Blog

Well summer has come and gone, and despite the dip in attendance in the office due to holidays we have managed to raise the princely sum of £381.80 during July and August. This is a great achievement as we haven’t had any additional activities, this is just good honest donating on Dress Down Friday!

So how did each of the charities do?

Marie Curie Cancer Care - £184.60
Wilderness Africa Trust - £106.00
Right To Play - £91.20

Marie Curie Cancer Care then was the favourite charity this time in the office and I do think that was partly due to the fantastic talk that we were treated to by Jane Shufflebotham who took the time to come to the office and tell us more about the good work that Marie Curie Cancer Care do! A big thank you to Jane and to Marie Curie, and watch this space as I hope to be arranging some more fundraising activities over the coming months to help their cause!

So, who are we supporting over the next two months?

Bobby Moore Fund
Amnesty International
Centre 56

There is more information about each of these charities on our co-operative wall in the office, which has now been updated so please do take the time to stop and have a look.

As always, don’t be shy in coming forward with any fundraising activity ideas and happy Dress Down Friday!

It’s been a while since I updated the co-operative wall, but the new structure that we are moving to of supporting 3 charities for 2 months at a time, does mean that we are giving more money to every cause that we support.

So over the period we had the usual Dress Down Fridays, a Dress Down for England and also a sweepstake on the outcome of the World Cup. There are just 4 runners left in the sweep which are:

Mayank Patel - Uruguay
Anthony Colocasidou - Spain
Imran Khan - Holland
Sam Blaney - Germany

So, how much money did we raise for each charity:

Face The Future - £157.05
David Shepherd Foundation - £107.85
Smile Foundation - £113.65

So Face The Future proved to be your favourite charity of the two months, but I have to say that we have raised a healthy amount for each of these causes and the co-operative wall total has been pushed up to a whooping £5961!

Well done to everyone that helped us to reach that total, as always please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any suggestions for fundraising ideas!

Thank you for Reading!

Sara

Currencies Direct is very proud to say that every charity we support with our Dress Down Friday and other fund raising activities, is democratically chosen by it’s employees. Over the past year we have been supporting 3 charities per month and following a Positive FX questionnaire, the results showed that whilst employees would still like to support a number of charities, they would prefer to make more of a difference and so going forward we will be supporting 3 charities for 2 months at a time.

A list of charities made up from suggestions within the office, was handed around this week for people to vote on their favourite 9. The winning 9 charities, along with their scores are shown below with the months that we will be fundraising for them!

July/ August

Marie Curie Cancer Care - 122
Wilderness Africa Trust - 49
Right To Play - 63

September/ October

Bobby Moore Fund - 92
Amnesty International - 60
Centre 56 - 85

November/ December

Anti-Slavery - 55
Ndoro Childrens Charity - 86
Food For Life Vrindavan - 105

The final group game for England was a vital must-win clash against Slovenia. We decided to show our support for the home side by having the game on the screens in the office, and by wearing football shirts (for a donation to charity of £1 of course). A couple of people even sported a St Georges cross on their faces courtesy of Barbara and her face paints!

An extra £20 was raised on the day which will be split equally between this months charities. Some photos from the afternoon are below:

An action shot - was it a goal… nooooooooooo its offside!

Rooney hits the post!!

All over - 1 - 0 to England - roll on Germany in the next round on Sunday!

Another month is over and the summer is edging closer! Lots of fun things took place in April, as well as Dress Down Friday we had our first Dress Down Thursday (before Good Friday and the bank holiday). We also had an Easter Egg Raffle with 11 prizes where David Miles bagged the top prize and I didn’t win anything despite buying lots of raffle tickets - my waistline is thankful however! We got into the sporting spirit with a sweep for the Grand National at Aintree - again I didn’t win, I’m seeing a theme here!

All of these things added together meant we had a fantastic result for April and we raised £355.05. This has pushed the co-operative wall total up to £5582. Well done to everyone that took part in the activities this month and thank you, but how did the individual charities do?

Diabetes UK £118.41
Stepping Stones Nigeria £103.52
Honeypot £133.11

So Honeypot was the favourite charity in April! The wall has been updated to show the charities that we are fundraising for in May and they are:

Face The Future
David Shepherd Foundation
Smile Foundation India

Thanks for reading, and as always don’t hesitate to forward any fundraising ideas you might have to the CSR Committee!

Taking your euros abroad has been made easier and more secure with the release of the new prepaid Euro MasterCard from Currencies Direct.

The new card, aimed at tourists, expats and business travellers, has distinct advantages over existing cards on the market, it is:

- Free to obtain
- Free to load, with no maintenance fees
- Secured with Chip and PIN technology

And as you would expect from Currencies Direct, the card offers competitive exchange rates.

The card, developed by Currencies Direct and payment processor CorporatePay, is issued by Newcastle Building Society and accepted in millions of hotels, restaurants, ATMs, bars and shops throughout the Eurozone where the MasterCard acceptance mark is displayed.

Ignacio Hernandez, managing director of Currencies Direct, said: “With no fees and a great exchange rate, our new Currency Card is one of the most competitive in the market. It not only provides great value for money but makes an important contribution to our core customer pledge – to provide money without frontiers.”

Alex Tejada, head of business solutions, who recently joined Currencies Direct to drive the company’s product and e-commerce development, added: “Prepaid cards offer obvious advantages above carrying and using your travel money.

“Besides improved exchange rates, customers will have full control over their travel money, being able to use the cards wherever MasterCard cards are accepted, without the hassle and risk of carrying cash when they travel.”

Once customers are back in the UK they can watch the euro exchange rate and top their card up for their next trip away when they can best maximise their money.

A launch party was held for Head Office staff to launch the card and below are the hard working team behind the project, from left to right Jigar Shah, Alex Tejada and Jose Ivars-Lopez!