Sunderland Star Recognised for Charitable Work

Fusion's Gavin Coates wins award from Business in the Community

Immediate release: 09 August 2010

Gavin Coates, of Fusion Contact Centre Services in Sunderland, has won the Business in the Community (BITC) Cares Award for North East Team Leader of the Year.

The BITC award recognises employee volunteers who get involved in community activities. Gavin led a team to prepare Belmont Allotments in Durham for educational visits from 660 local primary school children and teaching staff. Later in the year he helped transform the headquarters of FareShare, a charity responsible for delivering surplus food from the food industry to homeless and vulnerable people in the local community.

Jason Turner, Head of Fusion Contact Centre Services, said: "Gavin is fantastic at motivating people and on the allotment project he really kept the volunteers going. He set up two teams, 'boys versus girls', which was great fun, as well as sparking some healthy competition. The teams were exhausted by the end of the day but had made a huge difference to those using the allotments."

Gavin also donates his time to Fusion's 'Give' committee, which meets monthly to make donations and raise funds for local good causes. In the last year, Gavin moved on from a communications role on the committee to become joint Chair. In this time, the team has raised more than £15,000 for causes in and around Sunderland.

Contact Centre Manager Mark Brannen, who nominated Gavin for the award, said "He is exceptional at turning a challenge into a motivating task. Gavin's become quite a role model at Fusion through his community efforts."

Gavin's success follows Fusion's recent win for People Development at the Sunderland College business awards.

Mark Brannen and Marianne Cuthbertson collect the Business in the Community award on behalf of Gavin Coates.

Send this story to a friend

Back to top

Back to press releases