Banner Blog

Helping local communities and supporting charities across the UK has been an important part of lockdown life for the Banner team.

Whilst sticking to the current government guidelines, our Banner team members have been working hard to help charities and support their local communities, as much as possible.  In this blog, we share, celebrate and congratulate them on their achievements.

Daily Run turned Charity Marathon

Some people have been finding it hard to be stuck indoors for most of the day; however Mikey Fair, an Internal Sales Team Member for the Central Government, has been making the most of the opportunity to exercise by raising money for Prostrate cancer. 

Over Lockdown Mikey decided to change his lifestyle and started running: “lockdown has helped me massively to reassess my life choices, I put together a plan to go from the couch to running 5K, which I completed around September when I joined Banner”. Despite starting a new, Mikey started running again in 2021 with the aim to run a marathon (26.2 miles) throughout January.

“You know how the internet listens; I saw advert on Instagram for running a virtual marathon for prostate cancer and decided to go for it. I lost both my both my parents to cancer and my wife lost her grandad to prostate cancer, so no matter what, I was definitely going to choose a cancer charity”. Not only did Mikey run a marathon in January, but he completed the challenge on the 22^nd January and went onto run 40 miles in total, raising £337 for charity.

“I now run 5K at least 3 times a week, which has not only helped my physical health, but my overall mental health as well. If I can do it, anyone can!”

Fighting against the Virus

More and more people are being vaccinated against the Coronavirus every day, and Andrea Eli, a Sales Director for National Accounts, has gone above and beyond to become a qualified Vaccinator.

As a GoodSAM volunteer, (which involves assisting people without being medically qualified, e.g. being a telephone companion, or collecting food/prescriptions for people), Andrea has already completed many voluntary hours assisting the NHS through the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, after 22 hours of training, Andrea is fully qualified to give people the vaccinations and has been completing 8 hour shifts twice a week. “The supply of the vaccine has increased hugely” and being a vaccinator has helped with the nation-wide effort to get everyone vaccinated. “All my hours have really added up, even I wasn’t aware of how much I had done until I checked!”

Andrea has been doing everything to help her community from getting shopping for the elderly, to delivering prescriptions for those in isolation.

Donating Platelets

John Harney, a National Account Manager has been helping to alleviate a national shortage of platelets that has been caused by the pandemic, by becoming a donor.

‘I have a very high platelet count, which means my donation is equivalent to 3 standard ones, so my social conscience really didn’t allow me not to donate!’ John’s donation can help to provide transfusions for either 3 adults or 12 children. Red blood cells regenerate quite quickly, which means people can donate platelets more often than donating blood.

John has been able to donate a few times since January, because he can donate his platelets every 4-6 weeks. By donating, John is helping to provide lifesaving treatment for cancer patients or for people who have had surgery. Donating takes just 2 hours but can make a huge difference to someone’s life.

If you are interested in donating platelets, please see the official NHS Blood and Transplant website.