we're doing our bit

Charity Partnership 2023

Lakeside is pleased to announce a new charity partnership with lifeboat organisation RNLI for 2023.

This new partnership with the Burnham on Crouch branch is to honour Lakeside colleague Ryan Webb who passed away at the end of 2022 and was a avid supporter of the organisation.

The RNLI is a search and rescue charity, reliant on the support of the public to continue its lifesaving work. The lifeboat crews provide 24-hour search and rescue around the UK and Ireland and the lifeguards keep watch on 240 of the busiest beaches in the UK and Channel Islands. The RNLI safety teams and educators also work tirelessly to stop people getting into trouble in the first place. Fundraising events enable the charity to provide the best safety kit and training for volunteer crews and to build and develop lifeboats capabilities as it also continues its international drowning prevention programmes.

To launch this exciting new partnership, this March the Lakeside security team have undertaken the challenge to walk 3.1 million steps during the month while patrolling the centre with all donations going to the RNLI. You can find a link to the Just Giving page here.

We have raised over £10,000 for the RNLI

We are so proud of the fundraising efforts we have undertaken so far this year to raise money for the RNLI. Some of our fundraising have included:

- Sponsored sky dives by our staff

- Sponsored 3 million steps challenge undertaken by our security team

- Donations from the children's RNLI boat ride in the centre on Level 1

- Donations from the Fireman Ladder Climb in the Central Atrium

- Raising money during One Great Day

- Donations from the Central Atrium Cycling Event

- Office non-uniform days

- Fountain money in The Quay

Lakeside Teams Learn The Ropes as RNLI Lifeguards

On Monday 17th April 2023, the Lakeside team visited RNLI Burnham-on-Crouch to learn more about the shopping centre’s charity partnership for 2023.

Together the lifeguards gave the group a tour of the facilities, the boat houses and demonstrated how the lifeboats operate when facing an emergency.

To read more about their visit, click here.

We're Proud to Support Our Team

In September this year, one of our team members here at Lakeside is raising money for two charities close to their heart. The charities they have chosen to support are Andy's Man Club, a men's suicide prevent charity and also Prostate Cancer UK.

Aaron is attempting to challenge himself an a friend to drive a 33-year-old Skoda Estelle with 42bhp from London to the Nurburgring in Germany. Once there, the next challenge will be to complete a full lap of the 12.95 mile Nurburgring in the 33-year-old Skoda. This will be a challenge in itself only having 42bhp to climb the elevations of the track along with cars of 500+bhp flying at fast speed. Let's not forget driving home to complete the challenge!

Distance from London to Nurburgring: 410 miles

One lap of the Nurburgring: 12.95 miles

Distance back to London from Nurburgring: 410 miles

Total distance covered: 832.95 miles

To show your support, donate to this amazing cause here.

Bird Nesting Islands

As some of our regular customers may know we have been having some refurbishment works carried out on The Boardwalk decking which resulted in a lot of old deck boards being available. So instead of sending the boards of to be recycled we decided to use some of them to create some wildlife bird nesting islands!

This involved collecting damaged wooden pallets to use as the base of the islands then fixing the decking boards to the pallet to create a platform. Once the platform was built each island has a different type of nesting box / area for different breed of birds to nest.

Some of the birds we currently have nesting on the lake are Grey leg Goose, Canada Goose, Coots, Egyptian Goose, Ducks and Great Crested Grebe.

Turning Tarmac Green

Here at Lakeside as part of our sustainability initiative, we have utilised a small piece of unused tarmac to turn into an allotment for our staff to nurture. We aim to recycle and reuse as much material as possible to get this project running smoothly. Benefits to having an allotment are:

- We can eat and donate the food we grow to our staff and local community

- We are encouraging exercise and benefitting mental health by involving our staff in the project

- We are creating a sense of community

- We are helping to improve the environment and the benefits of local wildlife

To find out further benefits to creating and maintaining an allotment, click here.

Our Bee's Have Moved for 2023!

Our Urban Bees are settling in and exploring their surroundings at the new location at Lakeside Shopping Centre!

Surrounded by wild flowers and plants often mistakenly referred to as weeds, diverse forage is vital for bees and other pollinating insects. They may even have a few neighbours in the birdboxes too!

After joining us in the Summer of 2022, our Bee's had a successful honey harvest and we were able to harvest 100 jar's of honey. These jar's were open to our staff to buy in order for a donation to our charity of the year. Keep an eye out for more bee activity in 2023!

Our project is realized in collaboration with Alvéole, a social beekeeping company. Since 2013, Alvéole has partnered with hundreds of companies and schools to start beekeeping projects all over North America and Europe, each hive creating more ecological awareness, allowing city dwellers to reconnect with nature and change their sense of responsibility towards the environment.

Lakeside Shopping Centre rings up top recycling award

We won the Silver Green Apple award for our commitment to sustainability and recycling!

The award, presented for Environmental Best Practice in Wastes Management, follows a successful year where the Centre has achieved zero waste to landfill, reduced general waste and increased recycling, as well as earning rebates by separating out different types of waste. To read more about this, click here.