Bristow Helicopters Employees Take on Local Project

Bristow Helicopters Employees Take on Local Project

 

Green-fingered staff from Bristow Helicopters Ltd spent Wednesday 24 April volunteering at Harlaw Day Centre’s Pitscurry Project in Inverurie.

 

 

The day was part of Bristow Helicopters’ Uplift initiative, aimed at making a positive difference to the communities in which the company operates.

  

The Harlaw Day Centre, run by Aberdeenshire Council, provides a wide range of day services to adults with disabilities from sport, education, work and specialist therapies. Since 2001, the centre’s Pitscurry Project, which the council runs in partnership with Pitcaple Environmental Project Ltd, has turned the surrounding six-acres of derelict ground into a hive of outdoor activity including an apiary, vegetable plot, workshop space and specially designed sensory garden with large xylophones for making music. The space is used by around 100 services users each week for training and recreation.

 

Bristow Helicopters’ volunteers spent the day doing all manner of tasks from gardening, trimming hedges and planting trees to painting fences and constructing Polly tunnels.

 

Bristow Uplift is a global initiative and sees Bristow Helicopters’ employees volunteering at a wide range of charities, social enterprises and not-for-profit organisations across the world in communities where the company has a presence.

 

Ellie Runciman, HR Manager, Global Centralised Operations, at Bristow Helicopters Ltd, said: “The Harlaw Day Centre is a marvellous local resource which has wonderful facilities for its service users. The work they have put into transforming the grounds is just phenomenal. The team were more than happy to go along for the day and get stuck in helping them to maintain and plant new trees in the gardens as well as a lick of paint for some fences which they have recently erected.

 

“Our employees are now looking forward to other worthwhile projects that they can get involved in with Bristow Uplift’s support.”

 

John North, Harlaw Day Centre Manager, added: “The work carried out by Bristow Helicopters at the Pitscurry Project was really useful on so many levels. Not only did lots of physical work get carried out but there was also a great deal of learning on both sides. We are always looking at ways of improving social inclusion for the service users and volunteering days like this are a really positive step forward.”

Find out more about the Pitscurry Project by visiting their Facebook page.

 

 

About the Uplift Project

Bristow Uplift Mission Statement

Bristow Group is committed to ensure the safety of our colleagues and clients and responsibly operate in the communities in which we live and work. Through Bristow Uplift, we align these business practices with social investments that will make a positive difference, build strong community relationships, and create long-term value for our business.

 

About Bristow Helicopters Ltd.

Bristow Helicopters Ltd. is an affiliated company of Bristow Group Inc. the leading provider of helicopter services to the worldwide offshore energy industry based on the number of aircraft operated and one of two helicopter service providers to the offshore energy industry with global operations. The Company has major operations in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea, and operations in most of the other major offshore oil and gas producing regions of the world, including Alaska, Australia, Brazil, Nigeria, Russia and Trinidad.

 

About Harlaw Day Centre

The Harlaw centre is operated by Aberdeenshire Council and first opened in 1978 to provide day services for adults with learning and or physical disabilities. Over the years the service has grown and now includes a specialist autism service alongside the traditional day service. As the emphasis in day service provision has moved towards more social inclusion and community involvement a number of external projects have been set up to facilitate this. These projects include the Community News (a sixteen page, quarterly, colour magazine featuring stories from the local community) and the Pitscurry project which provides work experience, craft activities and community integration for up to 100 service users per week.

R U OK? Photos Posted Here

“Well done and thank you to everyone who participated in the R U OK? Day in Global COBU and EBU, and for helping to make the day a success.  The external speakers were impressed by the turnout at the events, and thoroughly enjoyed getting to know you all.  It was also great to see so many people wearing yellow, and enjoying the cupcakes and doughnuts!  Remember that the R U OK? initiative is not just one day of fun, it is about looking out for your fellow employees, and being there when things are not ok.”

 Ellie Runciman

HR Manager, Global Centralised Operations.

 

Please use the following links for additional resources.

 

The Samaritains

 

Mindfulness

Meditation

 

Bristow Uplift

R U OK? 2012

The R U OK? initiative took place today across Bristow to help promote awareness of emotional health, and employee wellbeing. 

We were fortunate enough to be supported by 3 different groups delivering talks and workshops, all of which were well attended and initial reports filtering back are all positive.

Keep looking in on the blog over the next couple of days as reports, pictures, links to the support organisations and testimonials are gathered and published. In the meantime here is a picture of where I was taken during the mindfulness workshop delivered by Bob and George, an experience I will draw upon in the future.

Photographs from the COBU/EBU Bristow Uplift Day

at Camphill School, Aberdeen

on 14 March 2012

You can also check out the article on the Camphill website:  http://www.camphillaberdeen.org.uk/news/files/0c9705dd584464820089d046ff647b62-109.php 

you can also visit the STV Local press release at:

http://local.stv.tv/aberdeen/news/31209-helicopter-firm-lends-helping-hand/