It may be a clichΘ, but the best ideas often are the simplest, like Dublin's Corporate Challenge Day, organised by Business in the Community (BiC). Early in the morning of Thursday, September 27th, four teams of people from Bank of Ireland, Allied Irish Bank, Cantrell & Cochrane, and Heiton Buckley turn up at St Andrew's Resource Centre on Pearse Street.
It is a working day, but there isn't a pinstripe or a briefcase in sight: everyone is dressed in matching T-shirts and baseball caps, and wearing jeans and trainers. The 71 employees of these organisations have volunteered their skills for the day, to work on five pre-arranged projects in the Dublin area. The challenge requires that all tasks be completed by 5 p.m. that day - the official end of a working day.
Tina Roche, the chief executive of BiC, and Clodagh Gorman, its programme executive, explain.
"This is a one-off day that's been a long time in the planning," says Roche, agreeing that it could be seen as a showcase for the type of work they do on a longer-term basis. "Our work with these and other companies is ongoing. What we are continually promoting is corporate social responsibility."
The phrase "voluntary work" has a very tired ring to it these days. It's been widely reported that the number of people offering their services to long-established charitable bodies such as Vincent de Paul has dropped drastically in recent years. People are busier, and the amount of time available for philanthropic activity outside working hours has unquestionably diminished.
The wonderfully engaging, clever and simple concept behind BiC's approach to voluntary work is that it occurs within office hours. The hours given to others are taken out of the employer's time (assuming they are members of BiC), and not employees' increasingly precious home and leisure time: this is known as Employer Supported Volunteering. Clearly, this approach will work much better in some companies than others, notably those which are large and have enough employees to cover for absent colleagues without disruption to their departments.
BiC was founded in 2000 and is supported and funded by its membership base of 21 major companies based in Ireland. Among them are An Post, Esat, Guinness, Penney's, Eircom, and the ESB. BiC aims to engage with the top 70 companies within the next two years. Apart from the Employer Supported Volunteering programme, BiC has also developed the Linkage Programme, whereby BiC acts as a mediator between probation officers and employers to place ex-offenders in jobs. The organisation is developing several other programmes.
For the challenge day, BiC liaised with those already working within the community to choose projects which would benefit most from extra attention. Once the five projects had been selected, the groundwork was done in advance with team-leaders from each of the companies, who visited the locations, consulted with the people directly involved with the various centres, and then ordered the necessary materials.
By 9.45 a.m., everyone has lined up behind a yellow ribbon, ready for off, brandishing the odd saw in the air. Sr Stan Kennedy snips the silk, someone makes a klaxon shriek and they all go thundering off to jump into cars and taxis outside.
Visiting each of the five sites with Roche and Gorman, first up is Cabinteely Community School, where 35 people are landscaping the entrance area. The school offers classes to adults as well as school-age pupils, and serves as an unofficial community centre. Like many other such schools, the resources it has rarely stretch to making the place look visually attractive.
Most of the BoI employees at the Cabinteely location work in the bank's branch there, and some of them are past-pupils of the school. Three professional gardeners are directing three groups of employees, each of which is assigned to a separate plot close to the school's main entrance. The sense of energy and excitement is evident immediately. There are several bags of compost and wood chippings stacked up nearby, people are scampering around by the dozen, wheeling barrows and wielding spades, digging, setting plants, raking, and keeping anxious eyes on the sullen grey-black sky.
The aim is to totally revamp three large areas: two long bedding areas directly under classrooms and one grassy mound. A huge heather bed has been marked out for the grassy mound, and rows and rows of lovely plants and creepers are on the Tarmac, waiting to be bedded in freshly weeded and turned earth.
What will they do if it rains? Someone scurrying past answers with spirit: "We've enough volunteers that one can hold an umbrella while the other digs."
It's back into the car and, after a bit of unscheduled exploration of the Southern Cross motorway, we arrive at St Basil's in Tallaght, a training centre for Travellers, providing 30 places for females to learn about childcare, literacy, hairdressing, art, and first aid, among other skills.
Heiton Buckley has 15 people working between here and Barnardo's Youth Club nearby. Painting is the main job here. St Basil's is an old school, with ceilings so high they have had to bring in a portable scaffold. A senior manager is atop the scaffolding, covered in paint and very close to bringing down one of the ceiling lights in his enthusiasm with the brushes.
Mary O'Brien, the group's team leader, who works in their accounts department, says St Basil's chose the colours themselves. The wall with hairdressing basins is pink; the others are white. The adjoining classroom, which has still to be tackled, is equally vast, but already the place looks so much fresher and somehow tranquil.
Nearby in Jobstown, three of the Heiton's team are finishing painting the front room of a house used by Barnardo's as a playroom and artroom for local children. It is now a cheerful yellow. There is a lot of yellow around, and not all of it on the walls: a lot of it is smudged on the clothes of those who are painting. They are now about to go over to St Basil's to muck in with the work on the classrooms there.
In Ballyfermot, at about 1.45 p.m., we bolt for the kitchen of St Mary's Youth Club and wolf down several of the sandwiches laid on for the volunteers. But not before registering the overpowering smell of paint throughout the building.
The reason the smell is so inescapably bad is that there are no windows to open in the Youth Club. The bunker-like slab of building dates from 1956 and was originally the paint store for Dublin Corporation while they built the surrounding houses. It looks fairly grim from without, but inside it's clear the place is well-used and cared for. The C&C team's task is to paint two large rooms and the hallway, and the place already looks much brighter and more welcoming.
By the time we reach the last venue, Steps, an ISPCC-run youth advice and counselling service on Bride Street, Clodagh Gorman has talked me into volunteering my own skills to BiC for a day (in my own time). Being fairly unpractised at DIY techniques, I never thought I'd have anything useful to offer. "You're a journalist," Gorman points out. "You could write a press release for some community centre in about a 10th of the time they could, for instance."
At Steps, new partitions have been put up so that the children can have private counselling, a computer has been installed and shelves put up, and everything earmarked to be painted rainbow colours of lime, pink, blue, yellow, and purple. The AIB team of 10 is working against the clock, since it's now about 3 p.m.
Due to good planning, enthusiasm, and sheer hard work, each project gets finished in time, although there were a few walls still tacky with paint at the day's end. Everyone gathers back in St Andrew's at 6 p.m. to celebrate and swop stories of paint fumes. And to marvel not a little at how easily, with latitude and foresight, skills can be transferred from within the relative anonymity of a large company to the communities in which they operate.
Business in the Community can be contacted at 01-8747232 or admin@bitc.ie