MVIS: Supporting Local Sports and Communities – Sponsoring Jacob Spencer and Beyond

At MVIS, we believe that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is more than just a box to tick

it’s an integral part of our identity. We are committed to giving back to the community that supports us, and this philosophy has led us to sponsor our R&D Technician Jacob Spencer.

Championing Local Talent 

By sponsoring Jacob Spencer, we are proud to support grassroots football and provide opportunities for talented athletes to thrive. At the community level, football plays a huge role in fostering companionship, discipline, and physical well-being. Jacob’s passion and drive on the field reflect the values that we uphold at MVIS: commitment, teamwork, and perseverance. 

Through this sponsorship, we aim to ensure that local sports continue to thrive. Cromford and Wirksworth Town FC have been pillars of the local community, bringing people together, and we’re delighted to be a part of that legacy. 

Corporate Social Responsibility: A Core Value 

Our commitment to CSR extends beyond local sports. MVIS has long supported community initiatives, and our sponsorships are just one way we actively engage with causes that matter. For example, our ongoing relationship with Ashgate Hospice is one that’s especially close to our hearts. For years, we’ve contributed to their incredible work, assisting them with signage for key fundraising events such as the Sparkle Walk and sponsoring stars for their annual campaigns. Our team members, like Rob Hinchley, also participate in fundraising activities, like his planned charity skydive to raise funds for this essential cause. Supporting Ashgate Hospice embodies the spirit of care and community that MVIS seeks to foster in every aspect of our work.

Investing in Employee Well-being 

At MVIS, we also place great emphasis on the mental health and well-being of our employees. We understand that a supportive workplace is crucial to personal and professional success, which is why we prioritise a culture of openness and mental health support. When employees are happy and healthy, they are better equipped to give back to the community and thrive in their roles. This holistic approach to well-being not only benefits our team but also aligns with our CSR goals—helping us make a positive impact both internally and externally. 

A Legacy of Sports Sponsorship 

Sponsoring Jacob Spencer isn’t our first foray into supporting athletes. Over the years, MVIS has proudly sponsored local football teams, Car racing and even kickboxers, helping them compete at higher levels. We see sports as a fantastic way to develop resilience, dedication, and teamwork—qualities we value in our business. These sponsorships aren’t just about brand visibility but about strengthening community ties and giving back to those who inspire and energise us.

Looking Ahead 

We are excited to continue supporting Cromford and Wirksworth Town FC and Jacob Spencer in the upcoming season.  

Whether it’s through our ties with Ashgate Hospice, fostering employee well-being, or empowering athletes to chase their dreams, MVIS remains dedicated to making a difference. Our commitment to CSR will continue to guide us as we seek new ways to uplift our community and support those who inspire us. 

At MVIS, we know that our success is only meaningful when we use it to benefit the world around us, and we are proud to keep building stronger, more connected communities through our actions. 

  


Rob Hinchley’s Charity Skydive for Ashgate Hospice 

At MVIS, we’ve always been passionate about supporting our local community, and one of the organisations closest to our hearts is Ashgate Hospice. This year, our Workshop Technician, Rob Hinchley, is taking on an incredible challenge to raise a minimum of £550 for this important cause – by completing a charity skydive! 

Why Ashgate Hospice?   

Ashgate Hospice provides exceptional palliative and end-of-life care to those in need, and MVIS has been proud to partner with them over the years. From providing signage for their Sparkle Walk and High Peak Trail events to sponsoring stars placed outside the hospice in December, we’ve seen first hand the vital work they do for individuals and families during difficult times. 

Now, Rob is stepping up to make a difference in a whole new way—by jumping out of a plane! 

Rob’s Charity Skydive for a Cause 

On the 27th of September, Rob will be taking to the skies in a daring skydive, all in the name of charity. His goal is to raise £550, which will go directly toward helping Ashgate Hospice continue their essential work. Every pound raised will contribute to the care and support of patients facing life-limiting illnesses and their families, ensuring they receive the compassionate care they need. 

The Importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) 

At MVIS, we believe that businesses play a key role in giving back to the communities they serve. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is about more than just business success; it’s about making a positive impact on society and being a force for good. Through our long-standing partnership with Ashgate Hospice, we’re committed to supporting initiatives that benefit our local area and the people in it. 

By getting involved in charitable events, like Rob’s skydive, and contributing to important causes, we’re showing our dedication to values that go beyond profits. CSR helps strengthen our bonds within the community, improve employee engagement, and foster a culture of compassion and responsibility within the company. It’s a win-win, as we can both support our local hospice and encourage our team to take part in meaningful, life-enriching experiences. 

At MVIS, we know that our actions today can lead to a brighter tomorrow. That’s why we take every opportunity to contribute to causes that truly matter. Rob’s skydive is a perfect example of how we turn our commitment to CSR into action, helping to support the wonderful work of Ashgate Hospice.

How You Can Help 

Rob’s challenge is bold, and we believe he can reach his goal with the help of our amazing community. Whether you can donate a little or a lot, every bit counts. Your generosity will make a real difference to the lives of those Ashgate Hospice supporters. 

Worker in navy polo, stood infront of Skydiver for Charity Skydive

Show Your Support!

Let’s get behind Rob as he takes this leap for Ashgate Hospice! If you’d like to support him, visit his fundraising page and donate. Together, we can help Rob hit his target of £550 and contribute to the incredible work that Ashgate Hospice does every day. 

Thank you for your continued support! 


Ashgate Hospice: The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility

MVIS has been working with Ashgate Hospice for many years now, over this time we have proven useful to Ashgate, raising money through Car Boot Sales, Bake Offs, and Sponsorship of Ashgate Events.

Why do MVIS do it?

There are multiple reasons a company will help charities, such as Ashgate Hospice, with sponsorship or money raising events. The obvious being the good feeling of helping a small charitable organisation, raising money for them helps them to continue their charity work and pay staff members, so charity work continues.

The other reason being to improve a companies Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Being a company that collaborates with charity often, we have been able to spread our charitable word through Blogs, Social Posts, and Website Uploads. In doing so, we have been able to give our company a positive image. Meaning we have a positive Business Reputation, improved Brand Recognition and a greater ability to attract Talent and Retain Staff.

How MVIS has helped Ashgate Hospice

There are many different ways in which we have helped the team at Ashgate. From continuous participation in the Treecycle, to hosting a Movie Afternoon for the team.

Other ways in which we have helped include:

  • Sparkle Walk – MVIS sponsors the Ashgate Sparkle Walk yearly. A walk throughout Chesterfield, during the night wearing pink light up ears. This year look out for MVIS staff members taking part during the walk.
  • High Peak Trail – A walk through the beautiful Derbyshire countryside to help raise money for the charity. MVIS’ Staff Juliette Wright and Anne Ashman took part this year.
  • Movie Afternoon – Before Christmas the MVIS team visit the Hospice and serve hot chocolate, tea and coffees to the volunteers. Helping them relax and unwind before Christmas.
  • Car boot Sale – Over a few weeks the MVIS team donated some of their old items to the Car Boot sale pile. In doing so we were able to take them to the Tansley Car Boot sale with all the proceeds going to Ashgate Hospice.
  • TreeCycle – Each year two MVIS team members take our service van. Helping the Ashgate team to collect Christmas Trees from houses and turn them into biofuel.
  • Bake Off –  We give staff the opportunity to pretend that they are on the hit TV Show, The Great British Bake Off. Having them bring their bakes in over the weeks in a tournament to see who is our Star Baker. Currently being Jacob Spencer, 3 Years Running.

Why Should CSR Be Implemented

Corporate Social Responsibility has many benefits to your company. If you are not already implementing a CSR campaign. you should for these reasons:

  • Better brand recognition.
  • Positive business reputation.
  • Increased sales and customer loyalty.
  • Operational costs savings.
  • Better financial performance.
  • Greater ability to attract talent and retain staff.
  • Organisational growth.
  • Easier access to capital.

