CRY was delighted to be supported by Four Pillars Hotels Ltd throughout 2013 and they raised a wonderful £15,385.85 from their various fundraising efforts.
“Our Charity of the Year for 2013 ‘CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young)’ has proved to be very popular with our employees, seeing fundraising for them reach an all-time high! Our fundraising target was to raise the same as the previous year and hopefully a little more, agreeing £10,500 was ambitious, but hopefully achievable.
Our aim was to raise money towards the purchase of a Vivid i. This is a high-performance, battery-operated, ultra-portable diagnostic Ultrasound system that provides exceptional image quality. The demand for screening with CRY has increased by 50% in the last year; they tested over 12,000 fit and healthy young people between the age of 14 and 35 in 2012. Such equipment is essential for CRY to continue with their screening programme, to save as many lives as possible.
We organised a full timetable of fundraising events throughout the year which included our usual & popular favourites such as the Family Fun Day & Charity Quiz Night and also tried out some new ones, such as the Inter-hotel Football Tournament and the CRY London Bridges Walk, where over 40 Four Pillars employees and friends took to the pavements of London to raise money for this deserving charity.
There were also some big personal fundraising efforts from our running enthusiasts (and those who were just crazy enough to say yes!) and we even had someone throw themselves out of a plane to raise money! Our Hotels, Spa’s and Sales team all took part by each organising regular raffles and with various merchandise sales, we are delighted to announce that we have raised a colossal… £15,385.85!
Needless to say, we would like to thank absolutely everyone who has helped to raise this wonderful total for CRY, for which are sure they will be delighted. Thank you to everyone who has donated their time, money and effort into a fantastic year of fundraising.”
Katherine Swingler
Human Resources Director
Four Pillars Hotels Central Support Office
Alison Cox MBE, Founder and Chief Executive of CRY says: “We are very grateful to the Four Pillars Hotels and, in particular, the fundraising committee for its hard work throughout 2013, in putting together a programme of events to raise awareness and funds in support of CRY. We appreciate that this was in addition to their very busy roles at Four Pillars. We are delighted with the amount of £15,385.85 that was raised, which was greater than for any of their previous charity partners, and, perhaps most crucially, the awareness raised amongst Four Pillars Staff, guests and suppliers. The funds received will go towards the purchase of a Vivid i. Echo machine. The CRY fundraising team have greatly enjoyed working closely with the Four Pillars Charity Committee throughout the year, and meeting Four Pillars staff and their families at the CRY Bridges Walk and Run to the Beat. On behalf of everyone at CRY, I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone at Four Pillars Hotels and to wish them every success with their future charities of the year”
The Four Pillars Fundraising Calendar 2013
The following events have helped to raise the wonderful final total:
- Merchandise Sales (throughout 2013) – £1,336.65
- Witney Family trip – £180
- Tortworth Court Clothes Amnesty – £26.50
- Tortworth Court Family Trip (x2) – £629
- Tortworth Court Valentines sales – £29.68
- Cotswold WP Members party – £180.00
- Easter Raffles (each hotel and CSO) – £448
- Quiz Night – £500
- Abingdon Family Trips (x2) – £369
- Cotswold WP Spa Locker Money donations – £268.97
- Cotswold WP Clothes Amnesty – £174.00
- Cotswold WP Family Trip – £405.95
- Cotswold WP Housekeeping Raffle – £119
- Tortworth Court Hotel of the Year Party Raffle – £163
- Oxford Spires donation following Table Sales – £100
- Tortworth Court Hilton Voucher Raffle – £20
- Tortworth Court Furniture Sale – £1043.10
- Tortworth Court Boot Camp Proceeds – £90
- Oxford Abingdon Book Sale Proceeds – £61.15
- Oxford Thames Family Trip – £125
- Additional donation – £1,000
- Sponsorship money (Sonata – 10k Run) – £61
- Proceeds from Clairvoyance Evening – £334
- CRY London Bridges Walk Sponsorship – £2,422
- Oxford Thames Family Trip Raffle – £343
- RevUp Hospitality Training Charitable Donation – £100
- Cotswold WP – Charity Football Tournament – £240
- Tortworth Court – Additional proceeds from Furniture Sale – £140
- Half Marathon Sponsorship – £654
- Oxford Thames Family Fun Day – £930
- Abingdon Book Sale Proceeds – £70.07
- Oxford Spires Family Trip (x2) – £506.00
- Cotswold WP toy/book sale – £10.40
- Christmas Card donation – £500
- Additional Sales Fundraising (Nikki Farr) – £118.50
- CSO Cake Sale – £24.10
Event write-ups
Four Pill
ars Night of the Stars Awards – 25th January 2013
“Every year we celebrate our the best of our employee’s at our Night of the Stars Awards. It is our opportunity to acknowledge and reward our staff-nominated “Best Employees” with a no-expense spared four course dinner, awards ceremony and dancing until the early hours of the morning!”
