Merry Christmas!

[caption id="attachment_7529" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Bertrams have pulled out the stops! Click on the pic to enlarge if needed[/caption]

What better way to finish Community Link-Up for 2013 with our third and final look at festive jumpers!

Bertrams have sent us a fine selection of knitwear from the day, together with the news they raised a fantastic £219.38 in the process :)

Which means the overall total raised for Save the Children now stands at £363.76.

All that remains is to wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

Community Link-Up will return on January 6th 2014.

It's Secret Santa... With a Twist!

[caption id="attachment_7518" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Christmas presents by the tree ready to take to the refuge[/caption]

Lisa Lynn added a fresh twist to the IT department's Secret Santa at Rowan House last week, by arranging for everyone to buy presents for children at Swindon Women’s Aid.

[caption id="attachment_7519" align="alignright" width="191"] Lisa with the presents[/caption]

“I thought that instead of doing Secret Santa for ourselves and getting something that we don’t really need, we could buy something for a charity that caters for people who won’t be spending Christmas with family. The Women’s Refuge is a great idea, as many of the women here have children that do not receive much – if anything – on Christmas Day.”

She and her generous colleagues presented gifts to a total of 28 children aged between 1 and 18 on Thursday. Lisa even got in touch with the refuge beforehand to find out the gender and age of the children staying there, so every child received a gift that was appropriate for them.

Lisa put a lot of thought into how it would work and put together a spreadsheet of everyone taking part, plus the ages and gender of the children who would get a present. You can see from the pictures she gathered masses of them!

Lynsey Bull added: 

"...it seems the twist to secret Santa has gone down a treat and everyone is really happy about doing it."

Bob has a 'Bit of a Do'

[caption id="attachment_7501" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Bob Beat giving the representatives their cheques. From left to right we have Caedmon Primary School, Cleveland Hall Community Centre and Whickham Juniors Football Club[/caption]

Newcastle's Carol Inglis has sent us this heart warming story...

Bob Beat, a Supervisor in Customer Service, has managed to do even more with his ‘Spare Time’.  He organised ‘ A Bit of a Do’ for 3 different local organisations that he is involved with - Whickham Juniors Football Club, Cleveland Hall Community Centre and Caedmon Primary School.  The total  for the night was £400 which was divided between the 3 organisations.

Christmas Jumper Day... Take 2

[caption id="attachment_7472" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Another fine festive selection as modelled by James Bullen, Rachel Underhill and Sophie Morris[/caption]

Instore took the opportunity to show off their Christmas jumpers last week as part of their staff raffle and buffet festivities.

Meanwhile those too shy to go on camera at Rowan House, raised a further £69.38 for Save the Children.

Thus the total raised for Christmas Jumper Day now stands at £144.38 :)

Houtschild's Festive Spirit

Houtschild's Annemarie Fennema reminds us that a simple action with the smallest of donations can amount to something very large indeed when everyone's contribution is added together. This is a super story with which to celebrate both the spirit of the season and also our second contribution from our international colleagues in Holland :)

A small article in our local newspaper was the start of a very good plan.

The article described an initiative by one of the Dutch Lions clubs. Back in 2012 they began collecting coupons from Douwe Egberts coffee and exchanging them for coffee to distribute among the local food banks. This year they did so again and the number of coupons they received was overwhelming. Coupon clipping is a typical Dutch habit.

In our office we drink lots of Douwe Egberts tea and coffee but we do not really know what to do with the coupons. We had loads of them just lying around, and feeling an early Christmas spirit coming on, we decided to donate the coupons to this good cause. 

In just two weeks we came up with 23,844 points, which amounts to some 50 packs of coffee.



On December 10th, before we sent them our parcel, the Lions’ total score was almost 7 million points. How much coffee would that be? And what would that look like in terms of coupons?

On Saturday, after the first big count, the score was well over 11 million points!*
That sure feels good!

The count goes on for another fortnight...

What a fantastic idea Annemarie and thank you! I think this is something to keep in mind for 2014 with e.g. the various coupons given away by supermarkets from time to time here in the UK. 

* = which makes the total donated in excess of 23,000 packs by my reckoning - that's an awful lot of coffee - Ed

Christmas Jumper Day... Take 1

[caption id="attachment_7464" align="aligncenter" width="640"] A fine selection of festive knitwear from Wednesbury - click on the pic to enlarge[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_7480" align="alignright" width="300"] NAC also showing a good turnout[/caption]

Congratulations to the Customer Services team at Wednesbury, you have the honour of sending the first pictures for Christmas Jumper Day 2013 :)

And what a fine turnout it was, netting contributions of £38.

NAC weren't to be outdone, with their selection raising £37.

Did your location take part in Save the Children's Christmas Jumper Day? We have space on the blog this week for your pics!

Michael Nets A Nifty Silver

Breaking news re the European Championships from the British Swimming Twitter feed late yesterday afternoon:

200m Breaststroke SILVER for @mj88live - more than 1.5 seconds off his British record as he makes podium in 2:01.43. #EuroSC

— British Swimming (@britishswimming) December 15, 2013

A new British record in this event and the 100m breaststroke earlier in the championships (in 57.89 seconds, though sadly no medal) marks a notable return to form after Michael's recent heart scare :)

Note that this is a short course (25 metre pool) championship and Michael beat his Bath team-mate Andrew Willis, who finished in the 4th place heartbreaker (albeit in a new English record).

NB British Swimming's website has a neat video of Michael discussing this week's Duel in the Pool. Look out for news of the broadcast times on Community Link-Up later this week.