Angel Our Charity Work
At Angel Solutions, we are committed to giving our time to excellent causes. No matter how little or large, we try our utmost best to help.
The staff at Angel regularly take part in Charity Days — where we all set aside our usual work for the day and spend time donating ourselves to charity instead!
As well as giving regular donations, in the charity coin collection machine in our circus, we all like to get ‘hands on’ in making a real difference. It’s simply part of our culture.
Last month we held our spring charity day at four fantastic organisations. Click an image below to see what each team got up to on the day…
Squash Nutrition
Squash Nutrition is a Liverpool-based social enterprise, working within the local community to share skills and promote food health and wellbeing.
Based in Windsor Street, Toxteth and working across the North West, they embrace food as a tool for community resilience and social change.
James, John, Kieron, Grace, Dylan and Alex from team Angel went along and helped with weeding, sorting seeds and removing snails. They also cleaned the mobile pod, which is now sparkling! Additionally, our volunteers went out litter picking on the streets of Liverpool.
One of the team said: “We loved working with Squash! Their projects are inviting, exciting and engaging. They are clearly participant-centred, hands-on, focused and make a long-term impact in the area. We’re already looking forward to next time!””
Squash Nutrition Photos
[AFG_gallery id=’2′]New Horizons Alternative School
New Horizions is an Alternative Provision School/Service for children with emotional, social and behavioural difficulties – who have been identified as being at risk of exclusion, harm or have already been excluded from mainstream education.
12 of Our Angel Staff (Amy, Jenn, Peter, Phil, Holly, Harry, Jack, John, Rebecca, Dave, Paul and Stephen) helped make the garden look beautiful again! Angel donated flowers, pots, vegetable seeds and compost. We even managed to take pictures of our brilliant hard work from above by using a Drone…
New Horizions Photos
[AFG_gallery id=’3′]Mrang
Mrang is a charity that provides a loving, family environmentfor women refugees, asylum seekers and their children where they can receive practical, holistic and effective support.
The Charities mission is to help transform the lives of the women who have undergone great suffering and unjust treatment, helping them to re-establish their dignity and self-esteem while recognising their uniqueness and diversity.
They provide quality donated clothes for babies, children and women, as well as toys, baby items and household items. They have a clothing sale at the drop-in sessions where women can buy clothes at a very low cost.
So, Nerea and Henni from our team went along to one of the drop-in sessions and helped with registration of arrivals, serving drinks and preparing lunch. They also took along donations, such as nappies and children’s clothes/ toys.
Mrang Photos
Willowbrook Charity Shop
Willowbrook Hospice is an Independent Charity established by a group of local people to raise funds to build and run a Specialist Palliative Care Unit.
Willowbrook also have 11 charity shops covering St Helens and Knowsley. These shops are operated through brilliant volunteers. The shops sell anything from books, clothes, furniture and children’s toys, all money raised in the charity shops then goes towards caring for the patients in the Hospice.
George, Gareth, Ryan and David went along and helped to sort through a mountain of donated bags, sorting them into their respective bins. Management were amazed by the job they had done, and stated that they could actually see the wall for once! They even asked when our next charity day will be and if we could go back and help.
Willowbrook Photos
[AFG_gallery id=’5′]Until Next Time…
Our team love to give, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed getting the chance to help local charities in a practical way. Angel Solutions already support a number of charities, and being able to get involved by offering a helping hand like this will continue to be really important to us.
Please keep giving!
YOUR help and donations are crucial to the ongoing operations of many local charities in your community. Participation is highly rewarding, as well as being greatly appreciated. If you are inspired by our involvement to help out with one of the four charities that we have worked with, then we would love to hear your stories and see pictures!
In addition, Angel are constantly on the lookout for new charities to contribute to. We warmly welcome and encourage any North West charity to get in touch with fundraising ideas, or to request practical assistance from our team. Email charity@angelsolutions.co.uk.
A team of Angels proudly ran in Liverpool’s Santa Dash 2015 on a cold and wet Sunday morning to raise money for a cause close to their hearts: Claire House children’s hospice.
Angel Solutions invited a representative from Claire House to come in and talk about their work, and the staff were moved to raise money for them in the last charity event of our year.
