Chambers were proud to support the local Hospice Care charity Phyllis Tuckwell at its popular Dash of Colour fundraising event by donating a skip in order to help clear up after over 1000kg of coloured paint powder was thrown over the 1200 runners.

Dash of Colour took place on Saturday 2nd September at Frimley Lodge Park and is a regular part of Phyllis Tuckwell’s fundraising calendar, highlighting the colour which the Hospice Care charity brings to the lives of its patients and their families, as it cares for and supports them through the most difficult of times.

1,200 participants of all ages took part in the event, running, walking or jogging the five kilometre route to raise funds for the charity, many of them taking part in memory of a loved one whom Phyllis Tuckwell had cared for. Hundreds more turned up to volunteer and spectate, and an incredible 1,050kg of paint of all colours of the rainbow was thrown – covering participants and volunteers alike!

“We are so grateful to Chambers Recycling for supporting our event with the donation of a skip.  We have around 1,200 runners on the day and throw over 1,000kg of coloured paint over them so there is a lot of mess to clear up afterwards!  Having the skip on-site was a huge help at the end of a long day and enabled the team to clear the site much faster.” said Vanessa Beech, Corporate Partnerships Fundraiser.

All of the £65,000 raised by this colourful event will help fund the supportive and end of life care which Phyllis Tuckwell provides for patients and families living with cancer, or another terminal illness. Every day its staff and volunteers support over 250 patients and relatives, through a mix of medical care, nursing, therapies, counselling, social work and practical support.

So the next guys in our series of unsung heroes are Les Mainwaring & Allan Lambert who might arguably have the ‘crappiest’ jobs in the whole company! These guys drive our portable toilets and cesspits lorries – it’s a messy job but someone has to do it and so they definitely deserve some recognition as Chambers Unsung Heroes.

Les has been working for Chambers for over 30 years and his most recent job is driving the septic tank and cesspit emptying tanker lorry. As do most of our drivers, Les has an early start and is usually in the yard by 5.30am every day in order to undertake his lorry checks before heading out on customer visits.
Each customer involves laying out and connecting all the pipes to the lorry depending on how close he is able to get to the tank. It’s not uncommon for him to have to connect over 25 pipes together, and sometimes up to 50.

Once the customer’s tank has been emptied he takes the contents to the nearest Thames Water site to be emptied. The amount tipped off the lorry is registered and reported back to the office so that the customer can be charged accordingly.

Les enjoys his job as he’s left alone to just get on with it and likes getting to know all of his regular customers and their own individual requirements, sometimes they even phone the office to ask him for advice on their tanks.

Many years ago when Les had a brand new lorry, the switch to open the tank at the back of the lorry was accidentally left open and so when Les went to open the doors (after travelling up hill) the contents of the lorry landed on him when he opened the back doors. To make matters worse it happened opposite a vicarage and when he was in the nearby stream in just his pants getting cleaned up the vicar come over to complain – that’s what you call a bad day at the office.

When Les isn’t driving lorries he like making models of them. Infact if you ever pop into the office here at Chambers you’ll see one of his creations on display, a fully functioning mini skip lorry.

Allan is another long standing member of the Chambers team and has worked here for 14 years. He has the very un-glamorous job of delivering and collecting all of the portable toilets, Chamber Pots.

Again Allan’s day starts around 5.30am when he completes his walk around checks on his vehicle and checks his PDA for details of his jobs for the day.

Allan will usually empty and service around 30-40 portable toilets every day from customers using them for a variety of reasons… building site toilet facilities, bathroom refurbishments, parties, weddings and this year they have been very popular for school prom after parties.

The lorry can carry up to 2 toilets and has an onboard jet washing facility, so after every collection Allan gives them a through clean on the lorry and restocks them with fresh hand sanitiser and toilet rolls, ready to be delivered to the next customer.

At the end of each day Allan brings the lorry back to the yard in Guildford where he fills the jet washing tank full of fresh water ready for the next day.

It might not be most people’s dream job but Allan enjoying being out and about working on his own initiative, even though he’s had the odd few incidents when the jet wash has blown in the wrong direction and he’s had to return to the yard semi-naked. He also finds it funny discovering some of the weird and wonderful things people leave behind in the toilets.

In his spare time Allan loves fishing and his most impressive catch to date is a 41 lb Common which he caught in France.

Chambers-sponsored Andrew Jordan claimed a lights-to-flag victory in the final Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship race at Rockingham on 27th August.

Drawn on pole position for the reversed-grid final race, Andrew never put a wheel out of line in his WSR-run BMW 125i M Sport to take the 19th win of his BTCC career and climb to sixth place in the Drivers’ Championship.

Andrew had finished 12th and seventh in the day’s first two races after qualifying 18th; the Chambers-sponsored 2013 BTCC champion made constant progress on the 1.9-mile Rockingham course.

The BTCC continues at Silverstone, the home of British motorsport, on September 16-17.

Andrew Jordan said: “It feels fantastic to be on the top step of the podium again and I have to say a huge thank you to the WSR team for helping to put me there. We just missed the sweet spot in qualifying, which put me 18th on the grid – although only half a second off pole – and I knew today would be a case of making up whatever places I could and then hoping to be in the mix for Race Three. That’s exactly what happened and I’m just so pleased. After the past few rounds, where the results haven’t reflected our true pace, this is a terrific feeling.”

