It’s great to do good stuff And whether we’re getting behind a worthy cause or proving we’re way ahead of the competition, from our charity work to our award wins, check out all the good stuff we’ve been up to.
When it comes to doing our bit we do the lot. Whether it’s running, riding, jumping from a plane whatever - if it raises money and helps make a difference we’ll do it. See, charity may begin at home.
Extreme weather did not halt this awesome challenge on the Exmoor National Park. 150 people, including our brave participants, rose above the elements in September 2008 to complete the Cap Gemini Wild UK Challenge, raising over £100,000 for The Prince’s Trust.
I raised over £1,000 for the Levana School Partnership and the team and I are extremely grateful for everyone’s donations.
I finished the run in 58 minutes, managing to slip past both a cheering wife and son and fresh film crew – so I’m sorry but there are no photos of me staggering over the finish line!
fresh Director, Julie Besbrode, chose to mark a prestigious awards win by donating £2,000 to The Robert Whiteson Memorial Fund for Research into Hodgkin’s Disease. The fund was launched in memory of her first cousin, who died from the disease.
Robert Whiteson, from Gatley near Cheadle, was a former patient at The Christie and the Manchester Royal Infirmary. He died twenty years ago and the memorial fund supports a research doctor at the MRI as well as providing donations for essential equipment.
The donation came off the back of fresh scooping the highly covetable Young Business of the Year title at the 2005 Manchester Evening News Business Awards, a mere 14 months after the company’s inception.
Julie, was “on cloud nine” at the win. She said: “This is a tremendous honour that we barely dared to hope for, given that fresh was only eleven months old when we submitted our entry. I’m proud and delighted to be able to share our success with such an important cause as The Robert Whiteson Memorial Fund, which conducts vital research into Hodgkin’s disease.”
fresh launched the Nigel Griffiths memorial award back in 2006. The charitable fund is in memory of Nigel Griffiths, a talented young designer, who lost his battle to throat cancer three years ago. Nigel was a close friend and mentor of fresh director, Nick Porter. Following a lengthy search for a suitable cause, the donation to the LinkIT Centre is the award’s inaugural project.
The LinkIT centre is a unique project that offers computer-based, design-led activities and education to young people. Visitors to the centre are mostly aged between 14 and 16 and are outside of mainstream education. Many of the children who attend have learning difficulties and complicated home lives. Nick believes that the donation will be extremely well spent as he suffers from dyslexia himself and understands the barriers that youngsters can encounter throughout their education.
Nick said: “I’m delighted to honour Nigel’s memory in this way. He helped me so much through the early stages of my career and he’d be thrilled to know that fresh is able to support others like this. The LinkIT Centre is a really exciting initiative, and it’s doing great things for kids who are otherwise lacking in support. If, by providing them with the right tools, we can help them pursue a career in design, we’ll be over the moon!”
Winning isn’t everything but nothing beats beating the rest and racking up some awards. They prove it’s not just us who believes we’re the best. So why not check out some of the gongs currently gracing our trophy cabinet.
Won after first year of trading in 2005 impressing the judges with our early win of business with Marks & Spencer. The trophy was presented to the fresh directors by Shadow Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon William Hague MP William Hague.
Nick Porter was awarded the title of Cheshire Young Director of the Year 2007 at the Institute of Directors (IoD) annual awards ceremony, held at the City of Manchester Stadium. IoD North West regional chairman Ann Jordan said: "Nick has clearly shown a great deal of energy in building up a successful business, now worth £5m, while not losing sight of the need to invest in people and find new ways of doing things."
Julie Besbrode Co-Founder & Director of fresh made the final 40, under the age of 40, carefully selected from a long list of worthy nominees, due to her overall impact within the Greater Manchester business community. Julie was presented with her Award at a special dinner at The Midland Hotel on Thursday June 19th 2008.
The awards recognise the passion and drive behind entrepreneurial businesses, whether private or listed, family-owned or private equity backed, across all commercial and industrial sectors and at any stage of business development, so imagine co-founding directors Julie Besbrode & Nick Porters pride at being nominated as finalists for the North, held at the new Manchester Hilton Hotel hosting one of its first events.
The Awards took place on Thursday 29 November 2007 at indigO2 at The O2, where fresh was awarded Bronze for Business Event of the Year for producing the M&S Head Office Annual Conference at Earls Court.
The SWOT Awards, the annual celebration of marketing excellence, was held in 2008 at Manchester's Hilton Hotel, where fresh was nominated for a potential hat trick including the Abbey Convention at Olympia, M&S's Head Office event and 'Another 48 Hours' video for Best Direct & Promotional Strategy.
That's right - it was celebrations a plenty on table 9 at the Marketing Industry Network awards as fresh scooped Events Company of the Year. Nick joined Julie on stage to accept the award to much cheering and even some whooping from the fresh team, although table mounted cheering was sadly prohibited. We obviously intimidated the other nominee in our category with just our submission, as they didn't actually turn up for the evening’s entertainment... well; we are scarily good at what we do...
According to the judges at MIN fresh were awarded the title for our "...ability to handle a huge activity base, [our] strong commitment to delivery, being ethical and people focussed..."
What a night!
Sometimes setting new standards means meeting those that are already out there. So to make sure our people, practices and procedures are bang up to date and totally up to scratch we do what we do in line with all relevant ISO standards.