Click here to read a full write up of the night!
Charity Quiz Night – Oxford Witney Four Pillars Hotel – 24th March 2013
As ever, this was a popular event which saw a bit of friendly, inter-hotel rivalry! We had teams from Oxford Witney, Oxford Abingdon, Oxford Spires and a number of tables headed by Central Support Office employees. Off limits hosted the interactive event, where 14 teams battled for victory answering questions about Movies, Sport, and Television and of course, Food and Drink! In addition to the fun and games, we hosted a raffle which contributed towards the final amount raised of… £500!
Bristol 10k Race – 5th May 2013
The Bristol 10k race is considered to be the fastest growing race of its kind in the UK and four of our employees stepped up and took part for CRY on Sunday 5th May 2013. The route in Bristol, which runs alongside the River Avon and under the spectacular Clifton Suspension Bridge, was run by our Sonata Leonaviciute (Head Housekeeper – Oxford Spires) and Izabela Neumann (Junior Housekeeping Supervisor – Oxford Spires) to raise money for CRY.
Katherine Swingler (Human Resources Director) and Liz Heneghan (Human Resources Manager – Tortworth Court) also ran as part of their training for the Run to the Beat Half Marathon later this year, where they will be running with the rest of the Four Pillars Team for CRY.
We are delighted to announce that they all finished the race in less than 1 hour and 5 minutes! Sonata has decided that she will now be taking part in the Bristol Half Marathon in September; watch this space to find out how you can donate!
CRY Heart of London Bridges Walk – 7th July 2013
The money which has been raised in sponsorship has been phenomenal, and we are so grateful to all who took part and to all of the generous people who sponsored them! In total so far (we are still collecting offline sponsorship, although most of it we think is in) we have raised £2,129 and that doesn’t even include the extra money which will be paid to CRY in the form of Gift Aid. So, thank you to all of you who came down to London for the day, I think everyone would agree a great day was had by all, and the hot weather didn’t put anyone off at all!
Evening of Clairvoyance – 11th July 2013
Thank you to Claire Satterthwaite for all of the time and effort she put into making a success of the evening, raising £334 for the Charity which is fantastic!
Inter-Company Football Tournament – 4th August 2013
We would like to say a big thank you to Liam at CWP for arranging the Football Tournament, which took place in Cirencester on the first weekend in August; all hotels had a team attend and whilst there were various levels of skill playing, it seems like the home teams were in for a good day, as it was an all Cotswold final with Spires coming in in 3rd place. Well done to CWP’s Team B for winning, and a special mention should go to the mystery goalkeeper from Spires (whoever you are!), who Liam felt should be named “Player of the Tournament”. A fantastic £240 was raised and everyone it was agreed that the event should be an annual one moving forwards
Keep on Running – Run to the Beat Half Marathon – Sunday 8th September 2013
“The Run to the Beat Half Marathon took place on Sunday 8th September but officially it started on the Saturday, as the team had to pick up their race numbers the evening before and only just made it in time!”
Click here to read the full write up of their experience!
Four Pillars Family Fun Day – 15th September 2013
“Generally considered the biggest fundraising event in the Four Pillars Hotels calendar is the Family Fun Day, which was again held at Oxford Thames Four Pillars Hotel on Sunday 15th September.”
Click here to read the full write up of the day!