Take a look through the photos and please donate if you are able. Thank you.
Donate now
[flickr_tags user_id=”136553030@N05″ tags=”charity, SantaDash2015″ tags_mode=”all” max_num_photos=”15″ ]Our Team even made it into the Liverpool Echo photo gallery, thanks to John T dashing the extra mile by dressing up as the robot Bender, from Futurama.
About Claire House
Claire House Children’s Hospice offers care, support and choice to families whose children won’t live to be adults.
Whilst the hospice building is located on the Wirral, Claire House aims to offer the very best care wherever and whenever a child and family needs it, whether they choose to come to the hospice or are looked after at home with our Hospice to Home Team.
Find out more on the Claire House website.
Donate now
Why we give
Angel Solutions is committed to giving of our time and finances for good causes — we call it Global Goals. We know we can’t do everything, yet we all can do something.
That’s why we release our staff for Charity Days, why we give regular donations to charities, why we have a coin collection machine in our circus and why we invite charity representatives to visit us and give lunchtime presentations to staff. It’s simply part of our culture.
If you have any charity fundraising ideas, or would like us to get involved with your charity in some way, please email charity@angelsolutions.co.uk. Thanks.
The Guardian mentioned Angel Solutions today in an article about the value of innovative and creative working environments.
Here’s an extract of the article:
Suzanne BearneVisit software developer Angel Solutions at Liverpool Science Park and you might think you’ve accidently stumbled across a circus. Inside lies a big top, fairground mirrors, a unicycle and a caravan that acts as a meeting room.
Kent is just one of a new breed of savvy business owners taking into account everything from the colour of the walls to the layout of the desks when designing the work environment. This can yield more than just an entertaining office; a 2013 report [PDF] by the World Green Building Council found that the design of an office has a material impact on the health, wellbeing and productivity of its occupants.
The research revealed that improving office design by sitting staff near a window, giving them personal control over the heating and investing in indoor plants, for example, can reduce staff absence, improve wellbeing and boost productivity.
It’s true, our office does look like a circus and our staff enjoy the creative atmosphere we cultivate here at Angel, in our ethos as well as our surroundings.
Read The Guardian article in full to find out more about the benefits of a well thought-out work environment…
Want to visit our circus?
We regularly welcome visitors from the education industry here at Angel, and always hope to provide visitors with an unforgettable experience. So, if you want to visit us, are keen to find out more about what we do, or if you think you can get to the top of the ‘Shooting Angels’ leader board, simply get in touch to request a visit!
Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter too: @angel_solutions
Angel’s most recent innovation day had a Challenge theme — we asked staff to set themselves a challenge for the day and/or take on one of our randomly-generated challenges. Take a look at what they got up to!
‘Team Hero’
These three Angels took on the challenge of donating blood. Well done Alan, Gareth and John!
Innovation Lead, John Winstanley, had never given blood before. He said: “It was easy! I hate needles, but I hardly felt a thing. I’ll definitely go back and do it again.”
Why not make an appointment to join Team Hero and give blood yourself?
Liverpool Science Park Challenge
Some of the team took a few moments out to take this picture for Liverpool Science Park‘s Selfie Competition. Sadly, we didn’t win this time, but it was fun taking part!
Take a look at all the competition entries here
Fun training guides
John P used the day to create some Lego-themed comic strips that teach new users how to get up and running with Perspective.
“Build it” continues
A few people set to work on physical building projects, including:
- Building a magnetic scoreboard for our Shooting Angels game
- Creating extra skittle-people for all our new staff members (for the game!)
- Adding extra features to our interactive charity donation box
Random challenges
There were loads of other projects and challenges on the day, including:
- Liam’s Support Centre project and try a new food challenge
- Grace’s Meet the Circus interactive web-page
- Adam’s video project for teachers
- Dylan and Dave’s Open Source project challenge
- Paul M’s charity ticker-tape communications solution for Wirral Ways to Recovery
- Susan’s Call Schools challenge
A big thanks and well done to everyone for taking part!
What’s next?
Our next Innovation Day will involve some project work and charity-planning in the morning, followed by our annual trip to the park for Team-Time in the afternoon. Until then, we’ll be focussing our innovations on the Angel Solutions product suite and helping educationalists prepare for the next academic year!
