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Our charity of the year 2021

This year we are delighted to be supporting St Peter’s Hospice as our charity of the year 2021.

Supporting local charities has always been extremely important to us at Chorus and we have made Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) a key objective as an organisation.

As a Bristol-based organisation, we are proud to be supporting St Peter’s Hospice – particularly after a year that has shown the importance of supporting local. Our staff live and work in Bristol and the surrounding areas, so supporting an organisation that directly supports our local community is close to our hearts. We also provide IT managed services to St Peter’s Hospice and as part of our partnership we have been able to see first-hand the vital work that they do in our community. We have also heard directly about the impact of the pandemic on their fundraising and the difficulties that charities are currently facing, which is why we have chosen to support them throughout 2021.

About St Peter’s Hospice

St Peter’s Hospice is a local charity that provides care and support to adults who are living with a progressive life-limiting illness in the Bristol, South Gloucestershire, and North Somerset area. They have been established for over 40 years and support up to 500 patients at any one time. All of their care is provided free of charge, but it costs over £20,000 a day to provide that care.

Our plans for 2021

Fundraising

As you can imagine, 2020 proved a very difficult year for charities with many fundraising events being cancelled, shops closed and all the challenges of the pandemic. However, we are keen to make the most of getting creative with our fundraising ideas and also hoping for some more in-person fundraisers later in the year. We are excited to have challenges that provide options for everyone – from the active to the indoors types so that everyone can get involved and we make fundraising a great team-building activity that brings us together (whether virtually or in person).

We have had some brilliant suggestions and ideas and have come up with three main fundraisers as well as a mix of smaller activities, such as cake sales, raffles, and quizzes to keep us fundraising throughout the year. Our 2021 fundraising ideas are:

  • April – 24-hour Gaming Marathon
    A perfect indoor fundraiser and a chance to show off our geeky side, we will be getting a team together to take part in a 24-hour non-stop gaming session. While video games might not sound like a challenge, 24 hours non-stop gaming certainly is! We will be getting lists of our favourite games together and team members will be live streaming – and of course, we’ll make sure snacks and supplies are sent to keep them going.
  • June – Bristol Three Peaks
    The Three Peaks is a challenge that many of us at Chorus have been keen to do but we want to make it local and do the lesser known ‘Bristol Three Peaks’. This is a 17-mile walk in the nearby Mendips where we can get together and walk (or even run, for the athletes at Chorus) this long circular hike.
  • August – 2 Million Steps Challenge
    The last 12 months have made us realise how important it is to get outside and get fresh air and we want to keep this motivation going, which is why we will be doing a step challenge. Last year we organised a very successful mile challenge raising nearly £2,000 for Grief Encounter by walking, running, and cycling 3,666 miles. This year we want to do something similar but tracking our steps throughout August and trying to reach 2,000,000 steps between the teams.

Of course, we may come up with more activities or even try to push our current plans a bit further to make them even more of a challenge!

We have set up a fundraising page for the year where we will be collecting all donations and would be extremely grateful for any donations.

Volunteering

Alongside fundraising we are excited to volunteer our time to the charity. We’ve had a great internal response from team members that want to join in with donate their time so we will be working with the teams at St Peter’s Hospice to help volunteer where it is most needed – this could be in their gardens, warehouse, shops or events.

Follow our Progress

We would appreciate all the support we can get for reaching our targets. Please donate if you are able to and you can follow along with our 2021 activities by following us on LinkedIn or Twitter to see what challenges we are doing and how we are progressing against our target.

To find out more about the great work that St Peter’s Hospice do, please visit their website.