It’s important to reward your volunteers all year round and not just at Christmas time, but if your volunteers celebrate Christmas, then it would be nice to say thanks for all the help and support they’ve given to your organisation this year. Due to the cost of living crisis, it may be a struggle this year for charities to fork out gifts for all their volunteers however, most of the ideas listed below are affordable.
Personal Cards
Writing a letter or Christmas card that is personalised to each volunteer with a unique message shows that you have recognised the work of each individual volunteer and are thanking them for the difference they have made to the organisation.
An inexpensive way of doing this is sending personalised emails to your volunteers instead this way you can save on printing costs. Ensure you keep track of the types of things each volunteer does throughout the year to keep your organisation going, this shows you have appreciated their hard work and have noticed the small things they do.
Certificates And Awards
Reward your volunteers with certificates to celebrate their hard work, you can be flexible to match the certificate to the volunteer. On the certificate, you can include things like how many hours have been completed by the volunteer this year to show how much they’ve helped the organisation and the difference they’ve made. These certificates could also be sent out via email to save printing costs.
Handing out physical awards could be a more expensive way to reward your volunteers however, you could handmake the awards to make them more affordable for your organisation. An easy alternative instead of buying awards is printing out what you want the award to say and framing it. Award ideas could include “Most Enthusiastic Volunteer”, “Most Motivating Volunteer” or “Volunteer Of The Year” and other similar personality traits that carry your organisation.
A Christmas Party
A Christmas party may be a struggle for most charities and organisations due to the cost of living crisis. Venue hire and catering may be out of budget so a cheap alternative is to have a virtual party over an online call involving a Christmas quiz with small prizes to be won.
Even though this is very lockdown-esque way to celebrate, it’s an affordable and easy alternative that doesn’t involve much planning to get all your volunteers in one place. There are many available Christmas quizzes online or you can have some fun and make up your own!
Homemade Gifts
Homemade baked goods or Christmas ornaments are an inexpensive way to reward your volunteers this Christmas. Who doesn’t like baked goods at this time of year, this is also a cheap option that anyone would be happy with. Some ideas for Christmas baked goods can be found here.
Making your own Christmas tree decorations or ornaments is a sustainable and affordable way to say thanks, this way volunteers can re-use the decoration each year and be reminded of the hard work they have achieved. There are plenty of ideas online for DIY Christmas decorations. Eight cheap and easy decoration ideas can be found here!
Give Volunteers Recognition On Your Blog
If your organisation has a blog, you could write a blog post thanking your volunteers. This means their work can also be recognised outside of the organisation. Similarly, you could create posts for social media with the volunteers’ names and a photo of their efforts. This is a free and easy way for volunteers to feel special and receive acknowledgement for their actions.
Make sure your volunteers feel appreciated and recognised all year round for their hard work – not just at Christmas time.
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Volunteering at Christmas time is one of the most popular times of year people choose to donate their time to help, therefore opportunities usually get filled up quickly.
Many families and groups of people are struggling every day but with the most difficult time of year being just around the corner and due to the cost of living crisis, the help of volunteers is needed now more than ever.
To everyone who celebrates Christmas, it is fulfilling to help make someone else’s Christmas the best it can be. Many charity appeals are organised in the run-up to Christmas to help those in need. Some examples of where to volunteer in the UK this Christmas can be found below, these include The Salvation Army, Crisis Christmas centres, Age UK and many more.
Homeless Shelters
The festive season can be particularly hard and lonely for homeless people, and shelters are likely to be particularly full this year due to the cost-of-living crisis. Helping out during Christmas at homeless shelters usually involves sorting through donations, serving food and offering general support by communicating with people who may be lonely during this period.
Centrepoint, the charity that supports homeless young people, warns that this could be the worst homelessness crisis in the charity’s 50-year history, as the pandemic has led to thousands of young people losing their jobs and their accommodation therefore extra help from volunteers and donations are needed now more than ever. Volunteer opportunities for Centrepoint can be found here.
Crisis is a national charity for people experiencing homelessness. With the help of others, Crisis want to ensure as many people as possible can leave homelessness behind this festive season. They will be extending their services in London providing support and accommodation in hotels from the 20th of December to the 25th of January. You can find available volunteering opportunities for Crisis here.
