Just an hour - 2009
When you wish upon a star - February
Throughout the month of February we held dress down Monday’s where employees made a donation to wear casual dress to work. We did various raffles and tombolas too and managed to raised £751 for the children’s charity.Red Nose Day - March
There were more skimpy outfits at Northumbrian Water this Comic Relief. Don Coe, operations manager, plunged into the Derwent Reservoir, in County Durham dressed in a red bikini, red waders and red nose. Employees volunteered to have their hair spayed red, took part in chilli eating competitions and together raised over £1,800.
Crawford House - March and May
Our employees have given a splash of colour to hospital accommodation for the families of sick children. Fourteen employees from Northumbrian Water spent a day painting ten bedrooms at Crawford House; The Sick Children’s Trust’s ‘home from home’ at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, under the company’s Just an hour scheme. Crawford House, which opened in 1996, provides a ‘home from home’ for families with seriously ill children receiving treatment at the RVI.
It can accommodate 23 families a night, 365 days a year, on a first come, first served basis. More than 800 families stay at Crawford House every year.It took 35 litres of paint and more than 105 hours of hard work by Julie Ampleford, Sara Arnold, Thomas Baker, Steven Bell, Judith Churchill, Leanne Clough, Lorraine Coulson, Laura Daniel, Jane Davison, Pam Lovell, Debbie McGee, Jane Morland, Alan Newton and Steve Wailes, to give the bedrooms a sparkling makeover. Gail Stonley, manager of Crawford House, said: “The cost of staffing and maintaining Crawford House amounts to £60,000 a year and this is funded solely by voluntary donations.
“We’re extremely grateful to Northumbrian Water’s volunteers for their support and the finished result looks fantastic.” Pam Lovell, who works as an education co-ordinator for the corporate responsibility team at Northumbrian Water’s head office at Pity Me, Durham, said: “The day was a great teambuilding exercise, whilst helping a worthwhile cause at the same time. There was a real sense of achievement seeing all of the rooms finished at the end of the day, knowing that we’ve brightened them up for families who’ll stay there.”
Treetops children’s ward - March
In March our employees nominated Treetops ward in Durham hospital as the charity of the month. We collected across the departments and managed to raise over £400 which we then used to purchase toys for the ward.Tyneside working together - April
Employees from North Tyneside spent 44 hours of hard graft and digging at Holycross School in April. The guys who work in Tyneside and Hexham area dug all of the holes for the fence posts and concreted them into place. The group plan to finish the project later in the summer.
Delightful discoveries
A group of volunteers have broken the ‘look but don’t touch’ rule at the Discovery museum in Newcastle upon Tyne. Eleven employees, under our Just an hour scheme, were among the first people in ten years to touch dresses from the 1950s and 1960s. The volunteers spent the day sorting, photographing and categorising more than 150 objects from the past that will be boxed by theme and loaned to schools in the region, under Tyne & Wear Museums’ Boxes of Delight programme.
Boxes of Delight is available to all schools at www.twmuseums.org.uk; the boxes are available for
pupils aged between three and 16 and can be used across the National Curriculum. They include First and Second World War relics, clothing from 1900 to 1980 and replica artefacts from ancient Egypt. Objects were recorded by Claire Burn, Maureen Campbell, Gary Cassells, Lorraine Coulson, Laurie Hamilton, Rebecca Hildon, Zach Leggett, Pam Lovell, Kyle Norris, Rachel Reed and Dzintars Veselis. Eli Davison, development officer for Tyne & Wear Museums, said: “We are extremely grateful to Northumbrian Water for their support. The costumes in particular would normally have taken the learning team several weeks to categorise. The images will also be displayed for the first time on the Schools Online website, which has more than 32,000 hits a month.”
NSPCC - May
We met with the NSPCC north east branch earlier in the year and found out that the charity celebrate their 125th Anniversary in May 2009 which sparked an idea to help boost their fundraising. We were given a signed bottle of Alan Shearer champagne to help us get started and as an incentive for employees to win if they took part. Throughout May we held raffles, bring £1 to work day and managed to raise £1,200 to present to the charity.Blooming lovely garden for Rainbow Trust - June 2009
Since the Just an hour scheme was launched in 2002, Northumbrian Water employees have spent more than 20,000 hours working on local community projects and improving the environment. A group of our employees dug deep to show their support for a children’s charity. Twenty eight employees from our human resources team carried out a sparkling garden makeover at Rainbow Trust Fernstone, near Hexham, Northumberland.
