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Staff at Orchard Toys dressed up in their best festive costumes and jumpers for a day in a bid to raise some money for our chosen charity, East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH). As well as internal donations, we also gave EACH a donation of games and jigsaws to help towards their fundraising efforts. Orchard Toys’ Managing Director Simon Newbery said: “There is a great affinity between Orchard Toys and EACH. It seems particularly fitting that we as a toy company should support a local children’s charity, especially at Christmas time.”

For the second year running, Orchard Toys have donated £1500 worth of games and jigsaws to the Norfolk and Norwich hospital for their yearly ‘Send a Smile with Santa’ appeal. As part of an annual tradition, the Norfolk and Norwich hospital have generously pledged to give a gift to every patient in the hospital on Christmas Day.  Orchard Toys’ Marketing Manager Ali Brown said: “We are delighted to be making this donation to the Norfolk and Norwich hospital, who were one of the first hospitals in the country to introduce this heart-warming campaign. It’s a delight to know we can put a smile on a child’s face in hospital this Christmas!” As the Norfolk and Norwich is our local hospital, we like to do as much as we can to help them out. This donation is just one small way we can do that.

We were delighted to find out that our much-loved Shopping List game has been named Amazon's third bestselling toy in the last 16 years! This is a fantastic recognition from the UK's largest online retailer.  Shopping List is a deceptively simple shopping memory game which has captured the imagination of both parents and children, topping our own sales list for over 10 years! As well as being a fun matching and memory game, Shopping List also allows parents to teach children about different everyday items and what they might find in their shopping basket. We are so pleased to be recognised amongst such fantastic brands, coming just behind Tomy's Pop Up Pirate in second place and Bananagrams in first place. What is even better is that the whole of Amazon's top ten bestsellers doesn't include a single battery, switch or app! Pete Masters, Amazon.co.uk's Toys and Games Store manager, said: "The best-selling toys and games of all time give a great insight into what products have captured the imagination of generation after generation with games that allow the whole family to take part topping the chart. "This Christmas, we expect...

Orchard Toys were delighted to help their local community by donating some games and jigsaws to Norfolk’s mobile library service. These will be on offer to children and families who use the mobile libraries and hopefully provide lots smiles and fun! This fantastic service provides residents living in more isolated rural communities with no library building the opportunity to borrow books and access library services. Eight mobile libraries visit villages throughout Norfolk, making around 2,000 stops every month! Free to join, Norfolk’s mobile library service can be enjoyed by all ages, including people with mobility problems and wheelchair users. Glenn Durrant, the Mobile Library Manager, commented: "Orchard Toys’ kind donation of jigsaw puzzles and games has enabled us to enhance our library provision to children in rural locations.  As well as promoting literacy and learning through books, story CDs, story sacks and DVDs, the mobile library service can now provide children with the opportunity to learn while having fun with attractive and engaging puzzles and games. All of the puzzles were borrowed free of charge by excited children and their families within the first week of being available...

We're delighted to have won the Best Jigsaw Gold award for Giant Railway in the very first Made For Mums awards for 2016! Replacing the popular Prima Baby awards, the annual MFM awards recognise and reward the best products, brands and services currently available in the baby and parenting industry. These fantastic awards, tested and chosen by parents themselves, are great accolades to our Giant Railway jigsaw's play value and usability. Following the success of our Giant Road Jigsaw, Giant Railway is an interchangeable railway track which is part of the cleverly interlinking Giant Road System. This means that all the jigsaws in the set can be pieced together in numerous layouts to create a whole town of fun!  Here is the Made for Mums verdict: "The pieces are brightly coloured, big, and sturdy and can be fitted together in umpteen ways. Our child judges spread their train track out over the floor, and all the grown-ups were super-impressed with a jigsaw that offers so many extra minutes of play value once you've slotted it all together."

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