#telecom foundation

Our Telecom Ambassador Jeni is volunteering at the Torbay Plunket Sale at the beginning of May and she would like to recruit more volunteers both inside and outside of Telecom!

 Jeni says:

"We need volunteers from midday Friday the 9th May until late (for setup) and all day Saturday 10th May (for the sale and cleaning up afterwards). 

We need to sort clothes, hang clothes, security guards, sort toys, tidy up during and after the sale, help customers and cook the BBQ".

Please email Tara at [email protected] if you would like to volunteer

Telecom people, if you would like to talk to a Telecom Foundation Ambassador (who has previously volunteered for this) to find out more about the sale, contact [email protected].

Dinner on Friday and lunch on Saturday is provided. Hot and cold drinks throughout the time will be available.

50% of the Plunket profits go directly to the Meals for Families program which provides free, healthy, frozen meals and baking to families of newborns in Torbay and to families dealing with sickness, post natal depression, no family support or just needing help.

See the following Facebook page for further information:

 The Telecom Foundation is today celebrating a momentous milestone in its payroll giving and matching programme, reaching $2 million dollars donated to schools, charities and community groups, making the programme one of the most significant payroll giving initiatives in New Zealand.

 Payroll giving was introduced in New Zealand in 2010 and enables employees to make donations to organisations such as schools and charities through their employer’s payroll system and receive an immediate tax credit of 33% of their donation.

 Since July 2011, the Telecom Foundation has been operating a universal payroll giving programme, offering employees the opportunity to donate a portion of their pay to any of the 26,000 IRD Donee status charities and state/state integrated schools in New Zealand. Telecom then matches the donations dollar for dollar (up to $1,000 for schools and $1,000 for charities). Since the programme launched, 35% of the Telecom workforce have participated in payroll giving.

 The programme has been hugely successful and Sir Bob Harvey, Chair of the Telecom Foundation, says he is extremely proud of the way Telecom people have embraced the programme:

 “I’ve always known our payroll giving programme was popular with Telecom people, I am absolutely over the moon to have reached the $2 million dollar milestone”.

 “We strongly believe that the success of our payroll giving programme comes down to it being universal, we don’t want to tell our people who or what they should give to,  it’s nice that they can choose from such a broad range of charities and schools to donate to” says Sir Bob. “Our big ambition is to be able to share what we’ve learnt about running a successful programme as well as the database we’ve built up with other like-minded New Zealand businesses.”

 Telecom parents can pay their school donations through the programme and employees can support their favourite charities with one off or ongoing donations. Over the last few years, donations have been made to regional SPCA’s, children’s charities such as Child Cancer Foundation, Cholmondeley and KidsCan along with hundreds of school donations paid. These are just a few examples of how Telecom people have made the most of this great programme.

 Telecom’s Anna Loughnan regularly donates through payroll giving and is a supporter of the programme:

 “I signed up for payroll giving as soon as it was offered by Telecom.  It seemed a convenient way of paying the hefty school ‘donation’ to my daughter’s school, as well as donating to my favourite charity, Oxfam.  The added sweetener was the matching of donations up to $1000 by Telecom!” Says Anna.

 Hon Todd McClay MP, Revenue Minister, encourages businesses across New Zealand to think about payroll giving:

 “I encourage all businesses to consider providing payroll giving to their employees as the more we can do to support the charitable and community sectors the more they can do to help those in need.”

A group of awesome Christchurch Telecom NZ people did their volunteer day for the Christchurch Garden Trust - painting planters and pots to be used in the Festival of Flowers next year.

Here is some feedback from the organisation: The Telecom team turned up willing and keen to get a colourful and messy job done; to paint 23 bells and stands for the 2014 Festival of Flowers. They worked so well together, and it was great to have their support and ideas to get the job done efficiently.

I felt such gratitude, on behalf of the organisation I work for (Christchurch Garden City Trust). The voluntary help from Telecom staff means the world to us…many hands made light wwork, and this team did what I thought would be a day’s work, in half a day!

And to top it off, as they had finished their prescribed task, they went and helped us out with taking plants out of our Topiary animals. Another labour intensive job, that I had been worried about finding help for, was completed in a short period time of time. I take my hat off to the ‘powers that be’, who allow the Telecom staff to volunteer in the community, during paid working hours. This generosity is precious, and one that I believe, brings a true feeling of community.

We are lucky here at the Telecom Foundation to have some amazing volunteers!

Every day Telecom people venture out to take their volunteer days and this September was no different with people across the company volunteering for an array of causes.

Telecom people get one paid volunteer day every year to do good in their communities with, whether that be helping a neighbour in need, participating in an environmental clean up or working at the office of a charity. It’s completely up to the volunteer!

 Here’s an idea of the volunteering that took place across September:

  ·         Spring cleaning and garden make overs for Sweet Louise

·         Helping in out in the Zone 1 Secondary School Basketball Premiership hosted by Harbour Basketball.

·         Street Walking collecting donations for the The Multiple Sclerosis And Parkinsons Foundation Of Canterbury

·         Volunteered to help at the KidsCan Food Distribution Centre

·         Volunteering for parent help at local school.

