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By Kirsty, March 5, 2012 12:41 pm

Here is the latest blog update from Virgin Balloon Flights runner, freelance designer Adam Fleetwood.

“I’m pleased to say that sponsorship for the Virgin London Marathon is rolling in nicely, friends, family, Virgin Balloon Flights colleagues and local businesses are all making kind donations which is fantastic.

I’ve recently been selling sponsorship space on my Virgin Unite running vest and two of my very generous customers, Willows Dental (£200) and Telling Architects (£100) have taken two of the three spaces which has really helped me get close to my target of £2000.00. I’m currently at £1921.25 including gift aid.

There is still one last space on my running vest for any company that wishes to get some great exposure and at the same time give to a great cause. If you’re interested or know anyone that might be, please get in touch at wotsitdesign@gmail.com or call 07970 821266.

Please help me keep the donations rolling in for Birmingham Children’s Hospital. It will make running the 26.2 miles all the more worthwhile!

To make a donation visit my Virgin Money Giving Sponsorship page.

Thank you

Adam x”

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By Kirsty, February 27, 2012 12:40 pm

Virgin London Marathon together with Virgin Money Giving have teamed up to create a bit of fun for Marathon runners in the form of Marathon News TV.

Last week runners of the marathon were sent a link to create a news piece simply by filling in their details, such fun! Being a good sport, Virgin Balloon Flights marathon runner, freelance designer Adam Fleetwood got his three minutes of fame, which you can watch by following this link:

http://www.marathonnewstv.com/?f=Adam%20&l=Fleetwood&v=AdamFleetwood&ch=Virgin%20Unite&n=1

You can help support our chosen charity Birmingham Children’s Hospital by sponsoring Adam on his Virgin Money Giving Page, every penny counts! You can also keep up to date with his training and fundraising on our blog.

Virgin Balloon Flights fly from over 100 launch sites in England, Scotland and Wales from as little as £89 per person, for further information, please call 0844 8448080 or visit virginballoonflights.co.uk

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By Kirsty, February 23, 2012 6:16 pm

As part of our Green Office Plan, we here at Virgin Balloon Flights have been thinking of ways to make our lovely red company a little greener.

In our monthly internal newsletter we asked staff for easy ideas to make our business more sustainable. We had some super inventive ideas including one from Customer Service Representative Carrie-Ann Starling, who suggested we use white boards rather than notepads for our call centre staff – ingenious!!

Our shiny new white boards will save us around 150 notepads a year, that’s a huge 7,500gms of paper. Further suggestions have included bicycle parks and a car share scheme which we hope to implement in the near future.

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By Kirsty, February 22, 2012 2:50 pm

Just a few weeks ago Virgin Balloon Flights were talking to Virgin Managements’ Sustainability team and were given an excellent new idea to support up-cycling….

Made In Forest Hills, an up-cycling Bow Tie business in New York, was started not so long ago by Nicholas Tee Ruiz. His bespoke, unique and beautifully design bow ties are all made from waste material and can certainly start a trend!

Helen Craig Virgin’s sustainability specialist asked Nicholas about his inventive ideas:

What inspired you to include recycled materials into your designs? How did it all start?
I met singer Janelle Monáe in November 2010 and we chatted about her music video "Tightrope”, in which she wears this fantastic oversized bow tie.  This sparked my idea to search NYC for a unique bow tie that represented me.  Hitting dead ends, I decided to just sit down at my kitchen table and create one of my own.  That table has put up a good fight in the past year, my tools and I haven’t exactly been its best friend.  The occasion for my first bow tie was The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition opening of Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914.  Inspired by Mr. Picasso and wanting to look sharp for the event, I hand crafted my first bow tie out of multi-coloured guitar picks, which I found buried in the closet of my uncle’s apartment, a wooden hanger, and super glue.

How did you move on from there?
My project, Made in Forest Hills started off as a sustainable way to look dapper for events at MoMA, where I work in Special Programming & Events.  The response from friends and colleagues was great, and they encouraged me to continue re-purposing everyday materials into works of wearable art.  I challenged myself to construct 11 bow ties designed around the major exhibition openings and benefit events orchestrated at the Museum that year.  These became: The Bow Tie Collection.  My bow ties were inspired by talks with curatorial colleagues, artist research, gut feelings, and my technical studies.  Benefit events allowed more freedom as I was not constrained but challenged to interpret the events in a creative way.  The pieces in the Collection range from looping film negatives with images of scenes from Pedro Almodóvar movies for MoMA’s fourth annual Film Benefit, to a LEGOS® bow tie for The Armory Show 2011 after-party, and a wine corks bow tie from the restaurants of my favourite chef, Jose Garces for the German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse exhibition opening.  The bow ties have style and design influences from the art in the correlating exhibitions and also a sustainable aspect because all of the materials were found and recycled from my day-to-day life.  Leftover chandelier crystals from a neighbourhood lighting store became the bow tie for Party in the Garden 2011 and I even crafted computer wires, circuit boards, and a working QR code into a bow tie for Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects.

