To celebrate our 10th Birthday last August, It was decided that Spindogs would raise £10,000 for charity. Why you may ask?
Here at Spindogs we pride ourselves on the work we do for charities throughout the year, the events we attend and the sponsorship that we donate and because of this we wanted to set ourselves the challenge to see how many different charities and events that we could help throughout the year.
When you think how many charities are out there, it seems like an easy task. But we wanted the whole team to be able to take part; we wanted to encourage our clients to get involved, and finally we wanted to support our friends with the charity work that they were participating in.
Here are some of our top fundraising activities that we took part in….
BulliesOut Fire Walk: £300
When we sent out the memo for some brave souls to walk on fire for charity, Rhys and Jon were the first to step forward. With only a couple of hours training the boys took to the fire for a charity that does exactly what it says on the tin.
BulliesOut help and support young people who have been effected by bullying and aims to educate people on how to cope if they are ever stuck in situations like this.
Ty-Hafan Rainbow Run: £440
How do you make a 5k run more exciting? Hold it on the beach and have volunteers throw paint at everyone who runs!
The 8 of us had 3 months to prepare ourselves and train slowly and steadily for the race. As ever April came around very quickly and training consisted of early morning gym sessions, power runs around Roath Park and the uncertainty of whether any of us would actually make the 5k!
As we collected our sponsorship money we knew that there was no backing out, and on a beautiful sunny day in April we all completed the event we had been training so hard for. To make us even prouder, Jon Bauer, one of our designers not only completed the race, but came 2nd out of 1,353 runners! Go Jon!
Doggy Day for Cardiff Dogs Home: £113
This was an event we had been looking forward to all year! The team love dogs and this event allowed us to raise money and make more doggy friends. We decided to hold our version of a ‘doggy picnic’, offering doggy treats and games for our clients and friends of the dog home. The event took place on a Saturday morning and lucky for us the weather was a perfect summer’s day!
We were even fortunate enough to have Marieclaire from Made in Cardiff TV come down and film the event for her TV show ‘What’s Ocurrin’. Cardiff Dogs Home also brought a couple of their dogs down to support and we had a great 2 hours. I’m not sure who was more exhausted at the end, the team or the dogs!
Susie, Founder of Friends of the Dogs, explained to us how the money that we had raised helped to support and pay for the vets bills for 4 ill dogs who had been abandoned at the home so that they were ready to be available for adoption. The dogs are unable to be adopted until they have had all of the relevant checks and been signed off by the vet, our money helped speed this process along!
Christmas Jumper Day: £48
Save the Children Christmas Jumper is an annual fixture in the Spindogs calendar. It’s the time we can crack out our best jumpers and really get in the Christmassy mood! This year we had more staff than ever meaning more money for charity! It was also the perfect opportunity to hold our annual Christmas Jumper Day staff photo!
In total we supported 34 charities and ran over 31 miles! As well as baking at least 50 cakes and falling 190ft!
It is without saying, that without the support of both our clients and our team, we would not have achieved our goal this year! It has also showed us that no matter how big or small the donation, every penny counts, and because of this we raised £10,000! We want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for supporting us in so many different ways!
Bring on 2016!