Corporate Social Engagement Archives - Tandem Project Management

Irish Cancer Society – Daffodil Day Fundraiser

Tandem is supporting the Irish Cancer Society’s Daffodil Day fundraising throughout the month of March.

In 2020, an estimated 44,000 people in Ireland received a cancer diagnosis. That is 120 people per day, or 5 people per hour, hearing the words “you have cancer!”.

Tandem’s walking group have signed up to the walking challenge to fundraise, if you would like to support their efforts, you can do so here. Tandem also hosted a weeklong coffee morning during the week of Friday, March 25^th, to raise funds for Daffodil day.

Transition Year Visits 2022

Tandem was delighted to host a series of virtual visits to transition year students in Cork. Eight engineers from Tandem gave presentations across the following disciplines: Electrical, CSA, Building Services, Energy, CAD/BIM, and Process Engineering.

Each engineer delivered an overview of engineering as a career and their own career path to date. The presentations included their second and third level education journey, a description of the type of work & industries that their engineering discipline is typically involved in, their day-to-day activities in their engineering work and their career aspirations.

CSR Update 2021

Tandem chose three charity partners in 2021, Focus Ireland, Make-A-Wish Ireland, and The Rainbow Club – Centre for Autism. As usual, Tandem’s staff and contractors have gone above and beyond in their contributions to our fundraising efforts and in their event participation. To date, Tandem has raised over €6,000 for its chosen charities and its fundraising efforts continue throughout December. Below is a roundup of Tandem’s activities in 2021.

In March, Tandem participated in the Focus Ireland Camino de Quarantine, a virtual walk covering the distance from Saria to Santiago de Campostela, 114km of the French way of St. James. Tandem also fundraised for Easter Eggs that were delivered to both Focus Ireland and The Rainbow Club, just in time for Easter.

In October Tandem participated in Shine a Light Night, in their fundraising efforts for just one day the team surrendered a comfortable night in bed to experience a fraction of what homeless people endure every day.

Also in March, Tandem ran a competition to fundraise for Make-A-Wish Ireland, we packed a jar full of jellybeans and donators guessed the number of sweets in the jar. The closest guess was just 34 sweets off the total! The sweets were then donated to Temple Street children’s hospital.

Throughout July Tandem participated in Make-A-Wish Ireland’s “Wheels for Wishes” campaign. The challenge was to cycle 250km during the month. Also in July, we ran a Virtual Race Night, a night of horse racing with colleagues and their families that was good fun and for a great cause.

In October Tandem organised a fundraising hike on Carrauntoohil in aid of the Rainbow Club, it was a huge success and was a first for many of the participants. One of the highlights of The Rainbow Club’s year is the upcoming Santa visit, Tandem have also raised money to support the gift giving at that event. Tandem has volunteered some time to assist with clearing land for their expansion and will be back again over the coming weeks to further assist with the expansion and to help setting up their all-important Santa visit.

Throughout 2021 Tandem has also engaged with other charities, groups, and sports clubs, delivering sponsorship, and fundraising to support their work and their events. It has been a hugely successful year to date, we thank all our staff and contractors for their support and their time.

Tandem is delighted to round up a great year of Corporate Social Engagement with a very busy December supporting our charity partners. During December, Tandem raised €610 for the Rainbow Club’s Santa visit, and our personnel volunteered to help with Christmas preparation at the club.

Tandem has supported Focus Ireland by volunteering 24 hours during December at the Remembrance Christmas Tree on Patrick Street in Cork, of which Focus Ireland is one of the recipients this year. Our personnel also donated a collection of gift items to Focus Ireland in time for their Christmas delivery to clients.

To end our 2021 CSE programme, Tandem’s Christmas Quiz, Raffle and Auction raised €790 for Make-A-Wish Ireland.

The Rainbow Club Centre for Autism, Focus Ireland and Make-A-Wish Ireland perform amazing work in the service of others every day, and it has been a pleasure working with them all throughout this year. Tandem wishes to thank all of its personnel that have gone above and beyond in their contributions to our fundraising efforts and event participation in 2021!