Women’s Shelters
The Christmas holiday period can often see more frequent incidences of domestic violence, due to factors such as more time spent at home with abusive partners, and additional financial pressures due to the cost of living crisis. You can contact a Women’s Aid domestic violence service or refuge in the area where you live to see if they have any volunteering opportunities available for you to offer your support this Christmas. Some available opportunities from The Pankhurst Trust can be found on their website.
Charity Shops
Charity shops are particularly busy during the run-up to Christmas so stores may need some extra support. The Salvation Army are currently looking for volunteer helpers to get involved with all kinds of activities for their many community charity shops. Their shops are suitable places for people of all ages and abilities to volunteer, tasks include operating the till and creating festive window displays. The Salvation Army has available opportunities here.
Warm Banks
More than 3000 registered organisations have opened or are opening up free, warm, welcoming spaces for the public this winter across the UK with Warm Welcome.These warm spaces are usually in a heated building, which members of the public can use to help them save on their home energy bills. You can contact local charities involved with Warm Welcome to see if they need volunteers for their warm banks.
Food Banks
Give someone the food they need this Christmas and dedicate your time to helping a food bank. You can find a local food bank with opportunities near you using The Trussell Trust website.
FareShare is another food bank charity that stops good food from going to waste and gives it to people who need it. Fareshare has plenty of opportunities which can be found on their website.
Supporting People Feeling Lonely This Christmas
Elderly people can feel isolated and lonely at this time of year especially when they are in a care home. Through volunteering, you can support older people who may otherwise spend the holidays alone. According to Age UK, “Almost 1.5 million older people feel more lonely at Christmas than any other time of year.” You can volunteer for Age UK to do their telephone friendship service where you phone an elderly person weekly, last Christmas, Age UK supported 28,345 telephone friendship calls to older people.
Remember that volunteers for are needed all year round for charities like these and not just at Christmas. If you need help organising volunteers during this busy festive period, check out our website.
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With t-minus 3 days until Christmas Day, we wanted to look back at our 2021 with a round up! It’s been another tough year for everyone, but we’ve managed to find some light in moments this year. From award shows to blossoming partnerships, 2021 has been a year of developments for TeamKinetic.
Let’s have a look at our year in numbers.
January – March
The year started very much as this one is finishing, much to everyone’s frustration.
Volunteering was still very much on the agenda as we saw vaccination programs in full swing across the country. We were really proud to support a whole range of organisations mobilising an amazing army of volunteers.
People talk about the Anti-Vax brigade but we can tell you first-hand the Pro-Vax crowd are amazing and were out in force at the start of the year, and we take our hats off to each and every one of them!
March brought some wonderful news when we were honoured to be awarded ‘The Partner Excellence’ and the ‘COVID-19 Response Recognition’ awards for our work with Halton and St Helens Voluntary Community Action at the iNetwork awards. It was a huge achievement for TeamKinetic and our partners and a milestone we won’t be forgetting – especially for the recognition of our efforts throughout COVID.
The key achievements from our work with Halton and St Helens saw 1,744 volunteers registered and together they offered 8,688 volunteering hours. Our volunteer support economic value offered £80,796 during the first six months of the programme. For those feeling lonely or isolated, we were able to support 16,161 telephone calls to make those feel a little less lonely during repeated lockdowns and restrictions. Overall, we were able to support 32,993 in such a short amount of time and we can’t be more proud of the project.
We can’t thank Halton and St Helens VCA and St Helens Council enough; along with every single amazing volunteer for your commitment and drive, you make it all worthwhile. If you haven’t seen their short video on how important volunteers were during COVID, spend a couple of minutes and check it out.
May and June
Moving onto May, we held our first online conference, focusing on COVID-19, and what happens next. We’d like to say thank you to all our speakers and to those 140 people who attended. With talks from the likes of Gethyn Williams, Dr Jurgen Grotz, Kathryn Palmer-Skillings and our own Chris Martin, the conference was a success!
We do have a quick wrap-up video that you can check out here.
In June we said some hellos! We welcomed Alex back into the fold. Having already completed her placement year at TeamKinetic, we welcomed back a familiar face. You can read her (re)introduction to TeamKinetic life, here.
Coming back to TeamKinetic has been great! I’m grateful to the team for offering me this position straight out of university and I’m looking forward to what we can achieve next.
