Featured news - Store Wars

Business-savvy colleagues went head to head to see who could make the most money for Barnardo's when they took over four of the charity’s stores for a day last month.

The winning team filled the tills at the Slough store with an amazing £6,455 after enlisting the help of Asos.com. The online fashion retailer, which is one of our business customers, donated rails of new clothes to sell in store.

Overall the four competing teams, all from Royal Mail’s large business sales unit, raised an incredible £12,000 through the Store Wars challenge, with the three other teams taking over shops in Bolton, Bath and Huddersfield.

The victorious group at Slough celebrated a spectacular 2,233% increase on a normal day’s takings thanks to the donations from Asos.com, which also sent along two stylists to encourage shoppers to splash out by giving advice on fashion trends.

It was a real team effort, with drivers from the Slough distribution centre collecting the clothes from the company’s base in Hemel Hempstead and operational colleagues lending much-needed support on the tills.

They also held clothes sales for people at Mount Pleasant and Greenford mail centres in London before the big day, but there was still plenty of stock left. ‘We had a whole shop full of great quality clothes,’ says Gerry Madden, a partnership director for Royal Mail.‘It was heaven for fashion lovers. People were coming in and spending really large amounts of money.’

One of the other teams, at Huddersfield, called on local rugby team the Huddersfield Giants for support. Three players came along to greet customers and donate a signed ball as a raffle prize. Postmen and women at Huddersfield delivery office joined in, helping to pull in shoppers by posting 10,000 flyers.

By the end of the day the shop had banked £2,000, including a £350 donation from colleagues at Leeds mail centre. Sales development manager Emma Shaw has two words of guidance to anyone taking on a similar challenge – good planning.

‘My advice is to get together as early as possible. Put together a plan and give people responsibility for different areas,’ she says.

*If you’re feeling inspired by this story, why not try the new Stock Exchange challenge?

Go Green for Barnardo's

Go Green fundraising packs are now available from the CSR team. The second of our fundraising initiatives will give you plenty of ideas to fundraise on a green theme. Remember to keep the CSR team informed of your planned activities and send in your stories and pictures.

Phone the CSR Helpline on 0845 600 9665 to request your pack.

Star People - South Side Flyers

On the 29th August, the 'South Side Flyers', hiked 15km to the top and back of Cairn Gorm Mountain, the sixth highest mountain in Scotland, then completed a testing 35km bike ride through Glenmore and Abernethy forests.

They didn't win a medal for being first team back but did pick up the prize for best team spirit and camaraderie.

The team of five stuck together the whole route finishing in a time of 7hrs and 3minutes, in this, the third Barnardo's Cairngorm Challenge event.

Recruitment Team, Sheffield

Karen Wright from the recruitment team in Sheffield has raised £400 with her Bling and Buy sale held at Sheffield HR Services centre on the 11th September.

Keep your eyes peeled for another one in the new year.

Sales Team

Barnardo’s Store Wars created an incredible buzz around the country on Friday 11th September. Four teams of 10 volunteers from Royal Mail’s sales force took on Barnardo's stores in Bath, Farnsworth, Huddersfield and Slough to compete to be the best Store Warriors.

The teams helped Barnardo's raise a whopping £12,500 through pre event fundraising, on the day fundraising and sales through the till.

Pond Street, Sheffield

The team at Sheffield raised £1065 for Barnardo’s during their fundraising dinner and they also donated a football club shirt to Trina Naylor, from BARNARDOS, who was present during the evening, for Barnardo’s to use to raise additional funds.

Newcastle Cash in Transit

The Team is made up of crew and Managers from our Newcastle Cash In Transit Depot (Leven House took part in a cycle ride) and the money raised will be shared between Barnardos and Cancer Research as one of their managers at another unit has recently undergone treatment for cancer.

Fundraising Update - August 2009

Below is a list of how much has been raised by region for all charities since April 2008 -

* Post Office - £98,694
* Anglia - £74,323
* Midlands - £70,210
* NW England - £60,019
* Northern Ireland - £58,569
* HR Services - £55,158
* NE England - £51,095
* SE England - £45,407
* SW England - £36,097
* Wales - £33,888
* London - £25,864
* Thames Valley - £25,062
* Scotland - £25,038
* Parcelforce Worldwide - £22,532

That's over £680k raised in 16 months!

Barnardo's Family Placement Unit

Barnardo's Family Placement Unit recruits, trains and supports adopters and foster carers from all over the North East. We have a great deal of experience in finding families to care for children from a variety of backgrounds, and pride ourselves on the support and stability our carers and young people have.

For more information on our fostering and adoption services in your areas visit www.barnardos.org.uk

Volunteering opportunities

Helping in practical ways, such as taking children on outings, supporting our local projects, cheering, marshalling, being that 'extra pair of hands' at our events or taking on a gardening or decorating challenge.
Contact the CSR team to find out what you can do in your community.

Star People - Wheatstone House, Swindon

Wheatstone House, Swindon
The Big Toddle and Summer Pack launch took place on Tuesday 30th June at Robert le Kyng Centre in Swindon. It was a fabulous day, a great success and enjoyed by staff, volunteers and families at the centre.

The final figure raised for Barnardo's has yet to be finally confirmed but they had some really excellent support and some fantastic individual sponsorship amounts raised. A big thank you goes to the amazing Children's Centre volunteers who helped staff out on the day.

They were supported by a team from Royal Mail Group; Steve Morgan, Carmela Masi, Terry Garraway, Sandra Baxx, Ann-Marie Scott, Claire McCarty and Julie Skuse, who helped out right across the event both in preparation and on the day.

Royal Mail Group support also enabled the centre to have a visit from Postman Pat, who was a big hit with all the children and staff.

The Summer Packs were also launched on 30th June by Postman Pat.

The packs have been well received with over 70 packs handed out to families on the day.

James Harbison, Chelmsford Mail Centre

James based at Chelmsford MC recently undertook at car wash to raise funds for Honywood school.

The funds were used for his son and a group from the school to visit a school in Nambia.

They visited a school in Otjiuaneho which had 140 pupils at the school. Many of which board. Whilst they were there they brightened up the school painting several colourful designs and generally lightening up the space.

They also took sports equipment and showed the children new games to play with the equipment.

Nottingham Mail Centre

A team recently decorated a room for five-year-old Amy, one of Barnardo's Sherwood service users from in Nottingham. Amy suffers from the blood disorder Sickle Cell and as a result is confined to a wheelchair. Amy and her dad recently moved into a new bungalow with wheelchair access and her room was totally bare. The team worked hard to decorate and kit out her room just in time for her birthday.

Allan Woolley, Mount Pleasant Mail Centre

Losing excess hair is this month's fundraising theme for the workforce. One colleague, Allan Woolley (pictured) shaved a moustache of 25 years to raise over £1,300 for Barnardo's. Another employee Andrew Challenger took to shaving his head to raise over £500.

Well Child

Would you be willing to roll up your sleeves and do a day's work to help out a seriously ill child?

WellChild, the national charity for sick children, needs your help to improve the lives of seriously ill children by mucking in with one of their Helping Hands projects.

The Helping Hands scheme is a fantastic way of making a real difference to a sick child and their family who really need your help. The teams of volunteer workers go into the family's home and, over the course of one or two days, completely transform part of the home, such as the garden or the child's bedroom to make it a safe cheerful place for the child to play.

The projects are tremendously rewarding for those who take part, as you can't put a price on bringing a little joy into the life of a child who really needs it.

WellChild's Helping Hands Project Manager Lee Trunks said any groups of Royal Mail employees who are willing to volunteer will be very welcome as they need teams in all parts of the country to carry out the projects - with more families needing our help all the time.

Families who have a disabled or seriously ill child to look after often find that jobs around the house and garden are just one thing too many for them to cope with. There is a lack of support of this kind from other sources - which is where Helping Hands comes to the rescue.

Though the service they offer to the families is free we do need to raise funds to pay for materials, equipment and so on, which are used in the projects.

Each Helping Hands project is carefully planned and worked out in advance so it goes smoothly on the day and Lee is always on hand to manage and offer support at every stage during the work. The result is a job well done that people can take great pride in.

Lee said: "The child and their family benefit tremendously from a Helping Hands project - but what we find is that the volunteers who take part also feel they get a lot out of it too. It's good for the soul sometimes to do something for no other reason than to help someone who really needs it."

If you can help please contact Lee Trunks at WellChild on: 0845 458 8171 or email him at: helpinghands@wellchild.org.uk

There is more information about WellChild on their website at: www.wellchild.org.uk