Community

How we look after and work with the communities in which we operate.

Gala Coral's community involvement ranges from relationships with national charities, to employer-supported volunteering with Business in the Community 'Cares' partnerships. We also participate in the 'Right to Read' scheme where employees spend time helping school children to read. We are also actively involved with charities and civic institutions. For example, we sponsor Nottingham in Bloom.

In the last two years for Cares, our staff have contributed over 3,000 hours. Over 1,050 hours of volunteering time was contributed to Nottinghamshire Cares by our staff in the 2004 financial year. In 2005 the contribution totaled 1,850 hours - 750 hours in Nottinghamshire, 600 hours in Bristol and 500 hours in Leeds.

We launched its relationship with Liverpool Cares in October 2005, and is undertaking a one-off sampler Challenge with North-East Cares in the near future.

• In 2005 Nottinghamshire Cares awarded two of our employees with the 'Team Leader of the Year Award' for their contribution to a specific community challenge. In Leeds, we were short listed for 'Team of the Year' and 'Team Leader of the Year'.
• In the past two years, our staff have contributed over 1,000 hours to its Right to Read time with local school children in Nottingham. In addition we have just launched new right to read programmes in Ipswich and Leeds.
• Gala Coral has two senior managers on the 'Partners in Leadership Programme', the mentoring scheme for business managers/head teachers.
• A school 'Breakfast Club' in Nottingham is also sponsored by us. A contribution of £3,000 supports the school for one complete academic year.
• We ars exploring a 'Cause Related Marketing' scheme to further develop our national community links whilst benefiting those locally where we operate our businesses.
• Our staff and members raised over £170,000 for Asian Tsunami disaster relief.  A corporate donation of £50,000 was also made.
• Staff and members work closely with the Bingo Association to support Breakthrough Breast Cancer and have raised over £1.6 million, including £300,000 raised in 2005. Also in 2005, the Bingo Association was awarded a BITC Big Tick for this involvement at the BITC Awards.