Rainbow Trust Fernstone is a respite centre for families who have a child with a life threatening or terminal illness. The house, which is set in spacious gardens, is fully staffed by professional care workers to provide a much-needed break for family members. The team, 23 of whom are based at Northumbrian Water’s head office at Pity Me, Durham, accompanied by five colleagues from Essex & Suffolk Water’s Chelmsford office, got their hands dirty for the afternoon, weeding and tidying the garden, as well as painting perimeter fences and the outside of a swimming pool building.
The result of a combined total of 84 hours hard work by the gardening group was a Ground Force style makeover. Northumbrian Water’s Just an hour scheme gives employees the opportunity to spend at least 15 hours of paid, work time a year improving local communities in the company’s supply area - from Berwick to North Yorkshire and across to the Pennines. Karen Harrison, manager of Rainbow Trust Fernstone, said: “We were thrilled to be chosen for the Just an hour scheme. The team have made a massive difference to the grounds and buildings at Fernstone and we really appreciate their time and hard work.” Diane Morton, director of human resources at Northumbrian Water, said: “The company is always delighted to provide support to local organisations who do such wonderful work as the
Rainbow Trust. I was particularly proud of the enthusiasm of my team from human resources who really got stuck into the physical nature of the work and had a lot of fun as a team whilst making a considerable difference to the garden.”
WaterAid Trail 100 challenge 2009
A group of our employees have been involved in the successful completion of the WaterAid Trail 100 challenge, at the second attempt, in 2009. It is particularly gratifying as one of our colleagues, Dave Whiteley, had the initial concept of linking the Trail 100 list of noteworthy UK mountains, with the annual WaterAid mountain challenge – an inspired idea that has been embraced by many walkers over the two years. Dave also had the drive, determination and contacts to push and cajole to get the challenge organised.
Although it was narrowly failed in 2008, there was a determination to give it a real go in 2009 and use Trail magazine to get the message out about the mountains that needed teams. This was successful in having at least one team assigned to every mountain ready for Saturday 6 June. In the end however, the challenge was only ‘saved’ by the last minute transfer of an NWL team to Liathach in the far north west of Scotland – luckily we had a team relatively close by able to switch from a mountain with two teams allocated. Colleagues were on mountains as far apart as the very north west tip of Scotland, to the Brecon Beacons in Wales.
St Oswald’s Hospice - June
The fundraising staff at St Oswald’s Hospice in Gosforth contacted us to ask for support in laying a patio area in their garden. A team from investment delivery spent 60 hours clearing a space to make a garden patio for the patients to sit in the sunshine. Jennie Evans from the Hospice said: “Thank you very much for recruiting and arranging for the group of volunteers to come and lay the patio at St Oswald’s last week. Thankfully, the weather was kind and hopefully the guys enjoyed their day. We are really impressed with the job they have done and they were a really nice group to
have in for the day. Please pass on our thanks.”
Sandcastle challenge - South Shields beach - July
Forty six schools with over 2,000 children from around the region took part in the sandcastle challenge with professionals from other companies. They had their plans in place and had one hour to build a sand sculpture of their choice. There were interesting and entertaining groups and sculptures. Our volunteers had an excellent day and spent 69 hours laying out the plots, ushering schools to the correct places, marshalling the sea front and tidying up afterwards. The volunteers agreed the day was enjoyable and something different, even the rain held off till they had
finished!
Sunningdale School - July
A North East school has received a double pouring of support from a local water company. Kind hearted Northumbrian Water workers have presented Sunningdale School in Sunderland, a school for children aged three to eleven with learning difficulties, with more than 7,350 supermarket Active Kids vouchers, as well as transforming the school’s sensory garden under the company’s volunteering scheme. Northumbrian Water’s Just an hour scheme gives employees the opportunity to spend at least 15 hours of paid, work time a year improving local communities in the company’s supply area - from Berwick to North Yorkshire and across to the Pennines.
The suggestion of combining the vouchers with a Just an hour challenge at Sunningdale School was made by Barry Pinchen, a leakage technician who works at Washington sewage treatment works. Barry, who lives in Pallion, Sunderland, made the suggestion in memory of work colleague and good friend Harry Ridley, who passed away last year.