To Conclude

MVIS has been implementing CSR into circulation for years. Doing this has ensured we have a positive image to customers old and new. Having a positive social image is helping us in our business, as people want to work with companies helping Charities.

We have also been able to highlight our achievements and explain how they are helping the Hospice move itself forward and ensure that staff and patients are happy.

So we have been able to help our business while helping others.


MVIS Staff Spread Festive Cheer at Ashgate Hospice

Members of our team recently headed over to Ashgate Hospice in Chesterfield to spread some Festive cheer, by serving some of the unsung heroes who give up their time and support to ensure that the hospice is a friendly and welcoming environment all year round.

The hospice is a local charity that provides specialist palliative and end-of-life care to patients with a life-limiting illness and their families across North Derbyshire. Ashgate Hospice is not an NHS hospice and all the care that it provides is free of charge. In order to continue providing care when people need it most, Ashgate relies heavily on fundraising and community support from local businesses like us.

The team were on hand throughout the day to serve hot drinks including festive hot chocolate and non-alcoholic mulled punch along with a selection of Christmassy sweet treats of mince pies and chocolate Yule log. All home-made by the generous staff at our MVIS head office. Guests, patients, staff and volunteers were also able to take time out of their day and enjoy the Christmas classic ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ shown on the big screen as the Day Hospice was transformed in to a cinema room especially for the event. MVIS work throughout the year on various projects, finding new and exciting ways to raise funds for Ashgate Hospice including charity walks and a 10 week long, in-house Bake-Off competition where all bakes are sold with all profits going straight to the charity.

Jon Larkin – MVIS North Delivery Supervisor: “It’s always important to give something back to the local community. Whether that be time or support in other ways. It’s a pleasure to come to the Hospice and see the amazing work that takes place every single day and the wonderful people that make it all possible. The hospice is a vital part of the local community, many of us know people who have benefitted from the incredible work Ashgate do and to support such an amazing cause right on your doorstep gives us all immense pride”.

David Storer- Ashgate Hospice Events Organiser: “A massive thank you to you guys for coming over and providing all that stuff, as well as providing the cinema set up. The hot chocolates went down a storm with staff from across the hospice. Can I also just say thank you from all of us here for everything else you do for us throughout the year. From Bake-Off sales to the VMS you provide for us, it is all very much appreciated and the GIK, money you raise, and sponsorship of next years High Peak Trail, really does make a huge difference”.

To find out more about Ashgate Hospice and how you can make a difference this Christmas, just click the link: shorturl.at/EGSU8


CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility

Responsible Business Conduct for a Better World

As a successful business, employer and member of the wider community, we believe it is our Corporate Social Responsibility to help the people and businesses in our local community. We provide a mixture of practical and financial support across a range of areas.

Safety

The safety of our customers, employees and the general public is one of our top priorities. The very nature of our products help to bring safety to the UK’s road network, for events and emergency situations.

At the heart of our business operations, safety is a core foundation that our organisation is built upon. Principals of safety are felt at every level of our business, from our staff to our products and service. Perhaps one of the most socially responsible priorities, our emphasis on safety serves as the base point we that we judge all aspects of our business on.

Safety training plays a huge part in this, with the danger presented in many aspects of our line of work potentially being life threatening in on-site environments and in manufacturing roles.

Some of the training we either mandate or offer to our staff are:

  • Manual handling
  • Role related safety training
  • Fire Warden training
  • First Aid training
  • Near Miss training

Employees & Training

We encourage our staff to undertake as much training as possible, increasing the safety and job satisfaction of our team members. As a result, we boast of one of the industry’s best trained workforces and continue to support employees in training and qualifications with no limit to their advancement.

We also prioritise mental health, wellbeing and physical health in our approach to staff.

