Birkett Long 200 years celebrations reach halfway mark

We are continuing our 200-year anniversary celebrations with random acts of kindness in the local community and a look back at our history.

Random acts of kindness

June marked the halfway point in our year of celebrations but our random acts of kindness showed no signs of slowing down.

Our Court of Protection and Inheritance Disputes team sent cookies to St John Payne Catholic School in Chelmsford, wine to barristers at Radcliffe Chambers that had recently successfully appealed one of their cases and sent flowers to the client.

St John Payne Catholic School said: “Lovely to receive this random act of kindness for our support as students conclude their assessments this week.” 

Our Dispute Resolution teams have been getting involved too. They sent cookies to St John's School and Keith Songhurst sent Alison Lomas of Connells Group a locally sourced hamper. Alison said: "Just a short note to say thank you for the gorgeous Essex food hamper that arrived today. It’s really lovely and Ethan will be giddy when he gets his paws on the chocolate milkshake! Congrats on 200 years."

Peter Allen sent Andrew Smith of Andrew Smith Ltd a bottle of wine. Andrew has helped on some of our biggest construction cases over the last 18 months. Andrew said: "Thank you so much for your kind gift of a bottle of wine, which was delivered to me this afternoon, together with the message inside. Congratulations on your 200th anniversary celebrations and I look forward to working with you on other matters in the future."

The Administration team gave flowers and a bottle of bubbly to Fiona, the stationery account manager from our office supplies supplier.

Dave Feakins in our Wills, Trusts and Probate team received an Amazon voucher from our Administration team for being a “Statutory Declarations hero”. 

The Wills Trusts and Probate team themselves have sent flowers to three recently bereaved clients to let them know they are in their thoughts.

Our Quality and Compliance team sent chocolates to Eric Xuereb, our former quality assessor, and hand delivered cookies to Brinkley Grove School.

Milly Bentley, a Float Assistant in the team, personally delivered chocolates to those on the Brightlingsea Ward at Colchester Hospital to brighten the day of those going through a difficult time.

Laura Hook gave Joann Kebbell from our HR team some flowers to thank her for phoning staff regularly to make sure they were ok working from home during the national lockdowns, which Laura really appreciated.

Our HR Team then passed on the kindness and sent sweet treats to A Team, a recruitment agency they work closely with.

The BLHR and Employment team sent celebration cakes to a client celebrating their own anniversary of 20 years. The client said: “Many thanks for sending us a ‘20th’ birthday cake, it was a lovely surprise this morning and was delicious and devoured very quickly. Not quite 200 years but we are proud of reaching 20!”

The team also sent some sweet treats as a surprise to all of those who engaged with their International HR Day post on social media.

Stepping Stones is an integrated nursery which gives both mainstream children and children with additional needs the chance to play and learn together. They have previously been supported by Birkett Long’s Divorce and Family Team (click here to find out more) and received a box of Millie’s Cookies as an acknowledgement of all they do. They said: “Oh Wow!!!! What an absolutely amazing surprise we received today, @birkett_long sent us a box of Millies cookies as a Random Act of Kindness - we love you @birkett_long it really made our day!”

The Marketing team have been busy sending gifts to their regular suppliers, a bike shaped chocolate bar to their photographer Phil Jones, a keen motorbike enthusiast, bespoke sweets to both their website agency, Conscious Solutions, and next door office neighbours, Aston Lark.

The team sent wine to their creative agency, Atticus, and to their SEO gurus, Optimistics. Expert digital marketers, Squarestar, received Birkett Long branded cupcakes, as did Peter Richardson, the editor of Business Time in Essex, and Actual Radio in Colchester.

David Roland from Atticus said: "Just wanted to say a massive thank you for my lovely gift of Vin Rouge (my favourite drink). Such a lovely surprise. Brightened up an already bright sunny day!"

The Marketing team also gave sweets to our BLHR and Employment team as a thank you for always being so responsive to requests for help with marketing opportunities, however last minute or urgent, and for always doing so with smiles on their faces.

Leonie Dolling from the HR team received flowers to thank her for the help in recruiting Daniel Green into the Marketing team. Leonie said: "Thank you so much for the random act of kindness and thank you gift after working together recently. Beautiful flowers and such a thoughtful thing to do!”

Martin Hopkins, Managing Partner, delivered two thank you boxes to St Andrews Centre at Broomfield Hospital, these were shared out amongst the nurses, occupational therapists and reception staff. Adam Sierakowski recently operated on Martin’s 2 broken fingers and the Hand Therapy service has been continuing to help with rehabilitation.

Since the loss of our much-loved colleague, Charlotte Adams, in 2014, we have continued to support her mother, Kate Bome in her fundraising for Cardiac Risk in the Young. Kate has worked tirelessly for this charity in Charlotte’s name, raising enough to fund 3 community defibrillators and countless screening sessions. We sent Kate some flowers as a small token to thank her for her work.

We donated £200 to Little Haven’s Hospice. Little Haven’s is the only place in the area wholly dedicated to caring for those with complex or incurable conditions. In 2008 - 2009 they were our staff-nominated charity of the year and therefore a big part of our history. £200 pays for a session of day care for a life-limited child.

We provided bags of bespoke sweets as a little energy boost for the walkers on Rob’s Big Walk, a fundraising initiative for the Rob George Foundation. Fundraisers walked 10 different sections of the 81 miles from Epping to Harwich, passing the baton between them.

And finally, being 200 years old we don’t really know exactly when our birthday is! So, we decided to go for a mid-year celebration during June. All of our employees received some bespoke BLTwoHundred and Happy Birthday biscuits through the post as a surprise.

From our history

Did you know that on 1 June 2008 Birkett Long became an LLP and had a rebrand? The famous “Birkett Long green” was born and our identity became what is instantly recognisable as Birkett Long today.

Kind messages of congratulations

To make a difference to our local communities we are trying to work with as many local businesses as possible to supply the gifts for our random acts of kindness.

Secret Hamper has been one of those suppliers. Their corporate Essex Hampers combine the very best of locally sourced and hand-picked products to create a high-quality memorable gift. Nigel Richardson from Secret Hamper said: “Thank you Birkett Long LLP for supporting local by choosing our Essex hamper as a gift for your recipient. We think she’ll enjoy getting tucked in to all the local goodies.”

Colchester based small business Sweet Delights, who we have also worked with to deliver random acts of kindness said: “Thank you for using sweet delights to be part of such a lovely gesture. Happy 200th year”

For more information on our 200 years celebrations contact Jennie Skingsley on 01206 217605 or email: jennie.skingsley@birkettlong.co.uk