Thank you cards

We got couple of cards from couple of Hospitals.

 

This is from St Mary’s Hospital Children’s Ward.

 

This one is from Whittington Hospital.

How nice of them to acknowledge the donations we give to these brave and wonderful kids.

Worries and troubles galore

I am racking my brains on how to raise more money for Home Start. Sustainable money, not something that we are taking off the public purse. I will be approaching the firm to see if some kind of regular funding can be arranged, but something more sustainable has to be established. I have also volunteered to be the photographer for various events where we can raise some dosh. Perhaps a calendar? lol, that should be interesting, but if we are not able to raise some serious thousands of pounds by end of the year, we will be in trouble.

On the other hand, as I had mentioned before. HSBC donated 1000 pieces of kit to the IT4CH charity. That put us in a tizzy. Usually we get smaller quantities of kit so we can turn it around in time and dispatch to various hospitals, but this is really nice of them. We can give some good surprises to quite a lot of hospitals around the country. But we have found some space and its now well settled down.

Incidentally, I finally managed to find the link to the competition submission that I had done for the Whittington Hospital. Here’s the link to the competition website. I like the idea, it links photography with philanthropy. Maybe I can do something like this for Home Start.

Other news, doing a fair bit of mentoring with some students and also trying to get some alumni work going with an old alma mater. God, its painful, like pushing jelly uphill. But we shall overcome and all that nice guff. I also went to Swansea Business School for an advisory board meeting. I will write more about some points which popped up there about the future of business education, but will blog it on my dailysalty site, not here, don't want to bore you guys.

I am also thinking about resigning from WCIT. I am not really sure that I am adding any value there, all the events take place during day time in the city and I just cannot get there.

Shambling around doing stuff

It is slowly picking up speed on the charity front after the slow down over the summer. So what have I been up to?

1. Well, had a nice session with the SIFE LSE team who were formed for the first time this academic year. The financial trading game is going on fine, the interaction with TeachFirst is good and should pick up speed. Then we had a long chat about potential environmental projects and a shed load of projects popped up during the discussions, ranging from helping ex-convicts to homeless people to ex-soldiers who want to get back into civilian life and and and. Anyway, the chaps have decided to go away and check out the options. Spoke to one of our COO’s and he has kindly offered to sponsor a good sustainability project that has a clear business case (revenue, costs or both). So this promises to be good fun.

2. Help for Hero’s, we had a good quiz night and managed to raise more than £2000 for this charity. Good stuff, I think i will do a bit more for these fellows, lets see, I have some ideas which are brewing away.

3. Meeting somebody for the 100books projects next week which unfortunately sort of got paused because the main pusher of the project had to move jobs. But hopefully we can resurrect it and make something of this. Watch this space.

4. The team from Nottingham University SIFE team have met with Pat Ryan, who is our CEO of the IT4CH charity. They are apparently quite happy and excited to join into the charity and and and. Quite happy with this.

5. Talking about IT4CH, after pimping myself, managed to raise a £1000 cheque for the charity, that should help. We have also got a great volunteer who is speaking to various IT firms in London who could be potential donors of equipment.

6. An interesting project popped up at work during a sustainability meeting, and that’s a proposal to reduce the grammage of our printing paper from 80gsm to 75gsm. This could aim to reduce costs, save 15-12 tons of paper consumption daily. So am sponsoring this at my business unit to see if it works, if the client facing chaps don't object and the printing works. Quite a good idea, eh?

7. Didnt mention this before, but hosted a team from Essex University who were interested in knowing what we are doing with our sustainability piece within the bank. Quite an interesting talk, got two MD’s in as well to speak. This is one of our biggest selling points to graduates who love to join us because we live and breathe sustainability. Its indeed part of the DNA. Have you checked out our sustainability activities and report?? We walk the walk and talk the talk

Charity Photographic competitions and other news on the charitable front

I am conscious that i haven't posted here for some time, it has been manically busy at work and then I left for holiday so wanted to drop a line on what I have been up to in the past month or so.

1. The IT4CH charity is now moving from up north down to London, it just makes it easier for our CEO and our team to do this from London.
2. We are also negotiating with several local authorities to lease their buildings for us to keep our spare equipment in, this promises to be of much use.
3. I put in some funding proposals for carbon change improvement products back in the firm, but dont think they got selected. Shame, next time I will do better :). Am trying to see if we can get some of this stuff formally pushed and funded in a separate matter
4. SIFE is powering up for this academic year, as usual, I will be at LSE but have also offered to help Essex out. As I mentioned before, i am considering doing something with them on the academic and research front and I thought it might be able to kill 2 birds with one stone.
5. The discussions with Manchester Business School proceed sporadically, I am specially happy about an internship/graduate recruitment proposal, lets see, early days yet.
6. And finally, am thinking about submitting my photo essay on the Whittington Hospital in North London to this photo competition. I realise what we do with the kids is not so visually attractive, perhaps Disha would have been better but its way out in India and dont know when I will be there next. I quote from the site:

PhotoPhilanthrophy believes in the power of photography to inspire hope and understanding and to connect people around the world. All subjects photographed should be treated with respect, compassion and dignity. PhotoPhilanthropy reserves the the right to reject any submission based on quality, content or theme. All submissions will be reviewed by the PhotoPhilanthropy team for accuracy of information. Written essays may be edited for clarity.

Submitted photos must depict the work of a charitable organization (designated by 501c3 in the US, or international equivalent) and be presented as a photo essay. All photographs in the essay must have been taken within the last 3 years. Photographers may enter two essays in the same year. An essay entered in a previous year of the competition may not be re-entered.

For all submissions, collaboration with the charitable organization will be verified.  For this reason it is mandatory to submit a contact name and email of the person you worked with at the organization.

Upon completion of review, accepted photo essays will be posted on the PhotoPhilanthropy website.

What do you think? do you think I have a shot at it with the photographs from the hospital? I realise the differences between the visual impact of a hospital in north London versus say a charity in a hauntingly beautiful but bloody poor place in say Nepal or hot/dry/dusty Sudan, but what the heck, all part of the learning, eh?

Brave Smiling Children at Whittington Hospital, a visit for the charity

We decided to go visit the Whittington Hospital in North London where some of the firm’s equipment has been donated. Here are some photographs (and slideshow) of the visit which was very emotional indeed.

The hospital.


Here’s Dick Whittington’s cat.

 
Couple of the bank’s PC’s still in their packing cases.