Now The Dust Has Settled

Nearly a week has past since our heroics on Sport Relief night. Sleep has been caught up on and exercise regimes have been put into place to shed the weight gained from living off pizza, sweets and potato-based snacks for the evening.

Our brilliant call team, made up from permanent staff and friends, handled £60k in donations on the night, which for a small call centre was pretty good going.

We would just like to say one last HUGE thank you to everybody that volunteered and to all the companies that supported us including Esporta Health Clubs, Cafe Rococo in Botley, Booker Cash & Carry of Oxford, The Oxford Playhouse, Rapture EntertainmentWitney, Domino’s Pizza, Eggs Etcetera, Summerhouse Records and TunA the Day Ltd.

And….the biggest thanks of all to Rebekah and Paula B who worked like troopers all night – without them it would have been total chaos

Comic Relief – bring it on!!!

I Can Feel It Yawning In The Air Tonight…..

So nearly there – just broke the £50K barrier. Richard Hawkins has just put Phil Collins on – I think it’s time we all went home!!

£40K and still going

It’s 10:45pm and the end is in sight

We’ve just hit the £40,000 mark which is great news. The high energy drinks, packets and peanuts and chocolate bars are doing a storm. The average gift is over £36 and the average weight gain is 3lbs per agent.

We’re OFF

7:04pm and the lines have gone red hot.

Biggest donation so far £1,000 – smallest 50p!!

I’m off to Domino’s to pick up the pizzas!

BT – Bit Late

Itching to get going – should’ve gone live at 6.30pm, but British Telecom are having a few hiccups. You can feel the nervous tension around the place and this is having the knock-on effect that all the food we’ve supplied is vanishing quick.

I’ve had to put signs asking people to ease off so that those on the phones get some food. It’s like rationing during WWII

A Little on the Tight Side

At 5.35pm we ran into our first glitch. Richard Hawkins needed to test all the phone lines before we opened at 6pm, but the call centre was so full of our lovely volunteers that nobody could hear them ring, so the briefing had to take place in the admin centre – 72 people crammed into a space designed to take 25 – cosy.

At least people got to know each other rather quickly!!!

Tonight’s The Night

After weeks of preparation and perspiration we finally go live at 6pm TONIGHT as a Sports Relief Donation Call Centre.

We’ve spent the day rigging up chill out rooms, collecting donations of food and drink from our wonderful supporters (big thanks to Domino’s Pizza, Bookers, Rococo Cafe, and Eggs Etcetera) and making sure that all the phone lines and computer terminals are working. Now, with just 2 hours to go we’re sitting back necking high energy drinks and crossing our fingers and toes.

I’m going to blogging throughout the evening so I’ll let you know how we get on!!

Local Shops For Local People

I think it would be fair to say that most of us enjoy the convenience and cost saving benefits of shopping at the nearest mega-everything-under-one-roof hypermarket, but don’t you ever hanker after a shop where they know you by name and take time over serving you?

My local record store Rapture may charge 1 or 2 £’s more for a CD than Woolies or Tesco, but I am happy to pay that because of the superb levels of customer care you get.

One of TPR’s clients The Campaign to Protect Rural England are trying to put in place controls to stop the big supermarket chains monopolising rural town centres, which leads to increased pollution from food miles and vanishing local businesses and jobs.

Food for thought the next time you are going down the freezer aisle and if you can ‘go local’ just remember – every little helps

Tie Me Kangeroo Down Sport (Relief)

The full enormity of our offer to run a donation line for Sport Relief night is starting to really hit home, but our preparations are coming on in leaps and bounds (in fact we would probably get a medal in leaping and bounding at the moment).

Our wonderful call team and call centre management have really got behind us (I wonder if all the CDs, theatre tickets and DVDs we’re offering as sweeteners has had an effect?) and we’re getting local businesses to supply food and drink for the evening.

We’re also going to turn the board room into a chill out space with music from the bosses’ I-Pod (sorry Richard H, no Carpenters and Eagles) so watch out for the odd stray pizza slice during the next directors meeting!!

And…we’ll be video blogging the event (fingers crossed) so you’ll be able to see some of the staff’s ugly mugs on You Tube.

With a bit of luck we MIGHT even get the odd sporting celeb to come down….I wonder what Tim Henman is up to?

PS – We’ve just seen that we are the top story on the UK’s leading fundraising website Fundraising UK. CLICK to read

That’s Gotta Hurt!

I’ve been trying to get some technical information out of TPR’s Head of IT Richard Hawkins for a blog about the company’s throbbing server room. ‘I’m too busy’ is the normal response I get (which I can well understand) but today I got an email from him saying that he’s fractured his wrist trying to jump over a recycle bin. Whether this happened at work or at home is unclear, as is the height of said bin.

We wish him a speedy recovery. Does this mean that IT now stands for I Tripped?