Dick Bennetts, Team Principal, said: “It’s very good to end the day with a victory, the third for BMW Pirtek Racing this year. After qualifying 18th, the plan for AJ was to play the waiting game and strike in Race Three, and you’d have to say he executed this to perfection. I’m delighted for him because he’s had so much bad luck this year and this goes some way to putting that right. Looking at the straightline speeds, it’s clear we didn’t have the fastest car this weekend, but sometimes you just have to take your opportunities when they come along and that’s what’s happened today.”

Pupils at Gosden House School are collecting eggs from their own chickens after Chambers provided the funds to set up the facility. Committed to supporting the local community, Chambers donated nearly £1,400 to the school after meeting staff at a Christmas fair.

The gift has supported the delivery of three former battery hens, supplied by Elysian Adventure at Westland Farm in Guildford, as well as a coop, run and set-up pack which includes food and bedding. Two of the hens are called Snowy and Lily and there will be a school competition to name the third.

Gosden House School is an ‘outstanding school’ which provides education for young people aged 4-16 with learning and additional needs. Staff are already planning to introduce more chickens to the school later in the year, and also hope to set up a small farm and provide animal care courses to the pupils.

Cindy O’Sullivan, head teacher at Gosden House School, said: “We can’t thank Emma and the team at Chambers enough for their donation. We have been fundraising for the last two years to buy some chickens, but when Emma approached us and asked us to put together a wish list of what we would like, I never expected she would offer to fund the whole project.

“Facilities such as the chicken keeping area are invaluable in offering our students a holistic learning experience that focuses on developing vocational and social skills as well as academic knowledge. The children and teachers love having the chickens on site, and are already using the eggs in food technology classes.”

Emma Chambers, finance director at Chambers Waste Management, said: “We are delighted to support Gosden House School in setting up their very own hen habitat.

“We have been searching for local projects to support for some time, and when I met staff at the school I felt this would be a great project to help with, encouraging students to develop skills in caring for animals, working as a team, and time management. We hope the facility brings the children and staff many hours of enjoyment.”

Elysian at Westland Farm provides animal assisted therapy for children. Therapeutic experiences like petting and caring for an animal can help a person’s mental, physical, social and emotional functioning. www.elysianatwestland.org

Gosden House School is also looking for volunteers to help maintain its allotment and gardens. For more details please contact the school on 01483 892008.

Despite a strong performance Chambers-sponsored driver Andrew Jordan was disappointed with the final result at the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Knockhill in Scotland this weekend.

Andrew managed to climb from 30th to 13th during an action-packed third race of the day, and produced the second-fastest lap in his WSR-run BMW 125i M Sport and maintaining his seventh place in the Drivers’ Championship.

Unfortunately Andrew’s weekend was destroyed when he was blocked on his one flying lap on slick tyres at the end of a drying qualifying session, he started the opening race from 17th place and finished 13th.

A superb start brought him inside the top-10 on the run to the first corner of Race Two, but the 2013 Champion was unfortunately involved in a multi-car incident that brought out the red flags and damaged his car too much for him to take the restart.

Starting from the back row of the day’s final race, Andrew produced what he described as his ‘best drive of the year’ to climb back into the points on the narrowest circuit the BTCC visits.

Andrew Jordan said: “Performance-wise, today was strong, especially in Race Three as I passed 17 cars on a track where overtaking is very tough. I think the top-10 was achievable had it not been for the safety car coming out twice. After our misfortune in qualifying, the strategy was to finish Race One solidly inside the points, get into the top 10 in Race Two and hopefully have some luck with the reversed-grid draw for Race Three. Unfortunately, the first-corner incident in Race Two put an end to that plan. I hit Matt Neal when he braked earlier than I was expecting for the first corner and then was hit at the next turn, which put me out. It wasn’t intentional, but I was the instigator and I have to take that on the chin. We’ll bounce back stronger at Rockingham.”

Dick Bennetts, Team Principal, said: “It’s such a shame that AJ was blocked in qualifying at the critical point, because otherwise he could quite easily have been on the podium a couple of times today. BMW Pirtek Racing worked incredibly hard to get his car repaired after the incident in Race Two so that he could make the final race; and he rewarded them with a tenacious and clean drive through the field. He’s carried a lot of bad luck this year, but I hope the cards can start falling more in his favour over the next few events.”

Our very own Lynn Theobald, PA to the Directors, can be seen hobbling round the Chambers office today sporting some very large blisters.

Over the weekend Lynn took part in the Macmillan Thames Path Mighty Hike which involved walking 26.7 miles along the Thames Pathway from Windsor to Henley. Despite the fact we are in July, the great British summer weather was unfortunately not very kind and the last few hours were completed in heavy rain through thick mud. However, it didn’t dampen the spirits of Lynn and her companions who crossed the finish line, exhausted but happy, in just over 9 hours.

Lynn managed to raise an impressive £295 for Macmillan Cancer Support and Chambers have kindly agreed to match this so in total she has raised nearly £600 for a very worthwhile cause.