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By Eve, April 28, 2011 3:04 pm

It’s not every day  that us Virgin folk get the chance to all work together under one roof. Spread out all over the UK we sometimes meet for meetings but never before have we met in one place to work towards one common objective for the good of the brand.

Enter, the Virgin Social Marathon! The very day after the Virgin London Marathon, on Monday 18th April 2011, Richard Branson kicked off a day of social interaction with a difference with a video tweet.

Virgin Media turned charitable private member’s club The House of St Barnabas in London’s chic Soho into ‘Our House’; the ultra fast 100Mb fibre optic broadband came in very handy with all of us tweeting for 7 hours non-stop!

Virgin’s digital teams tweeted and Facebooked their collective fans and followers to build brand awareness, grow fan bases, start the Twitter trend #ifvirgindid to encourage new ideas for the Virgin group and to give away the Ultimate Virgin Lifestyle Prize which included amongst other things a place in the 2012 Virgin London Marathon, flights to New York, balloon flights and free Virgin Active gym membership (lucky Tom Chalet won!).

Richard Branson’s famous ‘RBT’ mugs were dished out to people who tweeted photos of themselves with their boring old office mugs or who actually came to Our House for a cuppa with us.  The guys back at the office got stuck in too.

Nobby the pilot and his passengers achieved the accolade of ‘highest tea break’ with a photo of his passengers enjoying a tea break in the sky.

Even singer Josh Groban made an appearance and got tweeting too…

Virgin Balloon Flights gave away prizes to people who got involved online including David Cruise from California who only seemed to sleep for a few hours before waking and tweeting us again, local Social Media expert Jan Minihane who published a blog post on her site about the event and Michaela who tweeted that she would most like Alan Carr #inmyballoon.

We particularly liked the post by one budding entrepreneur who tweeted #ifvirgindid Olive Oil, which made us chuckle.

The day was a great success in scoring yet another Virgin first, raising our profile across the social media networks, increasing all of our fans and followers online but most of all we would like to say how amazing it was for all of us to just work together in one place, let’s hope it’s not the last time.

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By Alex, April 17, 2011 6:24 pm

Hot air balloons, sun, bleary eyes, TV cameras, thousands of brilliant runners, amazing costumes, hundreds of good causes, ballooning bobbies, celebrities including Olympic legend Jonathan Edwards and a visit from the smiley man with a beard – the Virgin Balloon Flights trip to the Virgin London Marathon 2011 had it all!

See the story in pictures below…

Virgin Balloons at the London Marathon 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Phew – what a day!

Congratulations to all the runners, thanks to marathon organisers, balloon area organisers, pilots, crew and everyone who helped. We can’t wait for next year!

Check out our top five runner costumes here

If see out balloons bobbing around on TV made you fancy a hot air balloon flight in Britain, come fly with us here

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By Eve, March 15, 2011 6:20 pm

Virgin Balloon Flights’ fundraising efforts for Hope House Children’s Hospices continued with gusto this weekend when Eve from marketing took part in one of the UK’s toughest half marathons, the Ironbridge Half Marathon in Shropshire.

What started as a dull and rainy Sunday turned into glorious sunshine just in time for the starting gun to go off and for almost 500 runners to wend their way from Town Park in Telford into the stunning World Heritage Site of Ironbridge Gorge and back again. The course was reversed this year and included a killer hill at mile 8 which took a lot of runners by surprise. Despite this sadistic twist added by organisers Telford Harriers, you’d be hard pushed to find a race with better scenery or atmosphere so it’s definitely worth a go.

Eve crossing the finish line in much pain but in good cheer

This race was even harder than the full marathon I ran last year, but I had some great support from people who sponsored me for the race so there was no giving up! Hope House is a brilliant charity so it was an honour to be able to help raise much needed funds, – Eve

Next on the challenge list for Virgin Balloon Flights is a sky dive scheduled for April 9^th 2011 for a small group of customer service representatives so watch this space and good luck girls!

For your chance to win amazing prizes from across the Virgin group our big Virgin raffle tickets are still on sale – see our Charity Raffle page for all the info.

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By Alex, January 18, 2011 11:27 am

Generous companies have won the chance to be official sponsors on marathon girl Sue’s running vest after stumping up for Hope House Children’s Hospices.

The highly sought after spots on the back of Sue’s top for the Virgin London Marathon 2011 were put up for auction with the highest sponsorship pledges winning the spots. And our friends didn’t let us down.

In tied first place, both bidding an incredible £500, were two of our top affiliates; TravelPixel.net -  which offers select discount codes and travel deals from 100s of travel websites – and TopCashBack.co.uk – the UK’s most generous cashback site. Lemon Press the Redditch-based commercial printer took the third space with £225.

In total the running vest sponsorship raised £1225 pushing our current total over £2,000 and well on the way towards the £10,000 target for Hope House which will also have a logo on the vest.

Sue, who is now busily in training, said:

I really can’t thank the people from these companies enough. The sponsorship money pledged by TravelPixel, TopCashBack and Lemon Press has really given us a push towards our target and will make a massive difference for Hope House Children’s Hospices. I’ll be proud to represent these companies as well as Hope House and Virgin Unite on the big day!