His son, Christopher, attended the school as a youngster. Thirteen tanker drivers from Northumbrian Water, who operate in the Durham area, took the opportunity to collect Active Kids vouchers every time the tankers were filled with diesel at Sainsbury’s, Pity Me, Durham. The tankers travel more than 21,000 miles every month and so it took less than four months to collect the vouchers, which will be used to buy equipment for the outdoor learning area and cookery items for the kitchen classroom. A further 24 Northumbrian Water colleagues from Washington sewage treatment works teamed up with Barry at Sunningdale School, to give the sensory garden a makeover. A full list of volunteers is at the end of this release. The team dug out the existing pond, which was covered by leaves and moved it to a new, raised bed area, so wheelchair users can see the pond at eye level. They also created a colourful seaside mural on an outdoor wall and painted each panel of the play area fence with in a different colour. The front of the school and the outside of the school shed received a fresh lick of paint and volunteers also varnished a sand pit, created a mud pit and re-connected a water butt, as well as carrying out general gardening duties.
Celia Wright, headteacher at Sunningdale School, said: “The Just an hour team have been fantastic. They have really made a difference to the outdoor facilities for the children, enabling us to develop outside learning even further. “The vouchers will support the work that’s been done as we are using most of them to buy sensory equipment for the outdoor area.“ Barry Pinchen said: “I went to the school the day before the Just an hour challenge with a work colleague, Duncan Ross, to prepare the outdoor walls ready for painting. We came up with the idea of painting a beach mural on the outside of the school’s learning support service building as a lasting legacy to Harry. “Now that the mural has been painted, it looks fantastic and I am sure the children will enjoy spending time in the new sensory garden space.“ Since the ‘Just an hour’ scheme was launched in 2002, Northumbrian Water employees have spent more than 29,000 hours working on local community projects and improving the environment.
Percy Hedley - July
A team of eight employees from our Distribution team in North Tyneside got together at Percy Hedley Foundation and spent a day helping with the task their service users are unable to do because of limited motability. They stepped into their chest waders and cleared the pond area, planted marginals on the island, cleaned the decking area so the wheelchair users can use this again, painted fences and railings and did a general clear up. They made a huge difference and spent 60 hours helped with tasks that can’t normally be complete without volunteers helping out.
Durham Wildlife Trust - Rainton Meadows - July
Our Asset Strategy department teamed up and help clear Rainton Meadows overgrown wildlife area. They spent over 82 hours. The task involved meadow management, consisting of cutting, raking and forking grass off the meadows. This was essential work to help in the improvement of floral diversity within the grassland areas at the meadows and we found this meadow to be very enticing to wildlife. It was a mixture of team work and physical outdoor activity, which everyone loved.
Nature and wildlife loving team members spent a considerable amount of time finding new homes for frogs, toads, voles, etc that were found within the area where we were working. It was very good fun, and the team certainly impressed the meadows staff as we were so efficient in carrying out our duties for the day! Left to Right are - Rheanne Pickering, Luke Dennis, Claire Gowdy, Bernie Glanville, Elise Ambros, John Coulson (behind), Chris Jones, Ejiro Ogboru, Becky Cash, Laura Stephenson, Mark Gibson.
SPYRAL Project - August
Secret millionaire Carl Hopkins is to pay a return visit to a thriving County Durham community project, to see how a local water company is showing its support. Business consultant Carl, who appeared on the Channel 4 programme in August 2008, spent ten days in Easington Colliery, discovering how life had changed in the former mining community. At the end of his visit, he awarded £13,000 of his own money to the SPYRAL Project (Sandhills Project for Youth Recreation and Leisure), a community allotment garden in Murton, County Durham set up by former miner, Jimmy Naylor, seven years ago.
Jimmy used money from his redundancy to fund the allotment. Sixteen months after his stay in Easington, Carl, who has stayed in regular contact with Jimmy, is to return to the SPYRAL Project for the first time, after Northumbrian Water responded to the secret millionaire’s request for help to improve the allotment. The water company is to provide volunteers under its Just an hour programme.
The SPYRAL Project has been a huge success in the local community, providing the opportunity to gain new skills and in tackling anti-social behaviour, especially in the young. The 18 allotments are self-funding, through the sale of bedding plants and organically-grown fruit and vegetables. Carl said: “I was delighted when Northumbrian Water responded to my request for help. They rustled up a team of 19 volunteers who will dedicate a whole day to helping me, Jimmy and the kids transform an overgrown allotment area.” Northumbrian Water’s Just an hour scheme gives employees the opportunity to spend at least 15 hours of paid, work time a year improving local communities in the company’s supply area - from Berwick to North Yorkshire and across to the Pennines.