Here at Angel Solutions we like to make a difference, whether that’s by improving the effectiveness of educational organisations, by building innovative time-saving software or by giving to charity in varied and creative ways.
That’s why we released our staff for a whole day last week to donate themselves to charity! Click an image to see what each team got up to…
The Reader Organisation
Our nominated charity for the year, The Reader Organisation runs shared reading groups in community environments. A fantastic charity, The Reader exists to foster a love of reading and storytelling and to combat social isolation. Based in Calderstones park, The Reader is currently renovating the mansion house in the center of the park and converting another building into a Story Barn for children.
We sent a team along (Phil, Nat, Liam, Amy and Jon R) to lend a hand by decorating one of the many rooms in the mansion house so the charity can start using it for their work.
The Reader Photos
Home Start Liverpool
Home Start are a national charity that aims to help families with pre-school children in a variety of ways. Their Liverpool centre — based in Toxteth, one of the most deprived areas of the country — runs play groups, teaches parenting skills, befriends and visits parents at home, and generally works to build a supportive community for parents.
Our team helped transform Home Start Liverpool’s reading corner by building a canopy and bookshelves. We also helped by deep-cleaning the room and undertaking some general DIY to freshen up the facilities before families return from their Easter break.
Home Start Photos
Sticky Fingers Day Nursery
This new nursery, due to open in September, is being run by Imagine If Trust, a local charity that runs a host of projects to serve the local community (including the Foodbank below, and a popular parent-toddler group that serves 400 children per week!).
Sticky Fingers Day Nursery is being set up in response to the shortage of funded places for eligible 2, 3, and 4 year-olds, and that’s who it will primarily aim to serve. The charity is working hard to transform their building and get the facilities ready for a September opening.
So, Team Angel (Paul, Stephen, Chris, Will, John P) donned our overalls and got busy giving the walls, cupboards and kitchen a decent base coat, ready for all the creative colourful wall decorations to be applied later!
Nursery Photos
Foodbank
Foodbanks do a fantastic work by giving out an emergency package of nutritionally-balanced food that will last a household 3–4 days to get them through a short-term crisis. People are referred by GPs, housing authorities, citizens advice centres and a host of other agencies to ensure that people in acute need can receive a food parcel.
We were able to volunteer at two foodbanks this year — Central Liverpool Foodbank and Didcot Foodbank — and took up a collection to donate. A mere £30 managed to buy an entire trolley-load of food, which shows just how far donations can go!
John P and Mark helped make up food parcels in the store rooms and were able to talk to some of the clients and hear their stories first-hand.
Foodbank Photos
Engaging with those who are homeless
How often do we become numbed to the need all around us? That’s the question John W asked himself as he decided to step out of his comfort zone by going around the city and talking to people who are homeless.
Here are a few quotes from his journal of the day:
Until next time…
We loved being able to give to charity in so many practical ways and are now looking ahead to our next Charity Innovation Day in a few months time. Watch this space as we unveil plans to raise as much money for charity as we can in a day. We hope we can count on your support!
If you have any charity fundraising ideas for us or would like us to get involved with your charity in some way, please email charity@angelsolutions.co.uk.
Charity Day Spring 2017
At Angel Solutions, we are committed to giving our time to excellent causes. No matter how little or large, we try our utmost best to help. The staff at Angel
Read onAngels Dash for Claire House
A team of Angels proudly ran in Liverpool’s Santa Dash 2015 on a cold and wet Sunday morning to raise money for a cause close to their hearts: Claire House
Read onAngel Solutions Featured In The Guardian!
The Guardian mentioned Angel Solutions today in an article about the value of innovative and creative working environments. Here’s an extract of the article: Visit software developer Angel Solutions at
Read onInnovation “Challenge” Day
Angel’s most recent innovation day had a Challenge theme — we asked staff to set themselves a challenge for the day and/or take on one of our randomly-generated challenges. Take
Read onCharity Day: Giving Our Time
Here at Angel Solutions we like to make a difference, whether that’s by improving the effectiveness of educational organisations, by building innovative time-saving software or by giving to charity in
Read on