ABL delivers bonus boosts for fundraising campaign
Great news from our charity committee whose recent hard work has been paying dividends for our official charity partner Air Ambulance NI.
This year ABL Group and our friends at McGrady Insurance had our highest turnout yet for participants in the annual Belfast City Marathon. Altogether, 21 members of the ABL Group team got together to run, walk or relay their way around the 26-mile route. Their hard work and dedication raised an incredible £2,371, smashing our target of £1,000!
Our heartfelt thanks go out to all our runners, relayers and walkers: Emma Stevenson, Kyle Black, Brian Jackson, Brendan Mooney, Andrea Fanning, Catherine O'Connor, Aidan Hughes, Jack Brown, Colin Morrissey, Sharon Woods, Pamela Murray, Joann Craig, Mags McDonald, Coral Milliken, Lesley Browne, Nuala Lynott, Fiona Rooney, Tracey Milligan, Rhonda Flynn, Alicia O'Neill and Sharon Quinn.
In even more good news, we took the opportunity at the recent BIBA Conference (the annual conference for the British Insurance Brokers Association) to enter a prize draw held by our long-term insurance partner Ecclesiastical Insurance.
“Prize draws at business events are usually for some branded merchandise or if you’re lucky maybe an Amazon voucher,” said ABL Group Sales and Marketing Executive, Andrea Fanning, who heads up our charity committee. “But Ecclesiastical offered something really exciting - the chance to win £2,000 for our charity partner!”
Ecclesiastical gave out prizes to five brokers who visited their stand over the two day conference as part of its Movement for Good programme of philanthropic giving.
Chris Withers, broker distribution director at Ecclesiastical Insurance, said: “As a company whose purpose is to contribute to the greater good of society, charitable giving is at the heart of our business.
“I’m really pleased that we’ve been able to support ABL with their own fundraising with this special draw at BIBA and am sure it will help Air Ambulance NI continue their fantastic work.”
We’re immensely grateful to Ecclesiastical Insurance (part of the Benefact Group) with whom we have a long-standing relationship. Benefact Group is a diverse family of specialist financial services businesses, driven by a shared ambition to do right by their customers and clients. It is united by a common purpose to give all available profits to charity and good causes. Ecclesiastical is a specialist insurer of the faith, charity, heritage, art, education, real estate, schemes and private client sectors.
The £2,000 prize will be added to the £2,500 grant ABL Group successfully applied for this year through Ecclesiastical’s ‘Closer to you’ charitable grants programme.
Most recently, a few brave souls from team ABL took to the skies as participants in our first-ever charity skydive! Orlagh Dickson and Jonny Awcock made the jump and helped to raise over £1,300 for our charity partner as a result. We couldn’t be prouder of them for their bravery!
‘“Funding is absolutely critical to keeping us in the air and responding to Northern Ireland’s most critical incidents,” said Colleen Milligan, Business Development Manager for Air Ambulance NI. “We are living and working in the most challenging of times, and with the air ambulance being tasked on average twice every single day, our costs are rising. We are incredibly grateful to our corporate charity partner ABL Group for nominating AANI to be a recipient of Ecclesiastical Insurance’s prize draw and delighted to win a donation of £2000! This will help us to sustain and develop the Helicopter Emergency Medical Service in Northern Ireland for generations to come! Thank you.”
It feels great to see our fundraising total jump up so rapidly within a few weeks and we have plenty more events coming up in the weeks and months ahead!
If you’d like to support our fundraising efforts head over to our Just Giving page and make sure to leave a note of support so we can say thanks!