Rotary Tree of Remembrance Focus Ireland

STEPS Young Engineers Award 2021

During November, Tandem’s Engineers have been participating in the Engineers Ireland – STEPS Young Engineers Award Programme. The STEPS Young Engineers Award encourages 3rd and 4th class pupils to explore the world of engineering by developing a project that would help to improve their local community. Students form an engineering team and take on the challenge of using an engineering approach to find solutions.

Tandem’s engineers delivered virtual presentations to participating classes outlining what it is like to work as an engineer, the students then had the opportunity to showcase their projects and to receive feedback. All of the teachers reported that the students were thrilled with the presentations and the feedback they received on their projects.

Tandem’s STEPS visits in numbers:

5 Tandem Engineers
5 Virtual School visits
3 Counties
23 Young Engineers Award Projects
117 Students

Thanks to Engineers Ireland STEPS for delivering this STEM initiative in primary schools nationwide. Tandem wishes all of the participating schools the very best of luck in the competition!

CSR Q3 Update

Wheels For Wishes

Throughout July Tandem participated in Make-A-Wish Ireland‘s “Wheels for Wishes” campaign and raised €500. The challenge was to cycle 250km during the month. Our intrepid cyclists braved the heat, battled the wind and endured the rain to raise funding that will help to grant wishes to Irish children with life-threatening medical conditions. Since 1992, Make-A-Wish has granted wishes for more than 2,600 brave children across Ireland!

The Rainbow Club

The Rainbow Club Cork – Centre for Autism held its annual fundraising golf classic early in September, Tandem was delighted to help sponsor this event.

Thrive Q3 Update

Thrive, Tandem’s EHS and Wellbeing initiative undertook a mid-year survey and received an overwhelmingly positive response as well as comments and suggestions of activities for Q3 and Q4. Thrive is delighted with the levels of participation in its wellbeing initiatives to date and look forward to delivering a fulfilling programme to the end of 2021 and beyond.

The positive response means that Thrive retains a lot of the initiatives that it started earlier this year such as our Cycling, Walking and Running Groups, the Book Club will continue to meet, and our lunchtime Pilates classes will resume this month. We will continue to send healthy recipe ideas to help with meal planning and to host lunch and learn events with upcoming topics to include mental health and resilience, ophthalmic health, money matters and more!

New initiatives include a gardening group. Mags Coughlan, Head Gardener in Ballymaloe House will join our gardening group once per quarter to discuss what’s happening in the garden during the coming season and what jobs are required to keep everything growing. Other new initiatives include HITT classes, language groups and a Nature Photography Competition that will run during October.

Thrive Q2 Update

Our Thrive committee has been busy during Q2, continuing our original activities and setting new goals and initiatives. Pilates classes and the book club have continued, along with our healthy recipe emails which have included seasonal foods and some BBQ ideas, ideal for this time of year.

The Thrive exercise groups are very active, our walking group’s latest challenge is to complete the Wild Atlantic Way, taking it in stages from Donegal to Cork, a distance of 2,600km in total. So far, they have walked over 860km and are ‘virtually’ in Achill, Co. Mayo. Our running and cycling groups are also undertaking their own Wild Atlantic Way distance challenges.

We had a fantastic response to our Children’s Art Competition in May, it was great to see such involvement and imagination from the participants, you can check out all of the entries here!

Thrive have held monthly lunch and learns sessions, in April we welcomed Mags Coughlan, Head Gardener from Ballymaloe House for some gardening tips. In recognition of May as Skin Cancer Awareness month, we hosted Michelle Dolan, Michelle Greenwood and Carmel Blake from the Irish Skin Foundation for a sun awareness and skin cancer prevention talk. To celebrate World Nutrition and Hydration week in June, we asked Marc Murphy, Nutritional Therapist, Lecturer and Clinic Supervisor with the College of Naturopathic Medicine in Cork to speak about quality hydration and summertime nutrition.

