One such organisation is Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital which is a regional centre of excellence, helping over a quarter of a million children and young people every year. We participated in the ‘Many Hands’ campaign which asks local businesses to each raise over £1,000 for the hospital in innovative ways, ensuring that they engage their staff, intermediaries, and the local community in their activities. In 2011 we raised funds for the hospital from various events, including a promotional day at The Trafford Centre, Christmas toy donation campaign and a ‘donate your favourite childhood book’ initiative.

Amongst our current activities, is offering support work at a new state of the art youth facility in Harpurhey, Manchester. The company is a founder patron for the fantastic project.

The Factory Youth Zone opened in January 2012 and is a safe, attractive, accessible and affordable youth facility, providing the widest possible range of positive activities and opportunities for local young people. It’s available to all those aged 8 to 21 years and focuses on the engagement of those who are vulnerable, disadvantaged or otherwise considered hard-to-reach.

With the support of volunteers and founder patrons such as Blemain, the Youth Zone has a huge impact by not only providing support and guidance for young people in the community, but also by helping to prevent the development of anti social behaviour.

We also work closely with the Ladybarn Community Centre, running a Youth Motivation Project to help disadvantaged young people into the world of work. Our staff shared their knowledge and experience through a variety of initiatives; including workshops focused on developing key skills such as CV writing, interview technique and Microsoft Office training, whilst individually mentoring 20 individuals.

Our employees participate in a variety of events to raise money for charities such as Red Nose Day and Comic Relief. In November, our male employees were sponsored to grow a moustache in support of Movember. The event was a great success with many employees taking part and growing a moustache, obviously the ladies chose to donate!

On Friday, we invite all staff to take part in dress down day. This provides another opportunity to support a good cause with a different charity chosen each week.