With over 300 in attendance.
On Thursday evening, 300 of the ACT’s most influential people gathered in Kingston at the official launch of Winning Appliances’ Kingston showroom. Guests included French Ambassador, His Excellency Christophe Lecourtier, Ambassador of the Republic of Slovenija Her Excellency Mrs Helena Drnovšek Zorko and Italian Embassy representative Carlo Cosentino along with several high profile locals.
Oliveri’s Setve Booton won the prize for $10,000 worth of appliances and generously nominated to donate this to The Leukaemia foundation, a donation that Winning Appliances will be matching in full.
In his address, Winning Group CEO John Winning (pictured) said, “Thank you all for joining us at the official launch of the Winning Appliances Kingston showroom this evening. My family, the advisory board and I are absolutely blown away by what our amazing team has done.
“What you’re standing in tonight is our Redfern showroom plus four years of experience with some tweaking and adjustment. We like to look at this as our new generation showroom. We love this footprint and this showroom is the feel we were going for in Redfern but didn’t have the space to achieve.
“What you see here is the same amount of brands in twice the amount of space. You will also notice that the area we have here allows for two metre walkways and large open spaces, including places to sit down with an architect and a designer to lay out plans, have a coffee, have some lunch made for you, and plan out your dream kitchen.
“I am really excited to be here tonight. It is our 13th showroom and the largest appliance showroom in the Southern Hemisphere and I think it’s our greatest showroom yet. I’m looking forward to serving the people of Canberra with an experience that they deserve because they have great taste, love great experiences and I’m sure they love cooking just as much as our other customers.
“I want to thank you again for joining us in the momentous occasion. I would like to thank our supply partners that are here tonight for making the showroom so spectacular. The brief was I don’t want you to put in a display that you put in every other retailer in the country. I want you to put in a display that you put in when you’re doing a Eurocucina in Italy or IFA in Berlin or representing your brand on a global scale. I think they have all met that brief and done an amazing job.”
Winning Appliances CEO, David Woollcott further commented, “Welcome to Winning Appliances Kingston. Literally tens of thousands of hours have gone into the development of this store and those hours are divided pretty equally among the Winning Appliances team and our valued suppliers. I thank them for their significant effort and financial investment, and understanding our vision.
“When you’re putting a building like this together, it’s a significant team effort and I don’t think there are many projects that you touch that cover every single part of the organisation in opening a retail store. Everybody from IT and infrastructure to the people who develop the financial plans for the business, all extended their energy and supported the Winning Appliances team to get this off the ground. It’s not every day that we open a new store in a new state. This was something unusual for us but we rose to the task and I believe have delivered something quite outstanding.
“Our brief to our architects and designers was to make something that was uniquely Canberra. We didn’t want a cookie-cutter approach; we wanted something that reflected this extraordinary building and its heritage. We wanted something that reflected Kingston and the demanding customer from Canberra and I believe this has been achieved. We will be developing more stores across Australia but it does feel special to do something in the nation’s capital of this substance and I am incredibly proud of this project.”