Alex
We also welcomed a fresh face to the team: Katie. Along with Alex, Katie also wrote an introductory blog post which you can read here.
It’s been a whirlwind of a time since I joined in June and I can’t wait to see what comes next in the next six months.
Katie
With new welcomes, we said some goodbyes at the start of July. We said goodbye to Chloe and Sammy, who were our 2020/21 placement students. They took charge of the TeamKinetic conference and supplied you with dog pictures on our Twitter. Alex and Katie are more cat people, and so our pet content has changed significantly over the past couple of months (much to Chloe and Sammy’s dismay).
Both Chloe and Sammy are well underway with their final year at university. We’re wishing them the best of luck seeing out the rest of their degree.
July and August
July saw us return to the office full-time as we thought the world was getting back to normal. It also saw the return of the legendary TeamKinetic staff night out, I must apologise to Chloe, Sammy, Katie and Alex as the night was so messy this appears to be the only surviving picture of these 3 ugly mugs!
August saw the launch of TeamKinetic 2.0 the latest all-singing and dancing version of TeamKinetic. Unlike previous updates, this one was a monster with more new features and controls than anything we had done before. Not only that we had updated and replaced all the old legacy code with a new and improved code base. Steve and Rolf worked day and night to get it ready and after it launched to find and fix those pesky bugs.
This new code base has set us up to be able to continue to improve the service quicker and hopefully will ensure you guys have the very best technology available for the next few years.
September
In September, we were so proud to announce our partnership with the Association of Volunteer Managers. Founder, Chris Martin, detailed our hopes for the next 12 months, some of which we’ve started on already…
Over the next 12 months, we will be working with the team at AVM to develop some accessible resources and materials that you might find useful if you are thinking about how you might use digital. We will be exploring what type of member offers and benefits you might like from us to make it easy and affordable for you to look at digital volunteer management and most importantly we hope to get to know you all a little bit better.
Chris
You can watch Chris and Ruth at AVM discuss the new partnership below. We’re excited to see what can become of this partnership with AVM heading into 2022.
We also worked with the guys in Scotland to help them launch their first ever cross-sector heritage volunteer campaign called Make your Mark. The ambition of the campaign was fantastic, how can they recruit a new generation of heritage volunteers and how can they broaden inclusion and accessibility to a whole group of new people. We were really happy to be part of the program and that TeamKinetic was to be used to drive the recruitment campaign. You can watch their launch video here, it’s pretty cool.
— Make Your Mark in Volunteering (@MakeYourMarkVol) December 1, 2021
October
October brought Halloween and our sponsorship of AVM’s annual conference. The two-day conference opened up insightful conversations with speakers that really got us thinking! It was our first time sponsoring the event and it was really nice to support something we have attended for so long.
It was also really lovely to catch up with people and see a number of faces we hadn’t seen in a while, even if it was just over Zoom, who knows what next year might look like but fingers crossed for catching up over the buffet or a glass of wine.
October also brought the first of our talks regarding digital volunteer management with the Charity Retail Association. We really wanted 2021 to be the year we looked at how we could better support the wider sector and working with both Charity Retail and AVM were key decisions that would enable us to share our knowledge and support the wider sector.
If you were there, I hope our 30/40 minute talk was insightful for those attending, and we hope we will be doing more of these in the new year.
November Talks:
We had a quick start to November with the Local Government Chronicle Awards. Once again, we were nominated in two categories, for our work over the past year with Halton and St Helens. The categories were Campaign of the Year and Technology. While we didn’t win, it was an honour to be nominated. We have to thank everyone at Halton and St Helens and the volunteers for creating such a successful project. (Chris also enjoyed a night away in London maybe a little too much if his hangover was anything to go by!)
We also were honoured to be asked to talk at COP26. The invitation came from the team running Make Your Mark in Scotland. We also heard from the likes of Chester Zoo, the National History Museum and Rob Jackson. It was another insightful day, which Katie personally enjoyed live tweeting her way through.
Volunteering, like every sphere of human life, needs to look at its role in climate change and it was really inspiring to hear what is happening and what you can do to make a change.