·         Volunteering expertise for the day to supervise and guide the Pyes Pa Road School for abseiling and rockwall climbing activities at the Waitawheta adventure camp.

·         Helping out at St Thomas's School. The year two classes took a trip to MOTAT to learn about magnets as part of their science topic "Exciting Energy Everywhere".

·         Coaching a school netball team for St Josephs school Grey Lynn and helping with transport and umpiring for the inter zone netball competition.

·         Helping the guys at Wrong Skatepark in Hamilton host the 2013 Waikato secondary schools skate competition.

·         The Tawa School Montessori class requires a helper for the day. I'll be helping the kids put together a meal, from what they're going to eat, through to going off and purchasing the items they'll need and cooking it all and presenting it to the class/ parents. A bit like Gordon Ramsey without the swearing.

·         Volunteering for local church

·         Volunteering with Kids to Five Daycare Zoo trip.

·         Helping out on filing office documents and sorting of letters to their subscribers.

Well done Telecom Volunteers! If you have a volunteer opportunity for our people or want more info, feel free to browse our website or email [email protected]

We have our own Board of Trustees at the Telecom Foundation and one of the Trustees is a Telecom person voted into the position by their colleagues every two years. Jeshua MacDonald is our new People’s Champ and Board Member.

 Jeshua is a broadband helpdesk agent in Auckland, he ran an impressive campaign and clearly had strong support from Telecom people.  We sat down with Jeshua to hear about his vision for the Foundation over the next two years

·         Why did you decide to apply for the People’s Champ role?

I was inspired by Chris Quin (CEO Retail) and his initiative to bring people from all corners of Telecom together to plant native trees on Motuihe island.  I had such a great time volunteering and I wanted more events like that so I applied for the role with the view that, if selected, I would work to provide more awesome opportunities for our staff to give back to the community - and have a blast at the same time!

·         What do you want to achieve for the Telecom Foundation and Telecom over the next two years?

I want to encourage more staff to work with the Telecom Foundation and use their volunteer days by providing more opportunities to do so. Some people need a little bit of encouragement before they catch the giving back bug. – believe me it is contagious and rewarding. I want to help propel the Foundation through the next two years and really reach out to our staff so more people become aware of payroll giving and volunteering, and make the most of what the Foundation offers.

·         How long have you worked here and what do you enjoy most about working at Telecom?

I have worked at Telecom for two years. I enjoy helping people and enabling them to get the most out of their technology. I enjoy the pressure of stressful situations and I find it rewarding to use my technical knowledge to best advise solutions for our customers.

·         What are some of your favourite charities and causes and why?

My favourites would be the Outward Bound School in Anikiwa, Camp Quality NZ and the Rotary Foundation. They all involve promoting youth leadership, awareness, compassion, selflessness, perseverance and friendship. - the values I identify with.

·         What do you like to do in your spare time?

I am the president of the University of Auckland Futsal Club, and I am involved with the development of Futsal within Auckland. I am passionate about sport and an avid English Premier League fan! Other than that I am a bit of a digital hoarder, I collect Ebooks, TV series and Movies.

  Telecom turned into a pirates paradise after staff member, Christine Bennett, led the way to support the Lions Club NZ ‘Heads Up for Kids’ campaign in July.

 Christine encouraged staff to bring old NZ currency and foreign money to work. The ‘Heads Up for Kids’ campaign swaps obsolete money for New Zealand currency which then funds a variety of children’s education programmes and scholarships including Outward Bound.

 A group of staff in Auckland took the coin collecting fundraiser to another level and dressed up as pirates for a day! The Telecom Foundation pledged to donate a dollar for every pirate photo posted on Facebook. The group earned over $90, a phenomenal effort!

 The coin collecting idea came to Christine after seeing an advertisement while on the bus:

 “The beauty of it was that we weren’t asking people to dig deep into their pockets – it was change that’s stuck behind the couch or not useful anymore!”

 Christine and colleague Lindsay Forman organised activity in Telecom offices in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Hamilton. Christchurch proved a logistical challenge, with staff located in five different buildings.

 The Telecom ‘Heads Up for Kids’ fundraising activity was a huge success and staff held a coin counting morning in July and again in October.

 Christine says the coin counting volunteer days were lots of fun and the staff who participated really enjoyed themselves:

 “We had a brilliant morning sorting coins, I’d definitely recommend it as a way to spend your volunteer day, it’s suitable for people who’d rather do an indoor sort of thing and we’d do it again!’

 Lindsay also used half a volunteer day to provide a free valuation service for people to assess their coins before donating them.

 Christine, Lindsay and staff achieved the following results:

 Auckland office (July)

Old NZ coins – 9kg

Foreign coins – 18kg

Foreign notes - $150.00

Current NZ notes - $64.00

Current NZ coins – $240.00

 Auckland office (Oct)

Old NZ & foreign coins – $200

Foreign & NZ notes – $900

 Wellington office

Foreign coins- 4kg

Old NZ currency- $44.40

Foreign notes- 27

 Christchurch office

Foreign coins- 4.6 kg

Old NZ currency- $56.00

Bank notes- 6

 Hamilton office

Enthusiasm worth a million dollars!