What plans do you have for the future? What materials are you looking to re-use?
For my next Collection, I will be making 100 different bow ties constructed from fun and found resources.  I want this Collection to be participatory for the fans of my first Collection, so I’m asking people to supply me with materials that they would like to see made into a bow tie.  You hand me a box of old cocktail stirrers, you’re gonna see cocktail stirrers like never before!  I’m not giving myself rules or guidelines, I really want to push the artistic craft and hopefully educate about sustainability along the way.  I don’t want to restrict myself to a specific size, or a certain form – the sky’s the limit.  I just hope none of the submitted materials require dry ice… if so, we may need to chat.

After seeing Nicholas’ fantastic work, we decided we wanted a slice of this super cool up-cycling action so we’re sending him some fabric from a retired hot air balloon envelope. Keep your eyes peeled on our blog for the final design!

Of course this isn’t the first time we’ve done a bit of up-cycling. We previously teamed up with Worn Again to create a range of up-cycled products, including the "cheeky sling bag" which is still available to purchase on our Virgin Balloons website.

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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 Alex, August 22, 2011 9:23 am

A Virgin hot air balloon has floated onto TV screens in the Ukraine after an unforgettable flight at the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta.

A lovely film crew from Inter TV came ballooning over Bristol with us as they covered the world famous event earlier this month.

A spectacular mass launch from Ashton Court gave them some wonderful footage and they interviewed pilot Mark Simmons about life as a balloonist.

They were also treated to a sensational performance by UK Queen of Soul Beverley Knight during an exclusive airborne session for Virgin Red Room.

See the film on the Inter TV website here

Join us for your own balloon flight in Bristol

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By Kirsty, August 2, 2011 11:27 am

Virgin Balloon Flights have been supporting our friends at Virgin Media, who have raised a whopping £5,137 through a national staff raffle as part of their Charity Day on 20th July.

The raffle was a major element of Virgin Media’s first ever Charity Day and caused a lot of interest with generous prizes donated by us Virgin Balloon Flights, V Festival and Virgin Money. We sent off a pair of Champagne balloon flights to medias cause worth over £300! The national flight vouchers means the lucky winner can use them at anyone of our 100+ launch sites in England, Scotland & Wales and enjoy a glass of bubbles and receive a personalised flight certificate signed by their pilot post flight.

As well as the raffle, activities ran across 60 sites across the UK and 7 abroad, involving over 12,000 staff as well as partners, customers and members of the public. Initiatives ranged from Hawaiian fancy dress to hula hooping competitions to sponge-soaking of senior staff! The total for all activity across the day exceeded £45,000.

Local staff elections were held across the different sites to decide which charities were supported by the activity. There will be over 90 charities benefiting from the total sum of money … WELL DONE VIRGIN MEDIA!

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By Kirsty, July 6, 2011 6:10 pm

This week we went off to see Berrington Hall, one of our lovely Virgin Balloon Flights launch sites, near Leominster in Herefordshire; what a place to fly from!

This stunning neo-classical building designed between 1778 – 81 hosts much more than a pretty Georgian exterior. Steeped in history visitors can delve deep into the past life of Lord Crawley, his butlers and servants that have worked at Berrington Hall in years gone by. In the care of The National Trust since 1957,  this immaculate venue really is the picture perfect spot to start your airborne adventure.

Before, or after, embarking on your Virgin Balloon Flights hot air balloon ride from the grounds of Berrington Hall, you can take a walk around one of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s masterpiece gardens, grab a bite to eat or relax with cake  and coffee in the tea-room, or get some retail therapy in The National Trust gift shop.

With FREE admission to the house for Virgin Balloon Flights passengers on the day of their flight, what more could you want to make a super day out?

Once you have climbed aboard our 16 man balloon basket with Pilot Des Bimson, the wind will take you on a journey you’ll never forget. Aerial views of the elegant property and sweeping sights of the Brecon Beacons will greet you once your balloon is in-flight.

Wind willing, you’ll see the roof tops of Leominster, a historic market town, with  examples of fine architecture throughout the ages. Further south sits Hereford, the famous home of the SAS, which straddles the winding River Wye and has a magnificent 12th century cathedral at its heart.

What are you waiting for? To book simply visit www.virginballoonflights.co.uk or call 01952 212750 to fly from any of our 100+ launch sites in England, Scotland &  Wales or from Berrington Hall.

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By Kirsty, June 21, 2011 2:08 pm

Last week we blogged about 8 year old Olivia Staveley being the lucky winner of a pair of Virgin Balloon Flight vouchers for her superb entry into the Burnley Express draw dad competition.

The talented youngster was smiling ear to ear when she received her prizes outside the Charter walk Shopping Centre this week, let’s hope dad loved them!

Once again, well done Olivia!