The Brighter Community

Brighter Connections was founded by Darren Stringer in 2003 after spending 23 years in the I.T. industry. The final 4 years were working for a big, fast expanding corporate and whilst it would be wrong to suggest money was not donated to charitable causes etc, charity did not always begin at home as you might say.

Whilst having the need to make a profit to survive, we feel a sense of community with our clients, our suppliers and our colleagues, all of whom play a part in our trading style and support our ethos of equitable trading.

We try to reduce our carbon footprint and embrace technologies that impact the environment in the least damaging manner.

Practical examples of this include:

• Many of our client demonstrations can now be delivered via a web based seminar reducing travelling to zero
• We have promoted the Cycle to Work scheme and a number of staff regularly cycle to work reducing car usage by over 100 miles per week
• We encourage the use of rail travel for business meetings as opposed to taking a car wherever possible

In other ways we are able to carry this ethos and community spirit beyond our trading borders and into the wider community.

Our community work in recent years has included some of the following:

• Kirklees Cycling Academy - This is a club dedicated to helping children aged 10-18 access competitive cycling. As founder members of the club, Brighter Connections have raised significant commercial sponsorship that has helped provide such facilities as 15 sets of racing rollers that allow indoor winter training and Rent-A-Racer where club members can rent a road racing bike for £5 per event to compete in local and national race leagues. Such race bikes would normally cost between £500 and £750 each and can be out of reach for many families. More information can be found at http://www.k-ca.org
• Go-Ride Coaching - Darren Stringer helps run Go-Ride Coaching every Saturday morning along with Ivan Boyes and Huddersfield Star Wheelers. Coaching sessions for 6-14 year olds at Newsome Sports College are proving popular with 11 riders attending the last session. Coaches Darren Stringer and Ivan Boyes set up some fun ‘Devil’ races to test the riders’ group riding skills. Over the next few weeks the sessions will include some Cyclo Cross skills as the Yorkshire Summer Cyclo Cross series starts on Wednesday May 5th at Oakbank School in Keighley. For further information on Star Wheelers’ Go Ride, contact Ivan on 01484 302846 or email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
• The West Yorkshire Forget Me Not Trust - The aim of the West Yorkshire Forget Me Not Trust is to provide care and support for children with life-limiting conditions. Those children and their families are from the Kirklees, Calderdale and Wakefield areas of West Yorkshire. Brighter Connections have raised over £750 in sponsorship through the generous donations of customers, suppliers and family members when Darren Stringer ran the Sheffield Half Marathon in a time of 1 hour 51 minutes (not bad for a non-runner at the first attempt), although he needed a day off to get over the suffering! We also support the charity by providing redundant IT free of charge and new IT with no profit added to help them maximise the use of their budgets. More information can be found at http://www.forgetmenottrust.co.uk
• Acorns - A Children’s Respite Centre in Birmingham where one of our previous clients was a Trustee. With donations of IT from suppliers and Brighter Connections, we were able to assist Acorns in raising much needed funding to carry on their good work. More information can be found at http://www.acorns.org.uk
• Lineham Farm Children’s Charity - A farm and outdoor adventure centre based in Leeds. Through a charity fund raising race night we were able to raise close to £1000 towards the upkeep and running of the farm which helps disadvantaged children access a 5 day holiday learning about animals, teamwork, sailing, climbing and a number of other skills whilst having fun during their stay at the farm. Further information can be found at http://www.linehamfarm.co.uk

If your organisation would like to join Brighter Connections in any of its community work or support any of the community causes above, please contact Claire Phillips on 03707 551515