If you missed it why not check it out here:
The middle of November meant it was time to head down south for the day. Jumping on the train to London, we met up with the Charity Retail Association for their People Management Group – a successful hybrid event we spoke at. This was the first hybrid event we’ve attended, and we wanted to highlight the work put in by the team to make sure everything ran smoothly. While half of the attendees weren’t in the room, it never felt like they were anywhere else (apart from the leftover lunches!) We want to thank the CRA for including us in multiple of their events over 2021, and we hope to be continuing this into 2022.
Being back in person at an event was great and it felt like it was all going to be plain sailing moving into 2022, little did we know what was about to change everything!
December Celebrations:
In December, the Health Innovation Network (HIN) on behalf of NHSX released an evaluation into the value of micro-volunteering applications during the global pandemic. We were really excited to be a key contributor to the findings. The findings were also positive towards TeamKinetic and our approach to localised Micro-volunteering community response.
Through the use of these applications, over 100,000 individuals carried out 1.5 million tasks for the vulnerable during the global pandemic. Evidence suggests that micro-volunteering engages a willing volunteer force and addresses unmet community needs. It was also clear that the pandemic drove interest into the value of these platforms.
We also managed to squeeze in our Christmas party and our annual Christmas jumper day which was fun.
December has not quite turned out as we would have liked. There are refreshed calls for Volunteers to support the booster campaign. It’s all starting to feel a little like Groundhog Day as we find ourselves back in a COVID-induced crisis.
It’s been an uncertain year at times. While we’re still waiting for the days we can ‘go back to normal’, we think we’ve managed to have another successful year and that we have helped to make volunteering that little bit easier and more accessible.
If we have learned anything from 2021, it’s that you can’t plan too far in advance. You should enjoy the simple things in life and take the small victories where you can find them. You just can’t be sure what’s around the corner.
All that’s left to say is Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to those that celebrate. And, finally, have a Happy New Year – we’ll see you in 2022!
“It’s Chrisstmaasss!” For many this festive time of year is to relax and enjoy time with friends and family; but, for many, Christmas is a time of sadness, loneliness and stress. 2021 has been another tough year for charities, and those that they help. At Christmas time, charities rely on volunteers, donations, or fundraisers to help them through this festive season. With at least 3.5 million people not looking forward to Christmas this year for a myriad of reasons, It’s time to unleash your inner elf, and start volunteering or fundraising in your local community.
Befriending Services
According to Age UK, more than 2.5 million older people have no one to turn to for help and support. The charity’s network of local groups means there are a number of opportunities available for you to engage with- they aren’t limited to just Christmas, but maybe Christmas is the best time to start.
These opportunities also include their befriending scheme, both face-to-face and through telephone calls. Partnering with The Silver Line, Age UK offers free phone friendship services, meaning you’re able to comfort someone over the phone, from your own home. At many Age UK branches, you can become a befriender volunteer and visit an older person in their home or accompany them to doctor’s visits or the theatre. You can hear more about the befriending services through Rose and Sarah’s story here.
Age UK isn’t the only charity who offer these types of befriending services, Independent Age and Royal Voluntary Service offer similar services, open to volunteers just like you.
Befriending services are across the country this Christmas. No one should feel lonely.
Crisis at Christmas
Charity Crisis has been helping those take their first steps out of homelessness since 1967. Christmas donations of just £29.06 helps provide a place that’s safe to stay at, hot meals- including a Christmas Dinner, companionship and year-round support such as training and education to help someone end their homelessness for good.
Crisis this year has setups in London along with multiple other regions across the country, including our very own Manchester. In London, Crisis will be providing accommodation during the Christmas and New Year period to those who would alternatively be spending Christmas on the streets.
They’ll also be opening their day centres in the capital along with their other sites across Britain delivering hot meals and providing advice, health and wellbeing services. For those who may still be cautious to volunteer due to the pandemic, Crisis will be continuing to provide their volunteering opportunities in a socially distanced way. If you’d like to know more about Crisis, and the ways you can help this Christmas, have a look here.
Crisis at Christmas: Together we will end homelessness.
Local Community Based Organisations:
Local volunteering opportunities are just a few clicks away, and you’re likely to find an opportunity that fits you perfectly. If you’re struggling to find opportunities, head to our TryVolunteering site, or look for national schemes set up specifically for this time of year.
