Crisis Open Christmas Challenge Days 2006
Help Crisis Open Doors for Even More Homeless People this
Christmas
From the 23rd to 30th December this year, Crisis Open Christmas shelters will provide an alternative family for
many homeless and vulnerably housed people who feel particularly lonely and isolated over the Christmas
period. As well as companionship, the shelters provide people with 21 essential services, whether it’s housing
and benefits advice, having a full health check or accessing the Crisis Learning Zones for training and further
education, our aim is to reconnect homeless people with the skills to secure their own independent futures.
Crisis Challenge Days
Setting up the Crisis Open Christmas is a huge
challenge and requires the help of our committed
volunteers and supporters. This year Crisis is again
offering companies organised volunteering days for
teams of people to help set-up the five Open
Christmas shelters across London, running from 7th
December to 22nd December as well as closing down
What are the benefits to you?
 Develops team building and employee relations
– get to know how your team or other
departments work
 Motivation and morale boosting – gives staff the
opportunity to give something back to the
community and learn about some of the issues
around homelessness
 Community impact – demonstrates a real
corporate commitment to making a difference
 PR opportunities – challenges can generate very
positive publicity for a company, and Crisis will
support companies who undertake their own PR.
the shelters from Wednesday 3rd January to Friday
12th January.
What is Involved?
The activities you carry out on your challenge day will depend on the work which is needed most by the Crisis
Open Christmas team on that day. If you are doing a challenge day within the first week we would expect that
the focus of your time will be spent cleaning and clearing the shelter, to prepare the shelter for guests and
volunteers. Later challenges will tend to focus more on the appearance of the shelters with tasks such as
redecorating, painting murals, or sorting out specific areas. Whatever you get involved in you can expect it to
be a fun-filled, challenging and extremely rewarding day.
How many people can you bring?
The maximum number of staff we ask companies to bring is 60 people, split into three teams. Each team
MUST have a nominated team captain, who will need to visit the site beforehand and liaise with the Open
Christmas Team Leaders. This will ensure that key tasks can be confirmed and the challenge day can run as
smoothly as possible. Unfortunately we are unable to cater for teams of more than sixty people on any one
day, due to health and safety regulations and the difficulty of managing groups of this size. Please let us know
if anyone within your team has a first aid qualification, as it will be very helpful to us if you do.
Where will the challenge day take place and what will happen on the day?
Raising the Challenge Stakes
£ There is no cost to participants for
challenge days but we do ask that
companies set individual participants either
an individual fundraising target of £200 each
or a team target of £4000 to take part.
£ This will not only increase the competitive
nature of the challenges but will allow Crisis
to cover the costs of hosting a challenge
day and to provide a donation to our yearround work with homeless people, helping
your team to focus on the day itself.
£ We have enclosed some ideas of how to
get started on raising money for Crisis but
please contact the corporate partnerships
team if you would like further ideas tailored
for your staff.
The Crisis Open Christmas runs five shelters across London
and we begin the search for these buildings in September.
However, it can be as late as the first week in December
before we have a confirmed location. We apologise that we
are unable to offer a definite location in advance but we
endeavour each year to ensure the shelters are within zone
2. If you know of anyone who might be able to help Crisis
to secure a building for the 2005 Crisis Open Christmas
please contact Peter McGee on 020 7426 3821.
In the past we have found that challenges work best when
all of the members can arrive at the shelters together so
we usually suggest that companies taking part provide a
coach or minibus service to get the participants to the shelter. A challenge will usually take place on one site
for the whole day but we might ask to split a team into smaller groups if there is urgent work which needs to
be done at one of the five sites, please let us know if you would like to ensure that your team stays together
for the whole day.
The challenges usually start at 9.30 with an introduction to Crisis and the Open Christmas and tasks
commencing at 10am until 4pm, rounding off with feedback on the Challenge day including question and
answer session with Crisis staff. Departure is usually at 5pm
What do you need to bring?
Companies taking part in the challenges do not need to bring any equipment or materials on the day of the
challenge, as this will all be provided by Crisis. However, we can only supply tea and coffee on the day so we
would ask that participants bring their own lunch or arrange for some lunch to be provided. Feel free to bring
a camera but please be sensitive to who or what you are photographing.
Remember that you will be taking part in an event to prepare our Christmas shelters and this can involve
strenuous and dirty work in the middle of the British winter. Please wear warm, comfortable, old clothing and
sturdy footwear, which you don’t mind getting dirty!
And once it is all over….
We would also like to invite anyone who would like to volunteer at the Crisis Open Christmas to join us for
one day between December 23rd and 30th to meet our guests and to see how their work has made a
difference.
We would encourage all participants to send any money that has been raised from their challenge to Crisis
within three months of the Challenge Day so we can send out a proper acknowledgement and thank you for
all of your efforts.
Next Steps
If you would like to take part in this year’s Crisis Open
Christmas Challenges, please contact the Corporate Partnerships
Team on either 020 7426 3848 / 3851 and talk to Wendy Hawk
or Ciara Devlin. We will aim to provide you with your preferred
Set-up challenge dates
7th December to 22nd December
Close Down challenge dates
Wednesday 3rd January to Friday 12th
January
date, but please note the challenges are extremely popular and
therefore dates are booked very quickly. The deadline for confirming challenge days is 20th November.
Once you have confirmed a date, we will send you the following information:

An intranet piece to recruit employees to take part in the day

A standard press release to publicise your challenge day

Sponsorship forms to get you started on raising money

A letter of agreement confirming you would like to hold a challenge on your chosen date

A date for your team captains to meet their Open Christmas Team Leader
Thank you