Social responsibility
We mention this not as a way of saying how great we are, but to thank our staff, our clients and others that have supported us over the past few years and equally importantly to help enthuse you should a letter fall on your mat or you receive an email in the future asking you to sponsor us in some way for another worthwhile cause!
At HFM Columbus we have always felt that we should "put something back" and many of us already give individually to various charities and causes, but over the past few years we have taken that a stage further by raising specific amounts of money for set causes involving our staff and clients.
In 2005, we raised over £20,000 with a Bikeathon for Walton Leigh Special Needs School to upgrade their swimming pool and replace all the sensory equipment which was becoming unusable as the funds weren’t being provided by central government. The cyclists included our staff, clients, parents from the school and Edwina Currie who not only started the event but cycled the whole route with us, the weather was kind and a great day was had by all. One of our Directors, Jeremy Hoyland offered to cycle the course twice if his sponsors doubled their offerings, they did and he had to cycle 52 miles!
In 2007, we sponsored a young vietnamese girl called Trang through "Facing the World" for over £25,000, to have a facial tumour removed, that would eventually have killed her. We raised the money in a variety of ways, some of our staff did sponsored runs, a 10 kilometre and a half marathon, one person with a fear of heights climbed to the top of a climbing wall, a business lunch was organised and a raffle raised over £700 and there were some other efforts organised by our staff. The main fundraising event was from one our directors Gary Festa who did a bike ride through Vietnam starting at Trang’s home town of Hue and ending up in Ho Chi Minh City 6 days later. Gary mentioned what he was doing to a client of his, Ian Fox and in the end Ian joined Gary raising over £4000 himself in sponsorship.
In 2008, various members of staff subjected their feet to The Playtex Moon Walk, a 26.2 mile walk starting at midnight, wearing decorated bras and raising money through sponsorship for vital breast cancer causes.
In 2009 we donated £8000 to the Oral Surgery Research Fund for Cancer, after one of our partners wive's had 15 hours of successful surgery to remove a tumour. She is now doing well and has fully recovered.
For the last 3 years, one of our directors, Gary Festa, as ambassador for Queen Elizabeth Foundation (QEF), has organized and cycled in the Leatherhead Bikeathon raising money for people suffering from physical and learning disabilities. This year, members of staff who took part included Clare Ferrin who rode, even though 5 months pregnant! So far, nearly £11,000 has been collected from the sponsorship with more to come in. If you would like to join us in next year's bikeathon, please contact QEF at http://www.qef.org.uk/
Next year, one of our consultants, David Jeffs will be trekking across the Namib, probably the harshest desert in Africa along the Skeleton Coast of Namibia to a highly rural community at the base of Brandberg (Fire) Mountain where a group of 20 volunteers will attempt to rebuild the local school from the ground up and to generally improve conditions in the village for the local children. Around 60% of all the funds raised through sponsorship will go to Cancer Charity Research here in the UK; the rest goes towards the Namibia Project, its material costs and the local community.
This autumn, we held a Bake Off with a number of staff bringing in their best brownies and cakes. Willing tasters raised funds for Macmillan Cancer Support . The joint winners were Melanie's ginger cake and Ali's savoury muffins!