Ricoh’s Northampton call centre helps Children in Need

Ricoh’s Northampton call centre helps Children in Need

London, 28 November 2011 – Ricoh UK, a specialist in office solutions, managed document services and production printing, helped to process around £114,000 in donations after its Northampton call centre was appointed one of the official call centre’s for this year’s BBC Children in Need Appeal. Over 90 staff from across the business, including senior management, technicians and customer service staff manned the phones until 2am to help answer thousands of donation calls.

Building up to the evening, the Ricoh UK volunteers dressed up as well-known film characters, with face painting supplied by local business ‘Fantastic Faces’. Various activities were also hosted to raise money including cake and book sales, leg waxing for the male colleagues, and face painting. There was also an online auction which in itself helped to raise £1,319. Local businesses in Northampton also donated items for an office raffle as well as food to keep the volunteers going throughout the night and into the early hours of Saturday morning. In addition to the auction, on the day Ricoh UK employees raised £3,425.97 through fundraising, which Ricoh more than matched, giving a total in excess of £8,000.

Ricoh’s team of volunteers took calls from a variety of donors, from individuals and businesses pledging thousands of pounds, to children who were donating their pocket money or sponsorship money they had raised by wearing pyjamas all day at school, cake making and sponsored silences.

Marco Pezzani, National Customer Services Director of Ricoh UK, said: “This was the first year that Ricoh took part in Children in Need and we were honoured to be involved in such a fantastic event. Our Ricoh volunteers were privileged to be involved in such a major drive to help disadvantaged children and young people across the UK.  We’re proud at the amount of donations that we helped to raise at Ricoh through our own activities and through helping others to make their donations through our call centre.”

The BBC Children in Need Appeal, which took place on Friday, 18 November, is one of the UK’s longest running telethon appeals with 2011 being its 32nd year. This year, the event raised a record £26.3 million on the night, £8million more than last year.

For more information visit www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey