Supporting October's #ThinkPink and Maggie's Centres

In support of #ThinkPink, Virgin Media partnered with Maggie’s Centres throughout October to raise funds for the excellent support Maggie’s provide to breast cancer victims and their families. We also took the opportunity to raise awareness of the importance of early detection with staff.

To date this year, Maggie’s has had nearly 29,000 visits from people with breast cancer, which accounts for more than 34% of visits to their Centres. By working with Maggie’s we’ve been able to increase their reach across the UK and further the support that they can provide.

In the words of Maurice Daw, our Chief People Officer, "We were delighted to be working with Maggie’s and to be spreading the word about the support they offer. We employ thousands of people across the country and it’s fantastic that no matter where they are, our people and their friends and families can access the support that Maggie’s provides.”

Many of our sites across the UK rallied behind our #ThinkPink campaign and enthusiastically organised all sorts of activities, ranging from our Apprentices cycling the mammoth distances between Edinburgh - Newcastle and Bristol - London, to staff at Hammersmith bravely eating as many lemons as possible in 30 seconds…all in the name of charity!

The fantastic work of our Charity Champs in organising the various events coupled with the enthusiasm of staff saw October come to a close and the total reaching over £4,831, which is a fantastic result!

Tracy Calcraft, Director of Fundraising, England and Wales at Maggie’s celebrated our staffs' achievements, saying

"What a fantastic achievement, we’re really grateful for everyone’s hard work and commitment to Maggie’s".

Our parent company, Liberty Global (LG), will be topping up our staff fundraising, so combined with our corporate donation of £20,000 we are looking forward to celebrating our final total with Maggie’s.

Here’s a quick summary of the activities across our sites to give you a flavour of what happened (from left to right in the image above):

• The campaign kicked off in our Hammersmith office, with two teams taking part in the Lemon Eating Contest. The brave champion managed to eat nine segments in 30seconds!
• Two teams of Virgin Media Apprentices organised and completed two seperate long distance cycle rides from Edinburgh to Newcastle and Bristol to London, battling all types of weather and sore bottoms!
• Five different activities were run in Manchester City House over one day, including a raffle and a bake off. In one day they raised over £600 which was incredible.

There were lots of other great activities in support of our #ThinkPink campaign, including our London Frontline Engineers and Planners hosting pink themed tea breaks and wearing an item of pink on Oct 24th, while the pumpkin piñata and pumpkin carving competition in our Knowsley office was a suitably spooky event to finish the month off!

A big well done to everyone that got involved and dug deep for this incredibly important cause. Watch this space to see the final total we raised for Maggie's Centres.