Why not look at opportunities that focus on helping young people within your local community. For those less fortunate, it can be a confusing and frustrating period. With around half a million people, including 200,000 children being pushed into poverty by the universal credit cut, volunteering, fundraising and donations may be needed more than ever.
Become a Secret Santa and raise money to help bring food, love and warmth to vulnerable children this Christmas. Last year, Santa’s across the UK reached 604,000 young people and their families. Supporting these children is now more important than ever- start your Santa journey today, here.
What Are You Waiting For This Christmas?
Volunteering this Christmas doesn’t just have to help those in need, there can be benefits for you too. Volunteering, fundraising and even making a small donation can make you feel good and positively impact your mental health. You might even learn a new skill along the way!
So, what are you waiting for? Start helping to make a difference to those in need, so everyone can enjoy Christmas this year.
Let’s be honest, Christmas time is a mixed bag. Some people love it, some hate it. For some, it’s a time full of family, friends, food, and celebration. For others, it can be stressful or lonely.
Activities and events hosted by volunteers can be essential for many over the holidays. Being surrounded by happiness when your own situation is the opposite can be awful. But these activities give people a much-needed boost.
Now of course, volunteering isn’t just for Christmas. The work of volunteers is essential throughout the whole year. However, we live in a time where it’s been revealed that: – There are around 800 more foodbanks in the UK than McDonald’s branches. – Around four million children are currently living in poverty in the UK. – Almost a million older people feel lonelier at Christmas. – At least 135,000 children will be homeless and living in temporary accommodation across Britain on Christmas day. It’s fair to say that we all need to spread a bit of love and compassion this time of year and beyond.
So… what can you do to help?
If you’re yet to set plans this Christmas, why not check out volunteering opportunities near you? There may be a place offering food to the less fortunate, or a service preventing people from spending the festive period alone.
For students staying in their university’s city over the holidays, volunteering can be a great way to spend free time. It gives you something to do while helping locals and generally improving the community. Check out your university’s volunteering page (they should have one!) for things you can get involved with. Or you can try and find opportunities here.
You could also check out local organisations and clubs, both online and at their offices/HQs. For example, me and Milo went to volunteer at the Liverpool FC Foundation over summer and had a great time. Usually, community-based organisations will have a lot of activities on over the festive period that you can help out with.
In additon, you can help out local charities by acting as a fundraiser for them. People may be strapped for cash around Christmas but will often spare a few pennies for a good cause!
Still stuck for ideas? You could see if Crisis or Shelter have any opportunities near you. They both provide help for homeless people at this critical time of year. By volunteering with organisations like these, you can make a real difference to people experiencing homelessness.
Does it really make a difference?
Short answer: yes. Multiple stories can be seen reported in local media outlets of how volunteers have helped to improve the Christmas period for individuals and groups. One example describes a man who was helped by volunteers and was then inspired to give back to his community.
While volunteering helps others, it can also help you. It has been found to lower stress and increase happiness. A perfect combination just in time for Christmas!
If you need help organising your volunteers over this busy festive period, don’t hesitate to reach out to see how TeamKinetic can help! Give us a call on 0161 914 5757 or visit our website.
We have decided to give you all a few tips on how you can get into the holiday spirit. This is the time of year for giving. How can you help others at this time?
Giving back to your community
In December there are usually lots of events on that will give everyone the chance to become engrossed in the community. This your chance to do good for society. People are the lifeblood of any community and effort into helping others can go a long way. Not everyone will have the ideal family Christmas this year and the things you do could really make a difference to them.
Things you can do vary with how much time you have. It can be something big like organising a Christmas fare or as little as helping someone with their shopping. All of these things help the community.
All these acts can go a long way, How are you going to help out this year?
Be kind to everyone
This point goes without saying. Being kind should be a trait we should have all year round. We feel this is particularly important at Christmas. Everyone should be treated with kindness regardless of their circumstances. Random acts of kindness can help brighten anyone’s day and can do more than you think in this Christmas period.
As said before not everyone will have the perfect Christmas. Doing good for others will make the world a happier place and usually, all this takes is a bit of time and love.
Spend time with your loved ones
Giving up the time to spend with loved ones can be challenging, but it’s not impossible! During busy periods we can often forget the things that are most important to us. Friends, Family, having fun and just taking a seat back and doing nothing!
