The staff in our Keyworth HQ have once again voted to keep Framework the official charity of the office, already having raised over £2000 there seems no limit to their passion for fundraising. The latest effort is the publication of the Billy’s Basement Bakers Cookbook- this bunch of keen bakers provide staff with delicious cakes and treats all year round for a small donation.... now the bakers have collected their treasured recipies and made a cookbook that's ON SALE NOW! To order a copy and read more about the Bakers see the Framework Blog. Copies are also avaliable at both our Keyworth and Edinburgh offices.
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| Billy's Basement Bakers - named after the BGS William Smith Building (Smith being a renowned 19th Century geologist) |
Not only is it Billy's Bakers that raise the cash it's individual staff and their families. One such example is TeamPatz made up of Dr Mike Patterson (our Chief Operating Officer ) and his daughter Tilly. Here's his email to staff thanking them for helping him and his daughter raise £184 (current total) for Framework's Big Sleep Out.
"Dear all
I was in Malaysia two weeks and when I landed home it became apparent that my luggage had decided to spend a few extra days with a very nice suitcase from Thailand in Kuala Lumpur. This on its own was not a major issue, however on my journey back up from Heathrow I started to mentally note the things that I absolutely needed to find quickly in order to function normally again, such as a charger for my IPhone, an alarm clock, aftershave, face cream etc.....
Last Thursday night was mine and my daughter’s second attempt at both raising money for the very worthy homeless charity Framework and at the same time enjoying a snug, comfortable and peaceful night sleeping out rough on the concrete floor of Belero Square in Nottingham....well we achieved 50% of that and the fact that we were sleeping out in temperatures down to -3deg C, on concrete should be a clue as to which half of the challenge, we didn't accomplish... Here's Tilly's story of our night sleeping rough.
" We got there at 9.00pm, dad was twitching as it was a bit late, and were handed some boxes and got to work. We started with bright eyes and bushy tails but finished building our den utterly exhausted. We were desperately in need of a coffee for dad and a hot chocolate with huge marshmallows for me. We walked around looking at other people's box contraptions and lots of them were much more extravagant than our basic hut. Some had fairy lights and one was, and I'm not joking, an actual castle. As we sat and watched people struggle and build it got colder and colder until eventually dad pulled out his fluffy moose hat, as I call it. We then went up to listen to a man talk about the difference we'd made in Nottingham and found out that Dino and Pete from Capital FM and the mayor and sheriff of Nottingham were there! Daddy got very excited and started tweeting. Finally, at around 11.30pm we snuggled down and tried to go to sleep. Dad got to sleep fairly quickly but I was up for ages as it was a bit, ok, very uncomfortable. When we woke up we started to pack away our house and we gathered all our stuff up and started to walk round to the bacon sandwich stand. Then we got a warm taxi to our nice, warm and dry house. Dad didn't have to go to work, but I had to go to school and was a bit dopey. The drive back to my house made me think that not everyone has the luxury of having a house. And although we did it for one night, for others that's their life. So, our uncomfortable, cold, loud and sleepless night out was completely worthwhile and really really fun".
Whilst I was not going to get any sleep, I had an opportunity to reflect on the real importance of the things that I had spent time fretting over that had stayed in Malaysia.... and how they really are insignificant relative to some of the hard, hard conditions that a really unfortunate and unseen few find themselves in. So I didn't have aftershave for a couple of days, or a phone charger and I had to use one of my Daughters Disney princess alarm clocks but, you know what, in the real big scheme of things this was such a very trivial thing to have been vexed by.
I certainly didn't enjoy our experience as it was cold and really quite grim.... But, we will do it again next year, as Tilly said when she was asked why she was doing it "because we want to make a difference” and my number two daughter has signed up to join us too.....
Thank you
Me and Tilly"
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