[lead]Another financial year is over and yet another fantastic year of giving back to our community goes with it. This past year, Oliver and Co decided to dedicate their support to The Clatterbridge Cancer Charity as our Charity of the Year.[/lead]
Clatterbridge is a cancer research and support Trust based on the Wirral, comprising of 1,575 specialist staff who provide care and kindness to over 2.4 million people across Cheshire and Merseyside. Although praised for its hospices and support havens being uniquely intimate and close knit, Clatterbridge’s contribution to those suffering the effects of Cancer are felt far beyond those in their locality. Their pioneering research into innovative and effective treatments for Cancer and its complications is some of the most well respected throughout the UK.
Our year of fundraising
At the start of our year, we brainstormed ideas of events to raise money for this worthy cause. Throughout this last year we have hosted bake sales, car park raffles, 100 club and green t-shirt day for Clatterbridge, along with many smaller events which have all helped raise a massive amount of money for charity. We feature below, in some more detail, a few of our biggest fundraising successes this year!
Tour De Clatterbridge
September of 2022 we decided to do a sponsored cycle. As a firm, all Lycra-d up and raring to ride, we were determined to cycle as many times to Clatterbridge (on stationary exercise bikes) as we could.
The day came, and a healthy bout of inter-colleague competitiveness permeated the airs and mouths around the office; a promise that were all going to put every ounce of energy we had on that rainy Friday into raising as much cash as we could for Clatterbridge. Exercise bikes in position, placed directly outside of our office on the busy streets of Chester, with the potential for generous donations from passers-by into the buckets at our feet as our motivation, we peddled as hard as we could. Taking turns, in 30-minute stints, over 30 members of our staff provided splendid entertainment to the people of Chester, and our fellow colleagues of course, as we cycled with charity-fuelled tenacity until we could cycle no more. Although jelly-legged and ready to drop, with 13 journeys cycled to Clatterbridge (209.94 miles) and over £1k raised for the Charity fund, we couldn’t have been happier. Result!
Lunch Club
Luckily for us, Alison Pepper, one of our resident Personal Injury Lawyers, also has a passion for food! As the owner of a fabulous café in Willaston on the Wirral, Peppers, Alison very generously blessed our kitchen with her famous soup for a week! With the menu promising everything from piquant Broccoli and Stilton to hearty vegan Winter Vegetable, the orders came rolling in (quite frankly too many to fulfil!). In just a week, thanks to Alison’s kind contribution of irresistible and lovingly made repast, and the Oliver and Co employee’s desire to devour and donate, we raised just shy of £250 to support Clatterbridge. Great food and a victory for charity, win-win.
Christmas Raffle
As we turned the corner into Christmas, we knew we wanted to do something collaborative again, to get everyone into the giving spirit. So, along with our Annual Christmas Jumper Day, we decided, this year at our Christmas Do, we would raffle off to our staff prizes which we curated ourselves. Each department was allocated a theme, whether that be Movie Night In, Cheese and Wine or Chocoholic. We went to work on filling our hampers with as many gifts, tricks and treats as we could possibly muster. To say that this was a resounding success would be a grave understatement! We had hampers galore; spilling from one desk to the next, barely able to be contained, filled with donated delights from all of our staff. As you can imagine, selling the raffle tickets was no chore; every person in the office was chomping at the bit to get their hands on one of these beautiful bulging baskets, just in time for Christmas. Thanks to everyone’s willingness to participate and kind donations we managed to raise almost £500 for Clatterbridge Cancer Charity. There was no lack of Christmas spirit at Oliver and Co this past year, t’was the season to be jolly, indeed!
The Big Pop(corn) Quiz
Who doesn’t love a quiz? For the last couple of years, our most profitable events in aid of charity have, hands down, been a big ‘Pop’ Quiz; the firm, family, friends and everyone and all who wish to support are welcome and invited. This year’s event was hosted by Oliver and Co at Popcorn in Chester, a popular club joint which promises a great evening’s entertainment. To raise as much cash as we could, we set to work around Chester asking friends, family, frequented shops and services and favourited cafés and restaurants for kind donations which could be raffled off to our quiz attendees. Through the people of Chester’s kind generosity, we amassed a whole host of phenomenal prizes from free dog training sessions to family photo shoots, fabulous food and drink prizes and electronics such as Beats headphones! It’s safe to say the raffle was a triumph.
And now, on to the main event, the much-anticipated Big Charity Quiz itself. It is only by self-admission that we know so many of our attendees had, in anticipation of the event, revised all the quiz questions they could feast their eyes on before showing face. This quiz is no joke; the winner is highly decorated and will no doubt cite this as their resin d’etre for years to come… After blood, sweat, tears, much laughter and festivities our quiz was over, and the winners announced. The monies collected were counted while many of those in attendance stayed to carry on the merriment into the night. We had made almost £1,300.00, our last big event for Clatterbridge couldn’t have been better. A veritable success, so successful in fact, we wonder if staff will ever stop being inundated by the question ‘when is the next one?!’. We better get planning…
So, that is our year supporting Clatterbridge in a nutshell. Clatterbridge has been a spectacular Charity to support. Thank you Clatterbridge, for all that you do; the difficult days, long night shifts, your unwavering kindness to those in need of reassurance and championing strength within the Cancer sphere. We are so grateful.
