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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 Kirsty, April 19, 2011 6:37 pm

Branson duo hit the streets to spur on over 36,000 runners

Sir Richard and Holly Branson made some noise at this year’s London Marathon to create the World’s Biggest Cheer which spurred on thousands of inspiring runners who have all pushed themselves to extreme physical limits for great causes.

After spending a month encouraging the UK to donate their cheers, the father and daughter team hit a giant buzzer which boomed over 10,000 cheers of support into the air causing runners and spectators alike to stop and stare – the nation’s cheers were all collated to create a collective shout-out to the runners and Virgin Balloon Flights are part of it!

Richard and Holly got involved in this year’s Virgin sponsored London Marathon from the sidelines, the ‘Cheering Zone’ was set up at the 19-mile mark after many of last year’s runners identified it as the mile where you are most likely to ‘hit the wall’.

Professional cheerleaders and live bands were also stationed at the ‘Cheering Zone’ to support the runners and excite the crowds.

Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson said:

“This year’s runners have really outdone themselves and should be proud of finishing one of the world’s toughest marathons. Today just reminds me how the Virgin London Marathon makes everyone better off"

Check out the Virgin Balloon Flights cheers here by clicking on the Polaroid photo’s!

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By Eve, April 14, 2011 3:57 pm

Not unaccustomed to all-time firsts, several members of staff from across the Virgin group will be coming together on Monday 18^th April 2011 under one very groovy roof to take part in the first ever Virgin Social Marathon, the very day after the Virgin London Marathon.

With a view to raising awareness of all of our social channels, to give people a chance to win some amazing Virgin lifestyle prizes, to get a trend going on Twitter and to give everyone a chance to participate in shaping how we do things here at Virgin, we will be Tweeting and Facebooking for 8 hours from the very funky Virgin Media Our House in Soho, London.

We’re all very excited about the forthcoming social media day and look forward to working together to create and inspire some fresh ideas. We’re looking to fans and followers to suggest new entrepreneurial ideas so get your thinking caps on…

To find out what prizes are on offer and how you can be a part of this social first take a look at the social marathon blog on Virgin.com.

We look forward to seeing you online on Monday 18th, watch these spaces closely…

http://twitter.com/VirginBalloons

http://www.facebook.com/virginballoonflights

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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!

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By Kirsty, September 6, 2010 5:07 pm

While it is easy to focus on the pilots and the passengers in hot air balloons it is worth remembering the other important people who play a vital role in getting the balloon into the air. Guest blogger and former Virgin Balloon Flights ground crew Jess Baughan explains in part one of ‘A Crews View’.

The balloon crew’s job starts as soon as the previous flight has finished with simple things like refuelling the balloon (with most balloons carrying 400 litres of LPG this can take a while), refuelling the inflation fans with petrol, replenishing champagne supplies (or soft drinks) and making sure that the balloon and everything associated with it (trailer & tow vehicle etc) are ready for the next flight.

What happens next is the same for crew and passengers alike, we phone the flight line to find out whether the flight is going ahead and liaise with the pilot to decide what time to set the alarm clock for. In general the crew will start around three hours before the flight so for a 6am flight this means a 3am start.

The first job is to get to the launch site which in itself can represent anything up to two hours of travelling, once on the launch site the crew join up with the pilot, most of the time the pilot will arrive separately to the crew due to very strict restrictions on working hours for the pilots.

Between the pilot and crew a decision will be made on where to set the balloon up and which direction it should face, A lot of the time this decision is based on the way a small helium balloon flies when released from the launch site (weather & wind forecasts are good but not as good as releasing a small balloon and watching what the wind does to it.)

While all this is going on the crew are also meeting and greeting passengers and checking passenger names & vouchers against the flight manifest.

Once the decision has been made about where the balloon is to launch from, the basket is taken off the trailer and laid on its side while the envelope (that’s the balloon part) is laid out in a straight line. It is then attached to the basket itself, while the basket is attached via a quick release system to the tow vehicle.

The envelope is then pulled out to its full width ready for inflation and the inflation fans are used to start filling the envelope with cold air. While the envelope is filling this is one of the busiest times for the pilot and crew as they carry out final checks on the balloon along with preparations for flight.

The envelope is now almost fully inflated with cold air and at this point the inflation fans are stopped and removed. The burners are then lit and fired into the mouth of the envelope to heat up the cold air that is inside. Gradually the temperature inside climbs and the envelope starts to lift. Once there is enough heat inside, the envelope stands straight up and brings the basket the right way up.

Now the basket is standing up the passengers are allowed to climb aboard and are re briefed by the pilot regarding safety (this briefing can also take place before the balloon is inflated depending on conditions on the day). Once the briefing is over the pilot starts using the burners again to create enough lift to carry the basket and all of the passengers. Once there is enough lift the quick release is activated (to separate the basket from the tow vehicle and the magical part of the adventure begins for the passengers as the balloon slowly climbs away from the launch site. The job of the crew is only just beginning…