The average person now works more hours than ever before due to the growing pressures of having tasks complete on time. Research found that more than 5 million workers did around 2 billion unpaid hours of work during 2018. Teachers and educational professionals work the most unpaid hours on average each week, at 12.1 hours. Chief executives worked 11.4 extra hours per week, followed by legal professionals at 10.2 hours more.
We think here at TeamKinetic that your happiness and health comes first. So this Christmas, make time for your loved one and enjoy the holidays because deep down that is what really matters.
Every Christmas it is easy to get wrapped up in the commercial side of things. Presents, parties and Xmas markets, etc. It is really a time for giving. A time where we should be thinking about the people who are less fortunate than us and how we can help them.
Every year lots of fantastic work is done up and down the country to help people in need. The amount of work that is done and the opportunities available rises during the festive period and this year is no different, which is great to see. Manchester in particular has some great ways of making sure people are helped this Christmas.
MANCHESTER
Since 2015, official Christmas carols have been a tradition at the Manchester Cathedral to raise money for the Royal Children’s Hospital. They do fantastic work all year round and funding is vital to allow them to keep doing this.
Tickets are now on sale for the Christmas Carols in the City concert. It’s a chance to experience an authentic festive choir, and part of the ticket fee goes to those who need it most. It takes place on Thursday 20th December and festive refreshments will be available. Tickets are £6 for children and concessions, £12 for adults.
The capital is also well known for the charitable work over the winter months. There are many elderly people who spend Christmas alone every year. The Rotary Club holds a Christmas day party, for over-65s living in Wandsworth. The wild shindig takes place in Battersea Park. Last year, 450 elderly people who otherwise would have been alone went along.
Volunteers are needed for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and applications for 2018 are now open. You can do just one, two, or all three days. Jobs include preparing the venue, helping with transport for the guests, serving food, and clearing up afterwards.
As you can imagine London is packed with great volunteering opportunities. Our friends at Team London are the ultimate search tool for volunteering opportunities, ideal when Google lets you down. Type the keyword ‘Christmas’ into the search engine, if you need your volunteering to be festive.
If you are on the search for a reliable trustworthy volunteer management software, look no further than TeamKinetic. We offer a service suitable for any sized company, we can tailor your system to you. To find out more, give us a call on 0161 914 5757 or or send us an email at info@teamkinetic.co.uk.
The Christmas TeamKinetic is continuing its ambition of helping build stronger volunteer communities across the globe!
What’s Christmas without giving a little back, right?
Gift
TeamKinetic Christmas Giveaway
Each year as we are growing across the voluntary sector, we are fortunate to work alongside some tremendous organisations that make a big impact in their communities.
Our volunteer management software allows organisations to manage volunteers no matter what size; big or small, and is providing opportunities right across the world. Seeing the great diversity our on our users and the impact their volunteering has on their communities fuels our commitment to build the very best software we can.
The festive season is a time of coming together and celebrating all the good in the world. It’s a time to think about being kind and generous (not to say that this cant is done all year round). However, this time of the year can also be a tad hectic and a long haul for voluntary organisations. Cuts made by the government have made it difficult, and often demand on services goes up during the colder months.
So this Christmas we wanted to give one lucky organisation the chance to win 6-months on TeamKinetic Enterprise, normally worth about £3000!
What’s this giveaway mean?
1 x TeamKinetic Enterprise Edition Volunteer Management Software (worth £3000) for 6-months.
This will allow the lucky winner to have their own fully customisable bespoke website with no limit on the number of volunteers they can recruit.
More information on what is included in the Enterprise system can be found here.
How can I win this fantastic festive giveaway?
To be in with a chance of winning this incredible Christmas giveaway all you have to do is one of the following:
Follow us on Twitter on @TeamKineticUK and retweet our giveaway post pinned to the top of our page
Spread the word to your volunteer manager colleagues and you could be responsible for them getting an early Christmas present.
Terms and Conditions
The TeamKinetic Christmas giveaway will run from the 2nd of December until 11:59 PM on the 31st of December 2018. One entry per person (This does not restrict different individuals in the same organisation to enter the giveaway). The winner will be announced on all platforms in the new year! Further information will be provided to the winner on how to access the prize.
For any more information or if you would like a demo of our volunteer management system, visit our website or contact us on 0161 914 5757
