CRY was very grateful for Unum’s support throughout 2014. They raised a wonderful £35,000 from their various fundraising efforts throughout the year.

“Unum is really proud to have supported CRY as our national charity in 2014, and to raise a staggering £35,000 for such a worthy cause is fantastic. We have had an action-packed year with our colleagues across the UK supporting CRY through a wide range of fundraising and volunteering activities, including marathons, cycle rides, treks, gala balls, comedy nights and a good old-fashioned bake or two! Thank you to everyone at CRY for being such supportive charity partners and we wish you all the very best for 2015 and beyond.”

Susan Sanderson
Corporate Social Responsibility Manager
Unum UK

Alison Cox MBE, Founder and Chief Executive of CRY says: “We were very proud to have been chosen by Unum as their National Charity Partner for 2014 and are most grateful to them and, in particular, the CSR team and the Charity Champions and their committees for their great enthusiasm and hard work throughout the year. They created a stimulating programme of events that must have taken an enormous amount of their time, and which we recognise was in addition to their own workload at Unum. The £35,300 raised for CRY will significantly help towards CRY achieving its ambitious goals, and the awareness raised of our work amongst Unum staff, clients and visitors will have helped us to reach a much wider audience than has previously been achievable. The CRY Fundraising Team have enjoyed working closely with the Unum CSR Department throughout the year, as well as meeting staff at their Conference and the Aspire Awards. We would like to also thank them for taking such an active part in CRY place events, such as BUPA 10k, Run to the Beat 10k, Ride London Surrey 100 and the Great North Run. On behalf of everyone at CRY, I would like to conclude by saying a massive thank you to everyone at Unum and to wish them every success with their future charity partners.”

Unum Fundraising so far…

London Regional Sales Office Quiz Night – November 2014

It was a packed house in the Fulwood bar for Unum’s London Office’s second annual pub quiz night in aid of national charity partner, CRY.

Competition was described as ‘fierce but friendly’ between Unum UK departmental teams from around the business and teams from two London brokers.

Quizmasters for the evening, Key Account Managers Tom Hunt and Mark Nicholson, did a fantastic job of presenting 5 rounds of questions and a music round taking everyone through the 1970s all the way up to the 2010s and beyond!

Cheating was strictly prohibited and anyone caught using a smartphone mid-round had to pay the penalty of an extra £5 in the CRY pot!

Between rounds there was a competition to guess the number of chocolates in a tub of Heroes and guess the combined age of the London Consultants (an impressive 255 years!).

The victors were a team from Marketing – Andrew Potterton, Serban Suvagau, Darren Mooney, Jason Hicklin and Stuart Demmon. But of course the overall victors were CRY and we’re so proud to have raised a whopping £452.68 for such a great cause!

A big thank you to all colleagues who come up to London on a cold, wet November night and made the evening such a great success!

Unum Heritage Weekend – 13th-14th September 2014

Last weekend, (Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th September), leading financial protection insurance company and CRY Corporate partner, Unum, opened the doors of its Dorking-based…Read more

Unum Basingstoke Village Fete – 25th August 2014

On 25th August 2014, Unum’s Basingstoke office held their annual Village Fete in the car park. They had a variety of fun and games including the Stocks – where various people from around the office donated their time to get soaked for charity. An ice cream van was on hand in the car park and Baxter Storey (the company’s caterers) donated all money raised from every hot drinks sold during the day. In total this helped them raise in excess of £500.00, with all money being donated to Cardiac Risk in the Young.

Laura Balcombe taking part in the Ride London-Surrey 100

Durham Riverside Walk sponsorship packs – 1st August 2014

Staff from Unum’s Bristol office supported CRY with vital work to support one of their major fundraisers this year, the Durham Riverside Walk on 4 October. Around 100 Bristol employees worked together on a balmy Friday afternoon to put together 250 sponsorship and information packs for the event which is aiming to raise at least £15,000 that will go towards CRY’s Research Fellow programme.

Unum’s annual Sales Conference – July 2014

Cannes’ star-studded film history formed the theme as attendees at Unum’s annual Sales Conference 2014 helped to raise funds for Cardiac Risk in the Young.

Split into six teams, sales material was swapped for smartphones as they became paparazzi for a lifestyle magazine for the day, tasked with locating a newsworthy celebrity in disguise.

Armed with a QR code reader, a road map and a coded message, the teams tramped the streets of Cannes in pursuit of clues and their elusive quarry.

To get the keys needed to crack the code, the teams also participated in two movie missions. In the first, they were interrogated on their film knowledge, (standing on the red-carpeted steps of the famous Film Festival) and in the second, the teams guessed movie tunes – played on a French accordion.

Team ‘Star Watch’, captained by Jamie Gayton, Sales Manager Midlands and Unum’s regional offices Charity Champion, won the day with a total of 680 points and with all the accumulated points converted to the equivalent pounds, a grand total of £3,250 was raised for CRY.

Thanks to the teams’ efforts, the money has helped fund a Cardiac Screening event at St George’s Hospital in London which will provide screening for 100 people. A tremendous achievement and thanks to everyone involved.

Unum Dorking Sports Day 

Unum Dorking’s Red & Black Summer Ball

Andy Thomas completing the Birmingham Fun Run

AMP UK team completed the 3 Peaks Challenge

The AMP UK team took on the Three Peaks Challenge as part of Unum’s support of CRY this year. Team members were Gareth Pugh, Gemma McFadyen, Andrew Thomson, Ross Bird, Jenna Harvey, Kristan Hughes and Lesley Grace and they raised a fantastic £5952.34.

Reading Half Marathon – 2nd March 2014
Damien Hersey took part in the Reading Half Marathon 2014 in memory of his sister Leighane and with the aim of break the current Guinness World record for the fastest half marathon in an animal costume. Damien managed to beat the previous best and claim the world record with a time of 1:28:41 and raised a wonderful £1,533.60 for CRY.