Members of our Sales and Marketing teams recently headed to a local country park to use their paid CSR day, a perk Ellison offers to all employees. Tŷ Mawr Country Park lies on the banks of the River Dee in the Vale of Llangollen, part of the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – near to our UK office in Wrexham, North Wales. The park relies on volunteers to help carry out maintenance work and care for the animals. Unfortunately, during and since COVID they have been unable to continue with their regular volunteers, which puts extra pressure on the Park Rangers, who were delighted to have some extra help from the Ellison team.
The teams spent the day re-painting the animal houses (and sneaking a cuddle with a few of them!), removing old and rotting fences, cleaning out the duck ponds and helping to build a new pond in an enclosed area for the ducks to live in during the inevitable bird lockdown due to Avian Flu this winter. We also undertook mass weeding and pruning on the hedges and herb gardens near the entrance.
Sales Administrator Chelsea Hart, who organised one of the visits was delighted with the passion the team put in; “Every member of the team gave it their all to give the park a much-needed refresh, as was evidenced by some sore limbs the following day! I’m really proud of the team for putting in so much hard work, as Tŷ Mawr is somewhere a lot of local people hold dear and the Park Rangers couldn’t have been happier with the love and attention we showed to the park. Tŷ Mawr is a beautiful farm and country park that spans a huge area that includes the River Dee and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, somewhere a lot of local families enjoy!”
This day was supported by the Ellison People Strategy which was introduced in 2021. The strategy focuses on supporting our employees in all aspects, with a big focus on wellbeing. One of the benefits to be introduced was a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Day, which allows employees to take one paid day off a year to volunteer or engage in other charitable functions. Bethany Tidd, Ellison’s HR Administrator said,
“Corporate social responsibility is all about companies playing their part in society and giving back, and a big part of that is fundraising for worthy causes. At Ellison we launched this initiative for all employees to take part by doing a variety of fundraising events, in order us to give back to the community and is important for employees to have this opportunity to participate. Not only does it make a change to people’s lives it also educates us as a company by raising awareness of various issues.”