Agents (and Angels) Do Charity - and the first mention of Christmas...

If it’s Friday it must be Agents Do Charity. Our industry does great work all year round, of course, but as autumn continues all minds turn festive.

If your agency is doing anything to raise money for good causes, please let us know on press@estateagenttoday.co.uk. 

In the meantime, here are this week’s heroes - including one from the Estate Agent Today team...

Alzheimer’s Society: Fifty five staff from property management company FirstPort have donned their walking boots to raise over £5,600 for the Alzheimer’s Society. Site and office-based staff joined forces to participate in the FirstPort Memory Walk Challenge taking part in one of six Memory Walks, covering 55km across the country.

The charity is particularly close to home for FirstPort staff as the organisation specialises in managing private retirement residential developments. Chief executive Nigel Howell, who participated in the London walk, says: “My mum suffered with Alzheimer’s so the event meant a lot to me personally. The walk was great fun, and a good chance to chat with colleagues of common heart from across FirstPort and beyond.”

Call for Christmas Lunch: YOUhome estate agency, with offices in Bournemouth, Ferndown and Notting Hill, will be hosting a Christmas lunch for those who would otherwise be alone during the festive season. The idea came when Tom Williams, YOUhome branch and valuations manager, was having Christmas lunch with his family as was discussing the amount of people that would be spending their day alone.

The event will be held at Wimborne’s appropriately-named Angel Inn and is free to local guests - the event will be funded by YOUhome, contributing £30 from the sale of every property.  across our Bournemouth and Ferndown offices.

Just email christmaslunch@youhome.co.uk. More information can also be found on www.youhome.co.uk/christmaslunch.

Addenbrookes Hospital: Woodcock Holmes is a local independent estate and letting agent in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. The firm has just held a race night, successfully raising a fantastic £3,500 for Addenbrookes Hospital.

One of the agency’s team was involved in a serious car accident and broke his neck. He was treated at Addenbrookes and he was walking again within six months - a full year ahead of schedule. 

St Mungo’s Broadway: Chestertons has announced a new charity partnership with St Mungo’s Broadway. The partnership will see Chestertons running a range of fundraising activities from golf days and its annual ‘back to the floor’ initiative, to bake sales, quiz evenings, wine tastings and gala dinners. 

Staff will also be getting their hats on at the end of January for the charity’s annual Woolly Hat Day, for which more than 400 employees across 33 offices and branches in London will be take part to raise funds and awareness for the growing homeless crisis.

The partnership kicked off with Chestertons’ Head of Residential, Richard Davies, accompanying the charity’s rough sleeper outreach team on their nightly mission to help support people on the streets of London to find a safe and permanent home. He was joined by Victoria Gilmore and Nicola Bye, agents from the Mayfair and Little Venice teams respectively. 

St Mungo’s Broadway is one of the country’s leading homelessness charities, supporting 2,500 people with a bed and accommodation every night of the year. It supports people through more than 250 projects including emergency, hostel and supportive housing projects, advice services, specialist physical health, mental health and skills and work services.

Guys Cancer Centre: Sharon Clark, sales and support manager at Angels Media/Mortgage Angels - publishers of Estate Agent Today and Letting Agent Today - has taken part in the world's largest Charleston dance at Spitalfields Market. 

An amazing 977 people took part in the event, which broke the Guiness World Record for the largest Charleston dance. The previous record was set in Bexhill, East Sussex. Sharon took part in aid of Guys Cancer Centre.

"It was so much fun. We had to do the routine seven times and I impressed myself as we had only a couple of days to learn the dance" says Sharon.

Well done Sharon from everyone at Angels, EAT and LAT!