Cornish company Creative Edge designs and launches new, interactive website to encourage GE staff to volunteer in schools around the country
We’ve all heard the saying an apple for the teacher – but Truro-based graphic design Company Creative Edge has taken it to another level, sending out thousands of apples to potential volunteer teachers across the UK.
Known to Creative Edge staff as the ‘apple-teaser’, the Cornish company delivered 15,000 apples to 15,000 GE employees as part of a direct marketing campaign to launch a new interactive website for GE’s UK-wide volunteering programme.
The programme, called iCount, encourages GE staff to work with schools and colleges on a wide range of initiatives from student mentoring to interview practice, to helping children read and write.
David Rickett, Partner at Creative Edge, said:
“We successfully designed and set-up GE’s new website for its iCount programme and then looked at ways of getting GE staff to visit it.
“We hit upon the idea of using apples and sent out 15,000 of them – each with sticker with the iCount website address – to staff at over fifty GE sites across the UK. The response was great and we’ve had plenty of hits”.
“The website itself is very interactive and provides a one-stop resource for both employees and schools interested in volunteering. It lays out in a simple and clear way the commitment required and opportunities offered to GE staff and to schools.
“Being managed by GE themselves, it also means they can fine tune content throughout the project and respond to comments left on the blog. There are a few surprises too – so it’s really good fun to visit”.
Ruth Bedingham, a Corporate Citizenship Consultant for GE said:
“We’re very happy with the website and have already seen a good response from both our employees and the schools.
“We wanted to make sure that volunteer leaders had all the information they needed and that this information could be downloaded. It was also essential that the web site wasn’t stuffy, and it most definitely isn’t – you can even draw a picture on it and then email it to someone else”.
Ends
Notes to editors
In summary, the aim of iCount is to:
- Inspire more employees to get involved in volunteering projects
- Use the skills and expertise of GE employees in volunteering activities
- Share best practices among GE’s UK volunteers
- Create the most benefit for the schools, colleges and communities in which we operate
More about GE
- GE has operated in the UK since the 1930s and employs over 22,000 people, in six businesses, based at more than 45 major locations. GE Money, Home Lending has two offices in Cornwall.
- GE’s UK operations represent its largest single presence outside of the US. Two of the six GE businesses have chosen to locate their global headquarters in the UK: GE Healthcare in Amersham and GE Money in London.
- GE’s business activities are wide-ranging and include servicing aircraft engines, providing state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment to hospitals, distributing international blockbuster motion pictures. selling advanced gas turbines and financing businesses and customers.
- GE people worldwide are dedicated to turning imaginative ideas into leading products and services that help solve some of the world’s toughest problems. For more information, visit our web site at www.ge.com
