A 6 year-old boy from Newcastle has spent the day as locum GM at one of the UK’s largest shopping centres.Brandon Kelly, who is autistic and has learning difficulties, is a regular visitor to intu Eldon Square in the heart of the city, and is on first name terms with many of the customer services staff.
As Brandan constantly joked with the staff about wanting to work with them on the customer service desks, his father Don decided to contact intu Eldon Square to see if Brandon could spend some time ‘in charge’.
Retail Liaison Coordinator Daniel Errington-Barnes was responsible for creating a suitable itinerary for Brandon’s big day, which included providing a suitable jacket, intu tie and lanyard, his own walkie-talkie, as well as that all important ‘intu’ badge.
A busy day ensued, including an inspection of customer service desks, a tour of the centre, lunch at Pizza Express and a session at Build-A-Bear in Fenwick, where Brandon created and was gifted his own bear.
Brandon, a pupil at Woodlawn School in Monkseaton, was accompanied on his VIP day by dad Don, who said:
“ Brandon was so excited about the prospect of being Manager of intu Eldon Square for the day, and all of the staff there made such a fuss of him he hasn’t stopped talking about it all weekend! I can’t thank everyone at the shopping centre enough, this has been a day that Brandon will never forget. The only problem is, he enjoyed it so much, he’ll want to come back again every week until he’s actually old enough to take over!”
Daniel Errington-Barnes, Retail Liaison Coordinator at intu Eldon Square , added:
“Brandan was a real pleasure to welcome to the centre, he is already a popular customer with all of our staff, he is always full of smiles and has a really sunny nature, so we wanted to give him a VIP day to remember.”