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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 Eve, January 16, 2011 11:10 am

We believe in freedom of expression which is why we regularly seek feedback from our customers about our balloon rides.

If we don’t know what’s broken, we won’t know it needs fixing. So, we like to get your thoughts on how we can improve our website when buying a balloon ride voucher.  We also like to know what you think of your hot air balloon ride with us and your pilot.

As most of our balloon rides are bought as gifts for birthdays, presents, anniversaries etc it’s not always the person that pays that gets to experience the wonderful world of ballooning, so it’s good to get a different perspective.

To say thank you for helping us out each flying season we randomly pick someone who has taken the time to complete one of our surveys (which are emailed out weekly) and send them a lovely case of wine from Virgin Wines worth over £100, and as the flying season ends around November, this tasty treat arrives just in time for Christmas.

Win a great mixed case of Virgin Wine

The lucky winner last season was Kevin Eaton from Ratby in Leicestershire. Kevin was over the moon as he said it was the first time he’d ever won anything.

Well done Kevin!

Thanks to you and everyone who shared their opinions with us last year.

Visit our website to buy a balloon ride voucher from just £89!

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By Kirsty, December 9, 2010 12:24 pm

So the festive season has started and Virgin Balloon Flights’ employees put on their dancing shoes for their annual Christmas party. This year’s jovial theme was a traditional children’s party complete with pass the parcel, party food and balloons in a village hall!

There were some interesting renditions on the karaoke, spectacular moves on the dance floor and believe it or not a truly exciting limbo competition.      What’s more we got our Virgin London Marathon fundraising off to a great start with a Christmas raffle.

With thanks to many wonderful businesses surrounding our Virgin Balloon
Flights headquarters here in Telford, we had a super duper selection of prizes including lovely bubbly and wine courtesy of Virgin Wines , one month’s free membership and a gift pack from Fitness First, 3 individual day passes and a back neck and shoulder massage at Nuffield Health Gym and Spar, a month’s  free games rental with Blockbuster, a meal for two at one of our gorgeous launch site hotels; Telford Hotel & Golf Resort, a family pass to Telford Ice Rink with thanks to Telford and Wrekin Council, a 6 person pass for bowling at TenPin and a pair of premier cinema tickets with Odeon!

At just £1 per raffle ticket we raised a fantastic £206 for our nominated marathon charity Hope House Children’s Hospice. Keep an eye on our fundraising efforts on marathon runner Susan Bowerman’s Virgin Money Giving Page and watch us race towards that £10,000 target. Sue is slogging away at the training now, follow her progress on her blog virginmarathongirl.

A BIG thank you to all who donated and to everyone that purchased a raffle ticket, enjoy your prizes. Why not make that special someone’s day this Christmas with a Virgin Balloon Flights airborne adventure? Soar through the skies and see the world from a totally new perspective in a Virgin hot air balloon, simply follow the link to see our special festive offers.

Here’s to a very merry Christmas and a happy new year, happy holidays to all!