To top-off a fantastic week of fundraising Miles Lovegrove, director of our merchandise supplier Fluid Branding, personally pledged to sponsor Sue for £500 and affiliate cashback site Quidco also pledged to show their support. Thanks so much!

Follow Sue’s progress on her Marathon Girl blog or sponsor her on her Virgin Money Giving Page.

Don’t forget the Virgin Balloon Flights raffle will be launching soon with fantastic prizes from across the Virgin Group. Tickets are £1 each and if you would like to buy or sell raffle tickets contact us.

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By Kirsty, December 9, 2010 11:27 am

We’re delighted to announce that Virgin Balloon Flights has officially accepted a place in the Virgin London Marathon 2011 on April 17 from Virgin Unite (Virgin’s charitable foundation).

After several brave team members put themselves forward to run the whopping 26.2 miles for charity, the lucky Virgin Balloon Flights’ employee drawn out of hat was Customer Service Representative Susan Bowerman!

Sue explained: “I am so nervous but very excited at the same time. I have never run a marathon before and haven’t done any running for over 10 years, so I seriously have my work cut out. My training has begun and I’m aiming to be fighting fit and ready to go once poised at the marathon start line. Wish me luck!”

Virgin Unite’s campaign for the 2011 London marathon is titled ‘Changing The Course’ which aims to encourage runners to support young people and the charities that help change their lives.

The lovely people from Virgin Unite say: “We’re putting extra efforts into getting closer to our charities and really helping to change the course of young people’s lives. We are focusing on helping to put the money where it really matters, with smaller charities who are on the front line of helping young people in the UK”.

So after picking a runner, it was time to pick a worthy cause to support and we had one amazing local charity in our minds that we knew would benefit from our help. Hope House Children’s Hospices are based in and around Shropshire (not far from Virgin Balloon Flights’ HQ) and make the most of short and precious lives providing practical and emotional support to families facing the agony of losing a child.

The Oswestry and Conwy based hospices need £3.5 million pounds each year to continue providing this outstanding level of care. Now it’s our job here at Virgin Balloon Flights to make that burden a little lighter next year so we have set a fundraising target of £10,000 for Sue’s marathon effort.

The cogs in the fundraising machine have begun to turn and we have numerous exciting things planned as we bid to hit this ambitious target and of course we’ll keep you posted! You can keep up-to-date with Sue’s training on her blog virginmarathongirl and you can make an online donation on her Virgin Money Giving Page (the not-for-profit charity donations website).

Watch this space!

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By Eve, March 25, 2010 5:58 pm

The calendar says 25th March. Panic! It is exactly one month until Marathon Day!

As Virgin Balloon Flights’ marathon representation I’ll be running the Shakespeare Marathon (Stratford upon Avon) in aid of Macmillan on 25th April 2010.

Our lovely call-centre staff have been mildly amused seeing me jog off enveloped in Lycra© for my lunch-time 5 milers, which luckily seem to be paying off as I survived my first half marathon at the weekend. Yay.

Just like Virgin’s very own Bob Fear who is running the Virgin London Marathon, also 25th April, for Virgin Unite along with Sir Richard Branson himself, I’m in the final 4 weeks of training hell. The difference being that Bob and Sir Richard will be amidst a whopping 36,000 runners and will be lucky enough to see the brand new 70ft Virgin Money hot air balloon that has been specially commissioned by Virgin Balloon Flights to support the event.

My Virgin Money Giving page has made fundraising a doddle and gives everyone a chance to learn what all this running is in aid of whilst my training blog, describes the ongoing agony. Virgin Balloon Flights will be supporting both myself and Bob Fear’s fundraising efforts by holding charity auctions for hot air balloon rides. Thanks VBF

Eve running a very hard race

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By Alex, March 19, 2010 11:32 am

Virgin Money's hot air balloon is put through its paces prior to the Virgin London Marathon - despite the fog!

They include a 70ft tall Virgin Money balloon, called G-VMVM or ‘ Mike’ for short, which has just been completed by Cameron Balloons. It will be under the control of pilot Kevin Meehan from Shropshire, while Mark Simmons from Bath will be the pilot for the other balloon. Both of the experienced flyers will be competing to see whose balloon is on TV the most.

Kenneth Karlstrom, Virgin Balloon Flights’ director and chief pilot, said: “It is fantastic that Virgin is sponsoring the London Marathon and we are thrilled to be involved in such an incredible event.

“We were delighted to be asked to commission the Virgin Money hot air balloon and we are looking forward to showing it off on the day.”

The London Marathon started in 1981 and, following this year’s race, will have raised over half a billion pounds for charity, making it the biggest fundraising event in the world. Around 36,000 runners are expected to take to the capital city’s streets this year, aiming to top last year’s incredible charity haul of £47.2 million.

Virgin Money are aiming to help runners raise more than £250 million for good causes over the next 5 years and have launched Virgin Money Giving a not-for-profit sponsorship website aimed at improving the way donations and Gift Aid are collected, ensuring more money goes to charities. Virgin Money Giving is the official fundraising website for the 2010 Virgin London Marathon and you can find out more at www.virginmoneygiving.org.uk