A ‘FINA’ night at the museum

Kensington and Chelsea-20120804-01188FINA, the international governing body of swimming, diving, water polo, synchronised swimming and open water swimming, held an Olympics dinner for its members on Friday night.

Jen from Bonfire and Maria from cremePR were invited to the dinner at the Natural History Museum to ensure guests were taken care of.

The dinner was attended by over 700 people from the aquatics sector and included Olympics judges, as well as Olympic officials and Locog Chair Seb Coe. The night was packed full of entertainment with a seven-piece orchestra, accompanied by opera singers that made the evening really special.

The museum hall looked spectacular with a dinosaur skeleton as the centre piece – truly amazing! The best bit was walking around an empty museum at night; it was like a scene from the Ben Stiller film, ‘Night at the Museum!’

Creative Review feature ‘Stone faces’ by our very own Stij!

Screen Shot 2012-07-30 at 12.32.20Our very own Danny Stijela ‘The Stij’ has had his work selected by Creative Review, the designers monthly bible, to be included in their July Feed online. Danny’s self initiated project ‘Stone Face’ is a selection of over 20 ‘Stone Faces’ found  with his 13 year old daughter Sofia among the pebbles of a beach near Southwold in just over 1 hour of searching. He then turned the images into a Apple book for his daughter who first noticed a ‘face’ among the stones.

See some of the faces here, Creative Review’s website.

Bonfire’s Director Jason cycles 60 miles for Breakthrough Breast Cancer!

The Start[1]Following on from the success of Team Sky and Bradley Wiggins efforts in ‘le Tour de France’, on Sunday 22nd July, our Director, Jason and his friend Andy, set off to complete the 60 mile London to Cambridge bike ride to help raise money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. The guys had put in “months of training” they assured us and were blessed with the weather, as Sunday was the hottest day of the year up to that point.

Starting at a gentle pace Jason and Andy soon got motoring, up to the point where Andy was unceremoniously dismounted from the saddle at 20mph. But, all in the name of charity, he got back on the pedals so nothing hurt to badly. Once motoring they managed to complete the 60 mile ride in just under 5 hours.

Jason said, “I won’t say it didn’t hurt at times (London to Cambridge is not flat!) but it really was a great day. It was great to ride the route with so many others, all for the one common and worthy cause. Some people were obviously out for a fast time on their road racing bikes, others were happy to complete it at any pace on BMX and shopping bikes, one or two crazy people even did the route on Roller Blades! I owe Andy a large drink for waiting for me as well, I really do need to work on riding up hills! A massive thank you to everyone who sponsored me for the ride. My target was to raise £250 and I managed to smash that target by raising over £600. Between Andy and myself we raise over £1,200 which makes every sore muscle worth it. Here’s to next year!”

Corporate responsibility news flash

  • Keech Accumulator Challenge, Creative Fundraising Idea AwardWinners of Keech Hospice Care Accumulator Challenge Creative Fundraising Idea
  • We Are Bedford awarded
  • Payroll Giving Gold Award

Lots of good stuff has been going on at Bonfire, thanks to the support of our staff!

A local hospice, Keech Hospice Care, set a challenge for local businesses of accumulating as much money for them as possible over the course of 2011 with seed capital of £50. At the start of the year, we devised a tool box to help the team. Each month a different team member took on the task of doing something to raise money. We had lots of creative fundraising ideas, from designing a new font that would raise money each time someone bought it, to selling Italian food at lunchtimes, with a grand finale of transforming our entrance into a Winter Wonderland in time for the turning on of the Ampthill Town Christmas Lights for the local community. In total, £1,192.00 was raised and was presented to Keech Hospice Care in January. They liked our ideas so much, that we were announced as Winners of the Most Creative Fundraising Idea at the presentation evening (in conjunction with the window display wining best dressed window by the local Business Chamber).

Community group We Are Bedford, run by Kayte Judge and Erica Roffe, that we provide marketing and creative support to, received an award from a local newspaper publisher. The Rising Stars Awards, run by The Times & Citizen in Bedford, had a special category, the District Improvement category, to recognise the work carried out by the group.