…and so was born ‘Prosperity Day’
In January this year Prosperity 24.7 considered what we could do to raise our profile amongst the local business community. We could buy advertising at the airport, plaster our name on the back of a bus, buy some space at the rugby club, or, for ease of access to our target market, take space in business magazines etc. But, having weighed up the options, none were going to differentiate us in any way, none would make an impact, none would ‘make a difference’…
We wanted to come up with something different, very different. Something that reflected our ethos – Prosperity is genuinely about our community, so why not do something that would gel the business community across the Island’s whilst making a positive contribution to the wider community through several charities. We don’t do “CSR” to just tick a box, we do it because it is in the DNA of our organisation. We support every team member, they generate positivity which in turn pollenates positive energy across our community, thus creating a virtuous circle and a very happy team.
As anyone can tell you, if you intend to support ‘several’ charities, we need to have a significant target – £24,700 – to be precise.
To come up with a truly great event that will drive interest and participation we would need to introduce some healthy competition. To introduce competition, we should really leverage technology – we are a Business & Technology consultancy at the end of the day – yet the concept must be simple.
All in all, whatever we do must be unique, it must be a differentiator, it must make us stand out from the crowd and of course it must work (just like our business solutions).
So, fast forward six months and where are we now?
Well, if you are an optimist like me, we are on the cusp of delivering a fantastic community event that exceeds every one of our stated objectives. Either that, or we are on the brink of a reputational catastrophe! This is the line we tread in the pursuit of excellence I suppose, but at times this can be ‘hairy and scary’ just like any major event or significant business change initiative you could say.
So what, I hear you ask, are we doing on Prosperity Day?
Two events are taking place, one low risk (from a technology perspective) yet high risk for the participants, the other high risk (from a technology perspective) yet ‘relatively’ low risk for the participants (disclaimers are in place, such is the World in which we live).
The low(er) risk event is our ‘Figure of Gr8’, inspired by one of our Guernsey colleagues ‘love of Cycling’ and his ingrained participation in the Guernsey Rouleurs Cycle Club (which Prosperity 24.7 sponsor). This will see Rob Vaudin and his friends undertake a phenomenal physical challenge. They intend to cycle the circumference of Guernsey, jump on the ferry to Jersey, then cycle the circumference of Jersey – approximately 160 kilometres of cycling, in a day. Sore bums aplenty!
The high(er) risk event is our ‘Vent Your Fury – Head to Head to Head’ race on turbo trainers, where corporates can settle old business scores from the safety of the saddle. I must admit, I am the fool for suggesting this technologically advanced concept. This will see three teams racing a virtual stage of the Tour de France on intelligent Turbo Trainers every hour in Broad Street. The technology is provided by BKOOL, a brilliant team of people that I had the good fortune to meet in Madrid earlier this year.
We have tested the equipment and we are trying to mitigate every foreseeable risk; political, economic, societal and technological – focussing particularly on, Weather, Wi-Fi and Power!
The risks are interesting, we have many dependencies and I am sure we will not cover every eventuality or scenario but, if we don’t take a risk, generate interest, include our community, engender a ‘can do’ attitude and some healthy competition, we simply won’t ‘make a difference’. We have the opportunity here to positively affect many, many people’s lives for the better so this has to be worth the risk, right?
If this all sounds interesting, please come and support us on 24th July either in person at Broad Street, St. Helier or by cheering on our friends and colleagues as they cycle around the Islands.
If you want to make a difference, please feel free to make a contribution. I imagine all the friends and families touched by Autism or Mental wellbeing will thank you indirectly in the future for the support you have provided to them:
Donate here
In total we intend to split any raised funds equally between the following charities:
We will be posting on Social Media information about supporting Charities, registered Teams and those that have helped to make this great day here:
For any further information, please don’t hesitate to follow the news at https://prosperity247.com/prosperityday/
FACEBOOK TWITTER #ProsperityDay
For your entertainment, don’t hesitate to watch our most recent testing session: