Social
DPT encourages its staff to engage with the local community and supports local and national charitable initiatives. This section shows some of our recent activities in support of these charities.
Davy Dragons - Dragon Boat Champions 2009!
During the regeneration of Paddington and the surrounding area, the community organisation ‘Time for Paddington’ was set up to promote involvement between corporate organisations and local volunteer and community groups based in the Paddington and North Westminster area. 'Time for Paddington' organises various events and brokers donations of equipment, skills and time from companies to benefit the local community.
One of the initiatives it organised this year was a fundraising event which included the team paddling sport of Dragon Boat Racing. The event consisted of twelve teams from local businesses racing authentic canoe style Dragon Boats in timed heats, with the fastest overall time progressing to the final stages for a knock out competition. Time for Paddington chose twelve local charity groups, with each competing team choosing one of these local charities to support and raise money for. The charity chosen by DPT this year was RADICLE, who develop and manage a large variety of projects across four London Boroughs.
Their current projects include:
Two drop-in centres and a lunch club open every week day offering a nutritious meal, practical advice and emotional support for over 500 isolated older people
A nursery and a children’s centre providing access to educational, social and health services supporting more than 150 disadvantaged families
Six residential schemes with places for 51 homeless young mothers and babies
A fancy dress theme of ‘Racing Grannies’ was adopted to try and increase our fundraising potential. Floral print dresses and blue rinses were donned as we aimed to win the Best Fancy Dress and Most Money Raised prizes in style. Sadly these prizes went to a team of Dalmatians but that did not diminish our racing spirit or our success in raising over £1300 for our own chosen charity. The charity was thrilled with this total and informed us that this would cover the utility costs for one of their nurseries for a whole year.
The Davy Dragons breezed through the qualifying stages to the semi-finals, posting the fastest time along the way. The semi-final was a hard fought affair - with both teams tiring towards the end - but our dragon boat crossed the line first and the Davy Dragons reached the final for the third successive year. The final was tense with the two best teams of the day competing head to head and eager to bring the trophy home. In the end the Davy Dragons proved too strong for their opponents and stormed to victory.
