Member Article

Wilsons wins Aviva Community Support Award and £10K for Emmanuel House

The organisers of The Midlands Family Business Awards, Nottingham-based The Wilson Organisation, has won the Community Support Award of the national Aviva Broker Community Fund and secured £10,000 of funding for Emmanuel House Support Centre.

Wilsons is celebrating its centenary this year, and as part of its activities to mark the firm’s 100 years in business has committed to do 100 things for charity.

During the summer a team of Wilsons staff dedicated their spare time to paint the entire exterior of Emmanuel House in Nottingham city centre – one of the initiatives to support the charity that secured the firm a finalist position in the 2014 Aviva Broker Community Fund.

Wilsons’ work with the charity and their ongoing project to help with the refurbishment of Emmanuel House was seen by the judges as a worthy beneficiary of the £10,000 and was voted the overall winner in the Community Support category, one of just four in the 2014 Awards.

Ped Briggs, Business Development Manager at Wilsons who spearheaded the charity initiative and collected the Award at a ceremony in London, along with representatives from Emmanuel House, said:

“The Aviva Awards received more than 200 entries this year, and to be selected as one of the 24 finalists was a huge achievement, but to go on to win one of the four categories, and the £10,000 fund for Emmanuel House, is simply incredible.

“Emmanuel House is the only full-time day centre in Nottingham and plays a vital role in the city’s aims to tackle homelessness and deliver services to its most marginalised individuals. The charity’s base is in need of refurbishment and renovation to support their service provision and create a more welcoming and homely environment for the centre’s users. We have a team of volunteers at Wilsons who are ready and willing to help, and now, thanks to Aviva, we have £10,000 of funding to make this happen.”

Alastair Paylor, Emmanuel House’s Centre Manager, added: “I know I speak for all staff at the Centre when I say we owe the Wilsons team a huge debt of gratitude - for their incredible support and this most needed funding. We have to prioritise the funding we receive to support delivering our core services to the many homeless and social excluded individuals who use our centre every day, so receiving this additional funding specifically for improving the centre and making it more homely and suitable for the services we deliver in, is a tremendous boost and will have a positive impact on the community we serve.”

Alastair Paylor and Victoria Green, Trustee of Emmanuel House, joined Wilsons’ Ped Briggs at the Aviva Awards ceremony at London’s Honourable Artillery Club on Tuesday 4th November, where the winners were announced and they collected their trophy and prize. The event was hosted by Will Greenwood, Rugby World Cup Winner and Community Fund Ambassador.

Ped added: “It’s wonderful that Aviva has created an initiative that supports brokers in their charity work, providing valuable funds for local charities that make such a positive impact in the communities where we live and work.”

For more information about the Awards, visit: www.broker.aviva.co.uk/community-fund.

The Wilson Organisation is a family-owned business, today in its third generation and led by Annabel Prow and her sister Charlotte Perkins, MD of the firm.

The Wilson Organisation, based in Nottingham, provides innovative insurance and financial solutions to businesses and individuals both regionally and nationally. It is a third generation family business and underwrites the not-for-profit Midlands Family Business Awards that launched in 2010. For information, Tel: 0115 942 0111, or visit: www.wilorg.com or www.familybusinessawards.co.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Midlands Family Business Awards .