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By Alex, December 19, 2011 3:10 pm

Well, the festive season has landed and 2011 has simply flown by here at Virgin Balloon Flights. (New Year’s resolution: no more balloon puns!).

It’s been a fantastic 12 months with thousands of new airborne adventurers, fantastic personal achievements by staff and charity campaigns galore! Enjoy some of our highlights in pictures below.

January

Steve Dubois of SteveOnTheRun.co.uk,  from Virgin Media in Cambridge, visited Virgin Balloon Flights HQ for a training run with our Eve (who ran a half marathon this year for Hope Hope) and Sue as part of his preparation for the Virgin London Marathon. Entrepreneur Mark Pearson, of MyVoucherCodes.co.uk fame, told us about his unforgettable balloon flight in Surrey the previous season.

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By Kirsty, December 15, 2011 6:42 pm

“As the Virgin Unite Insider for Virgin Balloon Flights, the opportunities to use ‘business as a force for good’ are endless. When the chance of going to South Africa with Sir Richard Branson and his connection trip guests came my way courtesy of Virgin Unite, of course I grabbed it by the (Buffalo) horns and got packing!

A jam packed schedule allowed me to meet some of the most inspiring, motivated and dedicated people I’ve met in my lifetime; The Branson Centre Entrepreneurs, Jean Oelwang (The CEO of Virgin Unite), Dr Taddy Blecher (a pioneer of the free education movement in South Africa) and of course Sir Richard himself alongside his business mogul guests.

After a long flight with the superb Virgin Atlantic, a hotel check in and a stimulating meet and greet, I accompanied Jean, the connection trip guests and the Virgin Unite team to Newtown arriving at the Sophiatown Restaurant where we were delighted by African cuisine and guest speaker Dr Taddy Blecher. Post lunch we marvelled at Inner City Craft Initiatives and met ‘Prince’ an up and coming South African jeweller who designed & created the most interesting pieces of ‘junk’ jewellery. Who can resist a bracelet made out of a fork?!

From here we crossed townships to Constitution Hill. By far one of Johannesburg’s most moving sights. Originally a fort during the Boer War it later became an infamous prison housing many of South Africa’s most well-known resistance leaders and is now home to the Constitutional Court of South Africa. After a quick change we headed off to the Orient Restaurant and chatted over exquisite Chinese food before listening to more inspiring guest speakers.

Early the next morning guests enjoyed breakfast with Sir Richard before we travelled to Mzansi Designers Studio to meet Lesego Malatsi (a previous Branson centre entrepreneur) and saw his fashion house in full swing. We were later treated to seeing his first boutique shop in Maponya Mall too. We also experienced another previous Branson Centre entrepreneurs thriving business in Diepkloof, Soweto. A recycling plant started by Tshepo Nawane.

Inspired once more by the sheer determination and drive to create employment for local communities and to start businesses from scratch, we chatted to both Lesego and Tshepo en route to the grand opening of the Virgin Active Gym in Maponya. Greeted with steel drums, stilt walkers and Sir Richard, this feast of colour and sound gave the gym opening the atmosphere it most definitely deserved.

Departing the swanky new gym we lunched at Velo and chatted with Marious Minnie, the CEO of Southpoint and a partner and investor of the Branson Centre (BC) before crossing over to the BC to offer mentoring to the current entrepreneurs.

The pièce de résistance of the day was of course the Screw Business As Usual booklaunch at ‘Randlords’ where Richard spoke about his book alongside African children’s choirs and pure cultured entertainment. You can see my video montage of the #SBAU book launch here on our YouTube page.

After supper and wine back at the hotel with Richard and guests, it was off to bed before an early start to wave off the guests, Richard and Jean to Ulusaba for the next step of their trip. You can see Richards Blog about their game drive here. I spent my last day in South Africa with some of the Virgin Media Pioneers sightseeing and taking in some of South Africa’s most beautiful animals.

THANK YOU to Virgin Unite, Sir Richard, Jean and the rest of the team for the most amazing experience of my life. A trip I will treasure in my heart forever.”

Kirsty x

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By Kirsty, July 20, 2011 5:53 pm

On July 18^th, Nelson Mandela celebrated his 93rd birthday! An amazing accomplishment to add to many others in this great man’s life. To honour Mandela; Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Unite encouraged everyone within the Virgin group to take part in Mandela Day 2011 by giving 67 minutes of their time to their local community.

Excited by the scope of what we could do, everyone at Virgin Balloon Flights HQ got to work on planning an even bigger and better celebration than 2010’s Mandela Day.

Thinking caps on, we brainstormed about all the different ways we could give back to our community and here’s what we came up with:

· We baked and sold beautiful cupcakes raising money for local community projects.

· We collected boxes and bags of jumble items including clothes, shoes, toys, books and bric-a-brac and donated to The British Red Cross, Katherine House Hospice and Compton Hospice. We even managed to get Staffordshire based designer dress agency Hush to come on board and donate old stock to our clothes box donations.

· Senior Customer Service Representative Sophie Ellis helped out family member Rachel to take her two young twin boys, who were born prematurely, to a hydrotherapy pool for the afternoon as community swimming pools are too cold for them.

· We litter picked around our office and tidied up the surrounding green spaces helping to keep the area cleaner for people to enjoy.

· We donated soft toys, music cd’s and children’s clothes to a brand new sensory room at local nursery Earlyworld.

· We collected and sent out 18 board games, a PlayStation, a box of PlayStation and computer games and two bags of educational and fictional books to a local after school club for children aged between 4 and 14 years.

· We mowed our neighbours’ lawns and helped out with gardening.

· We volunteered at local community project Sanktuary giving late night clubbers a safe place to wait for taxi’s or friends (and even gave high heel clad feet a rest with free flip-flops!)

· We gave two local students, one at GCSE level and one at A Level, the opportunity to complete a week’s work experience within the customer service and marketing departments at the company HQ.

· Accounts assistant Cheryl helped to organise and complete a day within her church community called ‘Messy Church’ where children enjoyed a fun-filled activity day playing games and eating ice lollies!

· Customer Service Representative Ryan Laing became a fully-fledged Street Pastor and completed his first night about town, helping to battle the issue of homelessness and poverty giving strength and support to those who needed it.

· Staff donated £2 each for a handmade bracelet by 11-year-old cancer sufferer Harry Moseley through his charity Help Harry Help Others – a fantastic inspiration to us all.

· We even got CEO and Chief Pilot Kenneth to help sort out our donations, don’t worry he didn’t really pack away office pooch and company mascot, Cookie the Pomeranian.

Once again all the staff here at Virgin Balloon Flights have thoroughly enjoyed their efforts for Mandela Day this year. We hope that each little bit of help or support has collectively made a positive difference within our community and we take our hats off to the people who work so hard to improve the lives of others all year round.

Here’s to another superb effort for Mandela Day!