Category: Centrus Communities

Pathways to Board graduation ceremony 2023

Centrus’ Executive Director, Paul Stevens, had the pleasure of presenting the latest Pathways to Board graduates with their certificates alongside Julie James, the Welsh Minister for Climate Change, at the recent Community Housing Cymru Conference. 

Pathway to Board works to address the lack of ethnic diversity on boards in and outside of the housing sector. The programme helps individuals be ‘board ready’, ultimately giving them the opportunity to influence decision making in the housing community.

Centrus is pleased to have supported the programme as a volunteer partner, providing treasury management training to students throughout the year. 

Congratulations to all the Pathway to Board graduates on a fantastic achievement. To find out more about the initiative, click here.

Dodge, dive, dip, duck and dodge…Thanks to InfraRed Capital Partners Ltd for teaching us the five D’s of dodgeball at their annual charity dodgeball event last week!

The event raised an incredible £38,000 for the InfraRed Foundation which supports schools that hire community engagement officers, inside and outside of their portfolio.

Well done to all competing teams and thank you to InfraRed for a wonderful evening.

A winning performance

At the London City Giving Day 2023, we entered a team of athletes in the Tour de City Watt Bike Challenge. Joe, Gowzy, Tanya, Ian and Gleb left nothing out there, putting in an incredible shift.

Each team member had 8 minutes to contribute, while their distance was tracked on a live leaderboard.  Centrus covered an impressive 16.32 miles in our 40-minute slot, taking first place in the afternoon session!

Now in its 10^th year, City Giving Day is an annual event hosted by The Lord Mayor’s Appeal uniting the City to celebrate and support a number of charity partners including National Numeracy, MQ Mental Health Research and The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.

We’d like to thank all those involved for another fantastic event!

Volunteering with Trees for Life at Dundreggan Rewilding Centre

It was a genuine treat to have supported Trees for Life in the beautiful Scottish Highlands last week.

Incredible weather, incredible teamwork, and incredible learning.

Centrus has been a corporate partner of Trees for Life for the last 3 years but this was our first physical volunteering contribution. The passion and knowledge across their team is outstanding and we were very lucky to be the ‘crash test dummies’ for their new Rewilding Centre in Dundreggan. It is a brilliant facility with excellent staff and volunteers. They are working hard to establish a sustainable ecosystem to the landscape, history and biodiversity while making sure people and the social impact are included on the way.

We helped over 2,000 Aspen Trees in their nursery journey, and we were taught huge amounts by the brilliant local team.

Special thanks to Catherine Faulkner and Stephen Couling for their organisation and hospitality. I can highly recommend the centre, and their work and I am very proud of our ongoing association with Trees for Life.

To learn more about Trees for Life and the Dundreggan Rewilding Centre, click here.

This week, the Centrus team spent an afternoon with The Soup Kitchen, walking the streets of Central London handing out 60+ meals to the homeless and vulnerable. The route of roughly 3 miles took us through Tottenham Court Road, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, Embankment, St. Martins Lane and finally The Strand (luckily for us the overhead thunder and lightning was kind…we had just a few drops of rain).  

The afternoon was an incredibly moving experience, we encountered many interesting people who appreciated a chat, just as much as the food. The smiles on their faces and their genuine gratitude was heart-warming, to say the least. Huge thanks to Natasha at The Soup Kitchen, we look forward to working together in the future.

In the words of Winston Churchill – “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

The Soup Kitchen was established in 1986 and is a valuable resource for the homeless, elderly, lonely and vulnerable in London. They provide free nutritious meals, clothing, and toiletries for over 150 people daily.

Further information on the charity, how to donate and get involved can be found here:  https://soupkitchenlondon.org/

Centrus Communities is proud to have sponsored the Tour de Lunsar 2023, Sierra Leone’s largest cycling race, promoting an exciting future for professional cycling in West Africa.

Inspired by the world beyond his home, the mining town of Lunsar which has no cycling heritage to speak of, Abdul Karim Kamara launched the Lunsar Cycling Team from his bicycle repair workshop in 2013. The shop has since moved to bigger premises and become a focal point for the community.

Ten years later, the Tour de Lunsar has grown in size and reputation, attracting cyclists who want to make it professionally.

The 2023 edition of the event started on the 26 April, Sierra Leone’s independence day, with men’s, women’s and junior races, all of which take place on non-closed roads, competing with traffic and causing lengthy tailbacks.

The men’s race is split across four stages. The first starts in Freetown, the country’s capital, and each stage ends in Lunsar.

The women’s race and junior races are single stages culminating in laps of a circuit in Lunsar.

There were 141 competitors in total. 51 riders took part in the men’s race, 19 in the women’s and 70 in the junior competition.

Centrus is proud to have sponsored the event for a third year. It is a pleasure to support the incredible Lunsar team as they continue to grow youth confidence and achievement through cycling in Sierra Leone.

This week, our team spent the day volunteering at Blackfriars Settlement – cooking and serving lunch to their wonderful Positive Ageing Group.

Blackfriars Settlement is a busy community organisation in London’s North Southwark. Originally set up by volunteers back in 1887, the centre aims to support the most vulnerable in the community and make life better.

Thank you to the Blackfriars Settlement community for a fantastic day! For more information on how to get involved, click here.

The Centrus team had a fantastic evening with Pension Insurance Corporation plc at their annual charity treasure hunt on the 16th November 2022, in aid of Independent Age and Rethink Mental Illness.

Dressing to the ‘British Icon’ theme, our clued-up team of detectives solved a set of mysteries placed around the city and ultimately cracked the case!

Many thanks to PIC and their charity partners at Independent Age and Rethink Mental Illness for a brilliant event!