Empowering People: Giving Back and Making a Difference in 2023
Our commitment to being best in class by operating ethically and with a culture of giving back to society means we maintain our strong values and sense of making a difference. Our mission is ‘To enable people to be their best’ and this aligns perfectly with our CSR ethos of ‘Empowering People’. We choose our partners based on having synergy with our own core values and an emphasis on empowering those less advantaged than ourselves by providing them with the support to improve themselves. Let’s delve into our fundraising activity so far this year.
Enabling People to Be Their Best
Earlier this year, our executive chairman, Nick Cragg, took part in the ‘Bristol to Base Camp’ challenge in aid of our International charity PHASE Worldwide, in which Nick and his wife are founding trustees. Through its sister organisation, PHASE Nepal, the charity has gone on to change the lives of hundreds of thousands of people across Nepal through its integrated and sustainable programmes. The trek took a total of 16 days to reach Everest South Base Camp, during which they ascended to an altitude of 17,598 feet and helped them to raise an outstanding £26,000 for the charity. To read more on the trek, click here.
We’re proud to announce we’ve committed to planting 8000 climate-resilient trees with GreenTheUK to help restore UK woodlands, protect biodiversity and combat climate change. In partnership with the Royal Forestry Society, the right species of trees are planted in the right places to give the trees the best chances of survival against the threats of climate change. To learn more about our commitment, click here.
Our annual golf day, in partnership with CSP Systems, was also a massive success, raising over £5000 for Sheffield-based charity Endeavour, which aims to enrich the lives of young people through education and adventure. Held at Wortley Golf Club, the golf day attracted over 120 players from 30 local businesses and supply chain partners who played in a team competition with a number of individual prizes. To learn more about the day, click here to read our article.
Our National Charity Partner
In an effort to raise money for our National Charity for 2023, Cancer Research UK, we’re holding a £50 seed investment challenge. There’s one simple objective, turn the £50 into as much money as possible! Our teams are free to organise any fundraising challenge they desire, in addition to participating in activities organised and run by Cancer Research UK. Let’s see what they’ve got up to so far.
Ashley Kate
Let’s start with Ashley Kate. They began their challenge by setting up a Tuck Shop and recently held an amazing Ashley ‘Cake’ Bake-off. Katie Underwood impressed the judge, our very own Paul Hollywood…Paul Brammer, her delicious Raspberry and White Chocolate Sponge Cake took first place. Thomas Brunton shortly followed in second place with his Terry’s Chocolate Orange Fudge, with James Dubowski taking third for his white chocolate crisp tray bake. On the 5th of October, the team will be taking part in a non-stop step challenge. Tag teams will take turns walking 4,000 steps around their local reservoir, aiming to walk 100,000 steps in total. All in all, this will equate to 50 miles during a single working day! If you’d like to contribute, their fundraising page can be found here.
Olano
The Olano team have definitely been busy with their charitable activity. They organised a sweepstake for the Grand National, as well as hosting regular Killer Pool Tournaments. Also, they recently launched their ‘Last Person Standing’ competition for the new football season. But that’s not all! Alex Norris, Ben Ibbotson, Rob Freeman, and Sheena Fraser recently conquered a 34-mile walk from Leeds City Centre all the way back to the Sheffield office, taking them just under 15 hours to complete and raising an impressive £1500! Not only this, it was completed on one of the hottest days of the year all whilst they were dressed as smurfs!
Stafforce
Team Carlisle, led by Jamie Hill and supported by Operations Manager Nikki Heath and Managing Director Tony Boorman, along with their friends and family, took part in the 5K Pretty Muddy challenge. Dressed in bright pink, they tackled obstacles and, well, lots of mud! The team managed to raise an impressive £1639 + £319 in Gift Aid.
Michelle Dowling, Magdalena Wolny and Wiktoria Gliszczynska from Team Livingston recently completed the Glasgow Shine Walk. From the Glasgow Science Centre to the Royal Concert Hall, the walk came to a total of 10km which roughly takes between 1.5 to 3 hours to complete! Collectively, they raised a whopping £585 for Cancer Research UK!
Ria Fletcher, one of our Client Relationship Managers, will be skydiving from 15,000ft all in an effort to raise funds for our National Charity. Falling from the sky at 120mph is definitely not for the faint-hearted! If you’d like to donate, you can do so by clicking here.
Nicholas Associates
Our Engineering recruitment team in Sheffield have been doing their part for our National charity. Marc Cooper, Business Manager from our Graduate recruitment division, has also been doing a fantastic job of keeping the tuck shop well-stocked.
The team held their own ‘Bake-Off’ with great success, spoiling everyone who visited the office that day. Plus another lucky visit from Paul Hollywood (Brammer).
This is only a small fraction of what we do to give back to society and it doesn’t stop here. As previously stated, our CSR ethos is to ’empower people’ and we will continue to do so to support those that are less advantaged than ourselves.
