Green Living: A helping hand

By Giles Broadbent on June 24, 2009 4:49 PM |

Tagged with:

By Andrew Williams

As with any business, a lot of what we do at Seventeen relies on an army of unsung heroes. For every gala dinner there's a team of hard working waiting and kitchen staff. For every conference there's a gang of technicians on their hands and knees checking cables and wiring.

We work with numerous organisations and, as you'd expect, we always ask them what they can do to help make our events more sustainable. Increasingly, many of our suppliers are taking on board the kind of initiatives we're looking for.

Some go the extra mile, however, and one that I had the pleasure of meeting again last week was Connection Crew.

Connection Crew supply staff to do the kind of jobs that no-one else wants to do - lifting heavy equipment, climbing up ladders, moving stage sets - if it requires a bit of muscle, they are the guys. But they have an interesting tale to tell.

Connection Crew are based at the Connection at St Martins, a housing charity which supports people in central London who have nowhere to live.

Their newly refurbished centre offers anyone who needs their help a space to rest, eat, start looking for a job and get their life back on track.

All the profits made by Connection Crew go to fund the work of the charity, and as the demand for their skills expands they have begun to offer some of the people they help placements to get them back on the job ladder.

Lifting flight cases of kit around London may not be everyone's idea of fun, but for Connection Crew it not only provides a valuable source of funding, it could also help create a fresh start for people who need it most.

- Do you or your company have an environmentally friendly product or service you'd like featured in this column? Let us know by contacting Seventeen, a sustainable alternative for your event management needs, at andrew@seventeenevents.co.uk.