Jane Morland, corporate responsibility team leader for Northumbrian Water, said: “We believe we have an important role to give something back to the areas we serve and our employee volunteering scheme, Just an hour, is one of the ways in which we support local communities and partners. “Jimmy and Carl have been inspirational figures to work with and the community allotment garden is a shining example of a project that can benefit the entire community, especially the young.” The Just an hour volunteers and young people at the SPYRAL project will be using a selection of garden tools kindly donated by B&Q in Sunderland.
Shoe Box Appeal - November
Sharon Stewart, Clare Laverick and Dawn Dale all dedicated some time to Just an hour by co-ordinating the Shoe Box Appeal, this included spending a lunch time in the canteen where they raised £86 towards shipping costs and £60 was donated from the northern call centre.
The girls also spent many hours in their own time shopping for and wrapping the boxes. Dorothy and John Stewart also deserve special thanks as they spent hours wrapping more than 40 boxes. There were 16
boxes donated from a local church group and nine from the local Aldi store.
Altogether we donated 104 boxes, 44 of which the three girls made up
themselves through donations.
Santa Run - December
Thank you to those from the Payment Centre and Property Solutions who posed for a photo for the Evening Chronicle's Santa Run in aid of the Sunshine Fund. Pictured L-R are Graham Nicholson, Robert Waggott, Sandra Soloman, Christine Gibson, Jenny Graham and Arthur Walker. The Santa Run which Northumbrian Water sponsors, takes place on Sunday 5 December in Newcastle.
Men in Hats charity calendar - December
Cheeky chappies from a local water company have stripped off for a worthy cause. Twelve Northumbrian Water workers from around the region have bared all for a charity calendar, with only a selection of strategically-placed props to preserve their modesty! Five hundred copies of the ‘Men in Hats’ 2010 calendar, priced at £3 each, have been produced to raise £1,500 for Samaritans Durham, which offers 24 hour emotional support for anyone experiencing feelings of distress or despair, including those which may lead to suicide. The calendar has been photographed in the style of the original Women’s Institute Calendar Girls, with props including a shower cap and rubber duck, cycling helmet and bike, santa hat and giftwrap and a chef’s hat and utensils! The twelve blushing boys featured are estates technician Paul Sinclair of North Shields, customer advisor Chris Duke of Chester le Street, facilities assistant Peter Lowther of Bishop Auckland, facilities manager Dave Whiteley of Tynemouth, customer advisor David Walker of Sedgefield, marketing co-ordinator Thomas Baker of Durham, technician strategy manager Eric Styan of
Newcastle upon Tyne, senior HR business analyst Neil Robson of Durham,
health and safety advisor Peter Sheldon of Great Lumley, applications team
leader Lee Gallon of Washington, Tyne & Wear, legal executive Chris Doyle
of Cramlington and customer advisor Gareth Thraves of Gateshead.
Curiosity is boosting sales at the water company, with more than 100 advance orders placed by colleagues keen to have a giggle at the pin-ups. Bill Donnelly, director of Samaritans, said: “We are extremely grateful to the staff of Northumbrian Water in selecting Samaritans to be a chosen charity this Christmas. Funds raised from the sale of the calendar will be used to help us to reach out to high-risk groups and communities in our region.” Calendar boy Peter Sheldon, who works at the water company’s treatment works at Washington, Tyne & Wear, said: “I really wanted take part in the calendar, even at 59 years old, to help a service that many individuals turn to for support. A friend of mine took his own life 12 years ago and at the time I felt I had let him down, not being there for him to talk to. Looking back at the situation, I realise that perhaps he didn’t want to talk to a friend about his problems. That’s where Samaritans come in.”
Jane Morland, corporate responsibility team leader at Northumbrian Water, who came up with the idea of creating the calendar, said: “Our employees always rally round to support good causes and we had so many men asking to pose for the calendar, it’s a shame there aren’t more months in a year! “Although the calendar is in good humour, all proceeds will help provide the much-needed, confidential service offered by Samaritans, who operate all the way through the Christmas period.” Copies of the slimline ‘Men in Hats’ 2010 calendar, priced at £3 each or two for £5, can be bought by cash or cheque from Northumbrian Water, Boldon House, Wheatlands Way, Pity Me, Durham, DH1 5GJ. Telephone and email orders are also accepted, by calling Carolyn King on 0191 301 6722 or Carolyn.King@nwl.co.uk.