May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month concept. Template for background, banner, card, poster with text inscription. Vector EPS10 illustration

Thrive Wellbeing Initiative

Entering 2021 under lockdown conditions, Tandem’s Thrive Wellbeing Committee was acutely aware that this lockdown was different. In March 2020, people adopted very positive health behaviours, engaged in constructive leisure time activities such as redecorating, rediscovering the joy of gardening or just getting through a list of chores. In 2021, people are experiencing lockdown fatigue, when moods are low and if we let them, they can affect those positive health behaviours that we established a year ago. The committee also recognised that a lack of societal interaction was having a heavy impact on people’s mental health. These coupled with the pressure of school closures, travel restrictions, altered work arrangements and inability to see family members are all reasons why Thrive put in place a series of initiatives aimed at enhancing wellbeing and providing a positive social outlet for all of our employees and contractors.

Our Q1 initiatives included a series of lunchtime pilates classes. Classes were designed to alleviate the stress caused by sitting at a desk for long periods of time. Introducing simple stretches that could be utilized at any time during the workday to ease tension and reinvigorate.

The committee has run informative lunch and learn sessions on nutrition and resilience. In January we welcomed Marc Murphy, a nutritional therapist, lecturer and clinic supervisor with the College of Naturopathic Medicine in Cork. Marc demonstrated healthy meal ideas while talking through the nutrition benefits of the meals and specific ingredients. In a similar vein, Thrive is sending emails with healthy meal planning ideas, twice weekly, to staff and contractors.

In February, we received a talk on resilience from Maureen O’Dwyer, a registered Mental Health nurse and Nurse Therapist with Highfield Healthcare in Dublin. Maureen walked us through the tools and techniques used to cultivate a mindset oriented towards greater self-compassion, which helps to reduce anxiety levels and decrease the risk of high stress levels and associated burnout.

The Thrive committee ran an outdoor photography competition, emphasising the requirement to adhere to government guidelines and remain within 5km of home. The competition resulted in 22 entries including images from locations such as Kerry, Cork, Dublin, Mayo and Clare. The winning entry was called ‘Blanketing the Green Road’ and can be viewed here: Photography Competition

Thrive has also established a book club, to encourage the joy of reading, to suggest new genres of books and to provide a social platform for discussion. Aptly, the first virtual book club meeting took place on World Book Day, 4th March. It was a great success with lively discussion and participation, the event delivered the intended fun and social interaction.

Lastly, Thrive has set up three exercise communities, for running, walking and cycling. The comradery is facilitated by WhatsApp groups and they have become lively forums for discussion.

The running group’s first challenge was to cumulatively run from Cork to Cheltenham and back before the Cheltenham racing festival. The walking group challenge was 21 in 21, to achieve individual walking goals for 21 days in a row. The cycling group virtually cycled from Tandem HQ to Croagh Patrick before St. Patrick’s Day.

The feedback from staff and contractors regarding these initiatives has been extremely positive. We look forward to continuing them, at the same time hoping that our virtual social activities can be replaced with safe, face to face social interactions in the not-too-distant future.

2021 Charity Partners

Tandem is delighted to announce its charity partners for 2021.

We look forward to an exciting Corporate Social Responsibility programme for 2021 and to some fun filled activities and fundraising with these three great charities:

Make-A-Wish Ireland
A wish granted is true magic for children with life-threatening medical conditions, providing respite from their normal routines of hospitals, doctors and treatment. Make-A-Wish does not receive any government funding, and relies overwhelmingly on the kindness of the Irish public to continue granting wishes.

Focus Ireland
Homelessness is still very prevalent in our society and Tandem would like to continue to support Focus Ireland this year.

The Rainbow Club Cork, Centre for Autism
The Rainbow Club Cork Centre for Autism is a professional autism service provider. Supported by over 60 volunteers, their mission is to provide skills, support and a community hub for children and young people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their families.

To celebrate Wish Week Tandem raised €600 with a ‘guess the number of sweets in the jar’ competition. Make-A-Wish Ireland raised over €40,000 during Wish Week to continue their work of granting wishes to seriously ill children. For Easter Tandem has fundraised to donate 250+ Easter Eggs to Focus Ireland and The Rainbow Club Centre for Autism. Tandem would like to thank everyone who have supported its fundraisers.

Camino De Quarantine

Make-A-Wish Virtual Race Night