000,000.00 in 1st Division winning prizes from their agencies located in Westfield Chermside.

The winner purchased an unregistered lottery ticket and approached Golden Casket today. Congratulations to the lucky punter!

The winning numbers for Mon 08 Sep 2014 (Draw 3380) were 32, 43, 28, 22, 26 and 30 with the supplementaries being 41 and 8. Make sure you check your tickets to see if you claimed any prizes, too!

Division Prize Division Prize pool Winners Combinations
Division 1 $1,000,000.00 $1,000,000.00 1 winner – NewsExtra Chermside
Division 2 $5,219.30 $67,850.90 13 winners
Division 3 $477.60 $105,549.60 221 winners
Division 4 $30.95 $294,117.85 9,503 winners
Division 5 $18.10 $407,286.20 22,502 winners
Division 6 $13.90 $632,227.60 45,484 winners

NewsExtra Chermside Lotto Winner

Queensland Newsagent of the Year 2014

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Nextra Chermside takes home TWO state awards

It is with great pleasure we announce Nextra Chermside Newsagency is recognised as “Newsagent of the Year” and “Lottery Newsagent of the Year” by the Australian Newsagents’ Federation in their Queensland Awards for Excellence 2014.

trophy300Our three stores at Westfield Chermside have previously won four outstanding titles…

  • Australian Newsagent of the Year (2011, ACP)
  • Queensland Newsagent of the Year (2012, ANF)
  • Australian Newsagent of the Year (2012, ANF)
  • Australian Newsagent of the Year (2012, ACP)

… and we are proud to display the two new trophies as a win for the local Chermside community. This was a fantastic result for the entire team at Nextra Chermside, Nextra Express Chermside and NewsExtra Chermside. Our staff were overwhelmed to earn two prizes at the awards ceremony!

We would like to thank you for your ongoing support as we continue to see our family business grow from strength to strength. We value the continued encouragement we receive from our wonderful customers, business partners and industry representatives.

We look forward to seeing you soon here at Chermside!