A few things we do to ensure this are: 

  • All employees receive literature detailing the mental health first aid protocol ‘ALGEE’
  • We offer the services of 2 mental health first aiders to lean on when their mental health is suffering
  • Offering the use of services such as Peninsula’s EAP 
  • We encourage staff to enjoy their downtime when possible, discouraging employees to take their work home with them and support staff in personal endeavours where applicable
  • Offering a wide range of free fruit each week for our employees, as well as free healthy lunch options for all employees if they want them
  • Employees are encouraged to take part in corporate fitness and sporting challenges throughout the year
  • Assisting an employee back to work after an extended illness we work with them on measures such as the reduction of hours or responsibilities if they feel they need them
  • We promote an open, inclusive and friendly company culture that rewards hard work and dedication
  • Offering a generous employee benefits package
  • We promote a culture of competitive pay in our organisation not only to reward our staff for their hard work, but also to keep them and help prevent poaching

Community Outreach & Charity

We take pride in our community outreach efforts, which have seen us offer our products, time and financial support to a range of community causes as and when they occur.

Some of our community activities include: 

  • We regularly reach out to businesses affected by local emergencies such as flooding with the offer of our products to support with reopening, community information or security
  • We run an apprenticeship scheme to support the careers of local youngsters
  • Regularly provide work experience for students from Matlock’s Highfields school
  • We also take part in local volunteering activities that benefits the community as a whole. For example, we work closely with our local community school in the form of annual mock interviews and critical thinking challenges for the students
  • Taking place throughout the year, our charity initiatives reach their peak during Christmas time. Each year, as an organisation, we pick a homeless charity to raise money for from our Christmas jumper day, which staff bring funds to take part in. Throughout December, we also hold a food bank collection which is donated before Christmas to a local food bank.
  • We remain opportunistic in this with charity taking the form of attendance at charity events, responses to local emergencies (both in financial support and services) and even advice.
  • Supporting the Ashgate Hospice, we raise money for the charity by running our in house baking competition, The Great MVIS Bake Off, partaking in the Treecycle, the Sparkle Walk and sponsoring the High Peak Trail. Before Christmas staff members volunteered to host a movie night for the team at Ashgate. Most recently MVIS have sponsored a sky dive, done by our own Rob Hinchley, done on the 27th of September 2024.
  • Having initiative to clean our offices, we are proud of our offices, this is why we take part in a litter pick in our surrounding area to ensure that the offices and roads around us are clean and maintained.
  • We support local sports individuals, in recent years we have sponsored many athletes over the years including Karl Johnston, a world champion Kickboxer, and the Matlock Town Football Team supplying them with a VMS outside the pitch.
  • We have also sponsored smaller local football teams including the Cromford & Wirksworth Town Football Club. We have sponsored one of MVIS’ own, Jacob Spencer, the leading striker in the team.

 

Environmental responsibility

The very nature of the majority of our products have a strong environmental focus. Our specialism being in solar power provides us a position of privilege to offer environmentally friendly products to organisations looking to minimise their carbon footprint and environmental impact. 

Understanding the carbon footprint of our service, we strive to ensure that we minimise our emissions output wherever possible. Some of the steps we have taken are as follows: 

  • Our delivery model sets out to deliver multiple units at a time where necessary. Working to reduce our carbon footprint, we can offload up to 3 x VMS A units in one delivery, up to 2 x VMS C units, or up to 2 x Solar IP units.
  • We have taken steps to help reduce our energy consumption over recent years and continue to commit to this through new innovations. Technological upgrades such as movement sensors and timers in our lights, hand dryers and eco-friendly heating solutions have been installed in our head office

We have a number of initiatives in place that helps the wildlife in our local area. Amongst these include a bee hotel and a hedgehog home that is maintained by our staff. 

The importance of bees to the environment and global eco systems are well documented, and our choice for hedgehogs is close to our industry, with an estimated 1/4 of the population of hedgehogs being killed on UK roads each year.

We also maintain an on-site flower bed with plants monitored by our team in an effort to give back to the environment and bring some natural beauty to our local area.