Charities

We take our corporate responsibilities very seriously. We actively support several charities and benevolent funds associated with the military, including:

• SSAFA – Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association
  
   
• Army Benevolent Fund
  
   
• RAF Benevolent Fund
  
   
• Combat Stress
  

About our charitable contributions

General Dynamics UK prides itself on being a responsible company which cares for its local communities and for its customers. Since our formation in 2001, we have contributed generously to local charities in Wales, Hastings and the Ashchurch area as well as sponsoring local institutions.

In Wales, we have contributed greatly to the provision of IT suites in several local schools and have provided a minibus to the local school in Oakdale. In both Hastings and Oakdale, we provide assistance to Drug Awareness schemes for children, paying for the printing and distribution of booklets in schools. Both our Wales facility and Hastings run a Charity Committee to discuss how best to distribute funds. Charities as diverse as the RNLI, Conquest Hospital League of Friends, Students for Kids International Projects, and the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths have benefitted from donations from General Dynamics UK.

We are a defence company and take our responsibility to our customer very seriously. This includes helping to look after the well-being of members of the armed forces and their families, both serving and retired. To that end, we contribute annually to The Army Benevolent Fund and SSAFA.

In addition to charitable foundations General Dynamics UK also assists local sports clubs in Hastings and Wales. We are major sponsors of the Newbridge Rugby Club, as well as the Crumlin Cricket Club and Hastings Priory Cricket Club. Members of the company are always welcome to attend games and matches at these clubs, all of whom encourage and teach local children to play sport.

For the last three years General Dynamics UK has also been a major sponsor of the Hastings Half Marathon event, not only sponsoring the event itself but also donating a sum of money for the General Dynamics UK Charity Team Awards. A large number of General Dynamics UK staff participate in the event every year running the gruelling 13 mile course to raise money for local charities, and in 2007 the company contributed a further 25% of the money raised by the General Dynamics UK business team. The company will continue to sponsor the Half Marathon in 2008 and encourages as many members of staff to participate as possible.

For our customer, we sponsor RAF Families’ days, sports teams, overseas tours by military sports teams and adventurous pursuits which are often beyond the reach of soldiers, sailors and airmen and are not fully funded by the MOD.

We believe that our judicious mixture of supporting our locale and our customer helps to show our responsibility to the communities in which we live and work. Our donations to schools and children’s charities in particular give us great pleasure and we hope that by such investment in the future, we will continue to give life to the community.

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Supporting our Heroes

Help for Heroes is a charity close to our hearts, and one we are proud and honoured to support.

H4H Rugby Challenge

 

On 20 September, General Dynamics UK supported Help for Heroes, by sponsoring the Rugby Challenge match.  Held at Twickenham, the game was held with the target of raising £1 million pound for the charity.  As well as providing financial support to help stage the match, we also encouraged our employees to get involved and show their support.  With coaches from our sites in South Wales and Hastings, more than 100 employees with their friends and families attended the event, and cheered on the mass of rugby stars who graced the pitch.

 

Helping those hiking for heroes

 

In August, we presented a cheque for £1,000 to those participating in Mercury’s March, to help them meet their target of raising £55,000 for Help for Heroes.  Members of our Field Trials team, met up with the soldiers in Southampton, during the fourth day of their march and presented them with the cheque.

 

 

 

Three teams of 10 soldiers completed the 285-mile march, carrying a stretcher to symbolise injured soldiers. They left Plymouth on the Monday and arrived at the Tower of London on the Saturday. As well as raising money for Help for Heroes, they also raised awareness of the plight of those injured.

 

For further information on Help for Heroes and how you can help, click here…

 

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Charitable activities in Wales

In February 2008, members of General Dynamics UK’s Welsh Golf Society presented a cheque for £300 to Cancercareline, a charity based in Blackwood, South Wales, which offers support and care to those afflicted by cancer. The cheque was raised by society members by donating £2 for every round of golf which was played over the course of the year. This year, they hope to raise even more money for the Welsh Air Ambulance charity.

Each year, General Dynamics UK employees based in South Wales hold a charity raffle at Christmas, to help raise funds for a nominated local charity. For 2007, the nominated charity was the Macmillan unit at Oakdale Hospital. A cheque for £2,653 was presented to the unit, which was used to fund a special profile bed, which is used to make people more comfortable when they are receiving palliative care.

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Charitable activities in Hastings

Filsham Valley School received a contribution towards their school presentation folder, a commitment taken last year for two years.

As a main sponsor to the Hastings Half Marathon we displayed our company banners at the Start/Finish line and along the route and all entrants displayed our logo on their running number. Several members of staff ran the half marathon in support of different charities, but in particular ‘Avanti’, the local brain injury unit where a member of staff receives on-going care.

Graphics support was been given to ‘Time to Dance’, a local dance festival that took place early in March featuring 37 schools local to Hastings and St Leonards. We designed the programme and paid for the printing costs.

Hastings & Rother YMCA work with local children and young people running many projects and activities. They are currently seeking help with the equipping of a new community / internet / training café on their premises. The company has made a donation towards these costs.

A small donation was made to the Grade II listed ‘Church in the Wood’ located in St Leonards. This well-regarded and much loved building is in urgent need of repair and an application to English Heritage is being considered, but in the meantime local companies and organisations are helping to provide funds for immediate works.

The annual Hastings event ‘Beatles Day’ now in its ninth year of raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support, received a donation from the company. The 10 hour event, featuring 55 individual acts, took place on Sunday 6th April.

Hastings & St Leonards Priory Cricket Club received a donation from the Company to support their forthcoming season. The club will once again be hosting the Lashings World All Stars event at Horntye Park in Hastings. The Ladies section is rapidly expanding and the Colts teams will be entered into various leagues ranging from Under 10 to Under 16. The GDUK sponsorship is integral to the progress of the youth coaching programme, where more than 1,000 children across the Hastings and Rother area benefit from high quality coaching.

Support was given by the company towards the running costs of the Air Warfare Centre’s Golf Competition, held on 13 June, to raise money for RAFBF, RAFA and Lincolnshire Air Ambulance.

Three members of staff walked through the night on the annual Moonwalk, which takes place in London and covers 26 miles. The sponsored walk raises money for Breast Cancer Care and the company topped up the girl’s hard-earned fund of over £700 to make it a round £1,000.

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Charitable activities in Gloucestershire

In December 2007, General Dynamics UK presented a cheque for £3,521 to aid the Gloucestershire Relief Fund with monies kindly donated by General Dynamics UK employees across the UK plus £2,000 from the Company’s Charity Committee. More than 150 employees working at Ashchurch and Pershore were affected by the floods during the year, but despite this, the Ashchurch team successfully continued to deliver Bowman converted vehicles to the customer.

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