Hospice Bowling Challenge!
Every year a Corporate Bowling Evening is held to raise funds on behalf of Bolton Hospice.
Rok Bolton entered two teams named "Rokset and Fraggle Rok" which consisted of a mixture of employees from Housing, Maintenance and PHE. Two games of ten pin bowling were played in an attempt to win a bottle of champagne.
First place went Engineering Services and Seddons took second and third place. A good time was had by all and it raised £1,300.00 for this good cause.
A further donation was raised by the Bolton team taking part in Dress Down Fridays where each employee who joins in donates £1 to charity.
Health and Safety at Healing Primary School
Following comprehensive safety talks given by Rok, pupils at Healing Primary School have created educational posters highlighting the key health and safety issues on all construction sites.
Rok has been on site for eight weeks at the school building three new classrooms, a link corridor and toilets. The £356,000 project for North East Lincolnshire Council is due to be completed and handed over at the end of May 2010.
The poster competition was held with the classes who will benefit from the new buildings, with the intention of highlighting the importance of health and safety.
"All the posters were fantastic and showed how well the children had listened in the talks a couple of weeks earlier," said site manager Andy Winn. "The posters emphasised the importance of wearing the correct Personal Protective Equipment on site and never using building sites as a playground."
The winning posters have been printed onto corex board and pinned onto the fencing at the site entrance to remind all Rok employees,
visitors and school children of the dangers of construction sites.
Photo: The winners with their posters.
Rok raises the stakes with charity challenge
Big hearted builders at Rok and friends at NPS Group have succeeded in their toughest charity challenge yet and raised nearly £4,000 for a charity that helps children with rare genetic disorders, one of which affects the son of one of their colleagues.
The property repair and maintenance specialists have a tradition, going back nearly 10 years now, of undertaking gruelling physical exertions and encouraging colleagues, friends and supporters to sponsor them in aid of deserving local causes.
Having completed several challenges on the country’s highest mountains and canoed down the river Wye, the intrepid fund raisers decided this year to return to climbing but go for an astonishing 15 peaks in Snowdonia in just three days to help a cause that is very close to home.
Fifteen people from Rok’s Torquay office started training for the trip at the beginning of the year inspired by the knowledge that their efforts would bring in much needed cash for the MPS Society, which helps families with children suffering from MPS Diseases, including Hurler Syndrome. They chose to support this cause because the one year old son of colleague Shane Jeffery, Corey, was diagnosed with the condition. Corey’s grandfather and uncle, also work for Rok.
For this challenge Rok also enlisted the help of property consultants NPS Group who work closely with them and were happy to join in. All but one of the team made it back from the mountains in one piece with the only casualty being David Bray who took a tumble on day two and cracked a couple of ribs. He said he was ‘gutted’ not to complete the course but delighted the rest of the team made it to the finish.
“It was great to have the opportunity to do something you would never expect to have the opportunity to do and for such a worthy cause,” said David. His sentiments were shared by his colleagues. Andy Gulley, Rok Carpenter added “I absolutely loved it. I will definitely return there - it makes Devon look so flat! We experienced some hairy moments on the first day, but overall it was like a holiday from life, getting away from the same routine, and experiencing something so completely different.”
Another Rok colleague, Richard Potts described the event as ‘one of the hardest physical challenges of my life.’
Nick Cook from NPS said: “It was a superb weekend. I had hugely under estimated how challenging it was going to be, and was often glad of the banter with others just to keep going up the mountains.
“Knowing that we were raising money for such a worthy cause and that supporters would be at the end of each section with re-hydration supplies I think helped everybody complete what I thought was a genuinely difficult challenge”.
Corey’s Mum Teresa said her son’s condition, which was affecting his hearing, sight, breathing and bone formation, was not curable but there were treatments available that would help slow down the progression of the disorder and help Corey live a much more fulfilled life and drastically prolong his life expectancy.
Rok Responds to Local School’s Fencing SOS
When teachers at Canada Hill Primary School in Ogwell, Newton Abbot desperately needed fencing to stop children reaching the steep dangerous embankments around their garden club area, they turned to Rok.
The Torquay team responded to the SOS from the school and agreed to do their best to help out. They approached one of their local fencing contractors and asked if they would be willing to donate some materials to meet the school’s needs.
To the delight of the Torquay team and the school, Ben Nock Fencing of Bovey Tracey responded positively. Fencing Company owner Ben Nock was more than willing to support the community project.
Jackie Horsfall of Rok and Ben arranged to meet Canada Hill teachers, Chris Ames and Alan Bartlett who gave them a tour around the areas that were causing concern as a safety risk.
Andy Braund, Rok Torquay Area Leader said “As the Nation’s Local Builder, we very much value the strong relationships we have in the communities we serve so naturally we were happy to offer to help out when we heard what was required”.
Ben Nock added “Rok have always supported us and it is great to be able to return our support in such a good way, working together with the school to benefit our local community”.
Canada Hill Primary School takes environmental education very seriously and is constantly looking for new ways to become greener and to help the children recognise the individual role they can play. The school has a thriving Gardening Club and active Eco-Council.
Head Teacher, Miss Delphine Knott commented that “ This has given a real moral boost to the small group of teachers and parents who have been giving up their time to further extend and update our growing areas. We will now get other community groups involved to help us erect the fencing and new greenhouse and potting shed!
Workers from the probation service’s Community Payback scheme have spent two days in the school already, helping staff and parents clear the site for the new allotment, and have removed the old greenhouse. They will now be coming back to help a working party of parents and teachers to put up the fence and garden buildings”.
Mrs Chris Ames, who has co-ordinated the project said “This is fabulous, with Rok and Ben Nock Fencing’s help we can really move the project on. We have also had fantastic help from our PTA who have raised the money to pay for the new greenhouse for the site. Now we can prepare for our first ever entry at the Devon County Show next year!
The garden is now set to be up and growing in the spring and the staff and pupils are looking forward to seeing their hard work pay off with lots of yummy fruit and vegetables.
True Grit
Rok started work late one morning and yet they received nothing but praise from their customer.
The day in question, much of England woke to find roads impassable. A team of five stalwarts from Rok, including senior site manager, Jason Madeley, made it onto site at Sheffield High School for Girls where Rok is building an extension to the sixth form college and found they were among the first to arrive.
“It was pretty obvious that none of the pupils or staff would make it safely,” says Jason, “so we pitched in with other early arrivals to make things safer.”
The school’s business manager, Kath White, says Jason and the Rok lads have always been a joy to work with; but their actions over the ice showed ‘true grit’. “Both the school and the parents as well as our neighbourhood residents couldn’t help noticing Jason and how cheerful he was organising the whole operation. I’ve never seen him without a smile on his face – he’s an absolute credit to the company,” says Kath.
Emma Dickson, a member of the school’s PE staff, says the endless carrying of buckets and spreading grit was made light work with so many hands. “The sight of the burly builders carrying lots of little school bags down the road while the girls clung to teachers was wonderful to see. This was a real community effort, both pupils and many local residents are very grateful.”
Residents of the Southbourne Road conservation area have added their own words of praise in emails and comments to the school.