As the year draws to an end, we thought we’d look back at 2023 and all the achievements we’ve seen over the last 12 months. From new faces joining the Fun & Active family and the hundreds of school playgrounds we’ve transformed, to the numerous climate projects we’ve supported around the world and many memorable team moments, let’s take a look at our favourite highlights in our 2023 round up.
New Faces
Q1 of 2023 saw the Fun & Active team grow by 3 when Ryan, Rebecca and Chloe came on board. Ryan joined our team of skilful playground marking installers while Rebecca was welcomed to the marketing team. The addition of Chloe as Operations Assistant also meant that Kim was able to swap her role and join Luke in the warehouse as a Production Assistant, cutting and packing all our playground games and markings ready for install – and sometimes even heading out on site with the team to chip in with the installs herself.
We later welcomed Warwick as the sixth member of the install team and also said farewell to Katie during the Summer who moved on to pastures new in the form of a teaching assistant role at a school local to her. Whilst we were sad to see Katie go, we knew the new role would be perfect for her and it meant we were able to welcome Abi in September as a new Playground Design Consultant. Abi has been working alongside Connor to design numerous playgrounds for primary schools and nurseries on our virtual surveys.
Climate Project Wins
This year we’ve continued to support various Gold Standard and VCS (Verified Carbon Standard) approved projects each month in an effort to offset our carbon footprint and avoid tonnes of CO2e from entering the atmosphere. Whilst we continue to work on ways in which we can reduce our emissions, supporting carbon avoidance projects allows us to compensate for our remaining unavoidable emissions by supporting climate solutions that prevent greenhouse gas emissions, restore nature, and support local communities.
So far, we have supported the following climate projects:
- First Ever Wind Power Project in Honduras
- Wind Power Project in Mexico
- Avoiding methane emissions from landfill in Brazil
- Solar Power Project in Morocco
- Protection of the Matavén forest in eastern Colombia
- Generating renewable solar electricity in Egypt
- Protecting rainforest in a wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia
Overall, we’ve avoided a total of 58 tCO2e and we’ll be pleased to keep contributing to this in the new year. To give you an idea though, that’s the equivalent of 45 long haul flights, 174 metres2 of sea ice saved, or 143,898 miles driven in a car!
Find out more about these projects on our Ecologi profile.
In addition to offsetting our emissions, we’ve also donated hundreds of trees every month that have been planted in locations around the world that are particularly vulnerable to climate change including Tanzania, Madagascar, Kenya, Uganda, and Mozambique.
Trees are essential to maintaining our climate and biodiversity. What’s more, they contribute to the global environment by improving air quality, conserving water, preserving soil, and supporting wildlife. We’ll definitely be keeping this up in the new year!
See our Sustainability page for more.
Free Playground Markings For 3 Lucky Schools
In January, May, and September, we gave away free playground markings to the three lucky schools who won our competitions. The Nethersole C of E Academy in Tamworth were the lucky winners of our Blue Monday competition and now have one of our colourful Today I’m Feeling playground markings to use as an outdoor resource for helping pupils express their emotions.
Summerlea Community Primary School in West Sussex and Waterwells Primary Academy in Gloucestershire later went on to win one of our popular Active Spot Circuit playground markings each. Now their students can get the most out of their breaktimes working on their physical fitness, and also use the marking to practice different movements during their PE lessons!
As a business, we are pleased to be able to give back to local communities, gifting playground markings that inspire outdoor play and learning for schools that may not have otherwise had the budget for.
Keep an eye out for future competitions and opportunities to win on our Facebook page.
Fun & Active Take An Overseas Trip
As a team, we’re always looking for new and exciting activities where our employees can have fun together outside of the normal work environment with different team-building events.
To uphold our fun company culture and to celebrate a successful Summer of installations, this year the team were treated to 4 nights away in Spain. True to our name, everyone who came on the trip took part in numerous fun and active activities including a sunset dune buggy ride in pairs through the Sierra de Mijas, a dusty mountain range near the coast. It’s safe to say this was a strong team favourite, but lots of great memories were also made during our trip to the local water park, beach, and several local restaurants.
The team were also able to enjoy a trip to the New Forest Water Park back in July. Although we weren’t quite as lucky with the weather as we had been in previous years, we discovered that bouncing around on water inflatables is just as fun in the rain when you’re with the right people.
We’re certainly looking forward to future team building activities in the new year!
Over 380 UK School Playgrounds Transformed
And what all our efforts come down to is the achievement of our mission: to positively impact UK outdoor play environments with advanced playground marking designs and services to promote healthy lifestyles in children including physical and mental wellbeing.
With that said, we are delighted that this year we have worked with hundreds of primary schools, play companies, local communities, and nurseries to transform a whopping 386 outdoor play spaces.
We’d like to say a big thank you to everyone we’ve worked with this year, it’s been one to remember and we look forward to transforming even more playgrounds in 2024.