"I ran around my empty office waving my hands in the air, screaming"
That was the reaction of our big November staff lottery jackpot winner drawn this week ... and CHFT Weekly can exclusively reveal it's pathology's PA/Medical Secretary, Sarah Ratcliffe.
Sarah's name was drawn as the Staff Lottery Committee gathered around selection machine "Tumbling Tom" specially decked out with tinsel for the draw. In November the jackpot goes up to £5,000 in time for Xmas, whereas the rest of the year the top prize is £1k every month.
Comms contacted Sarah to see how she was feeling about her jackpot win. She said: "I’m still in shock and extremely giddy, it will be a fab and fizzy Christmas.
"As there was nobody in the office at the time, I rang my partner Nigel who is in Guildford on business and I actually interrupted one of his sales meetings. Thankfully there were shouts of congrats from everyone in the meeting - and fingers crossed he got the business too".
When asked on what she might spend it on, Sarah said: "I might be a little frivolous and upgrade our flights when we go to Cape Verde on the 29th November for a little winter sunshine … and there will be celebratory cupcakes in the office on Thursday".
Our other winners this month included:
- £1000 Chris Dunne, Assistant Director THIS
- £250 Kristy Somerville, Sister/Charge Nurse
- £85 Gillian Grayson, Medical Secretary
- £70 Hedy Navarro, Medical Technical Officer
- £59 Tracey Sutcliffe, Clerical Assistant
- £25 Carolyn Batten, Midwife
- £25 Margaret Thomas, Medical Secretary
- £25 Mary Magennis, Sister/Charge Nurse
- £25 Sahira Bashir, Midwife Support Worker
Payment for the lottery is deducted from your pay and costs £2 per month per number. Everyone is allocated a random number when they sign-up and they go into the Tombola every month. There is always an independant person outside of the committee who pushes the button for Tumbling Tommy to generate the winning numbers. This month the numbers were drawn by our Membership Office apprentice Zille Khan (main photo).
To read more about the work of the lottery and to join click here.
More than 50% of the money collected for the staff lottery is paid out in prizes and colleagues can apply for staff lottery funding for non-essential items for their ward or area.