Month: March 2017

Creative Play UK recently teamed up with GEFCO to produce a great outdoor play area for Exhall Grange School. A Community maintained Specialist School which meets the needs of children with visual impairment, physical disabilities, complex medical needs and social and communication interaction difficulties.

GEFCO, a global logistics company for manufacturers, regularly organise team building exercises and this year, rather than spending huge amounts of money on the usual activities, they decided to do something memorable locally, that would leave a lasting memory.

Therefore, they decided to assist a local school with their outdoor play development which would make a difference to the children attending the school by choosing something that would stimulate the imagination of the children, who have many challenges.

Following this GEFCO contacted Creative Play UK, one the UK’s leading playground companies, to support them with this activity. GEFCO had already decided they wanted to provide a Pirate Ship to encourage role play for the school, all of which GEFCO were funding!

GEFCO were attracted to the fact Creative Play UK manufacture all of their equipment, resulting in the company having the best amount of knowledge and assurance of high quality.

Paul Gambino, Creative Play’s Business Development Manager, had the responsibility of liaising with GEFCO to ensure all requirements were met, as this wasn’t a usual enquiry.

‘As we provide an all-round service of design, manufacture and installation, I was certain we could assist GEFCO with their kind gesture to the school.’

Paul continued ‘We provided GEFCO with a competitive price for our Captain ship with safety surfacing, and they were extremely happy with our proposal.’

Creative Play UK worked closely during the installation process with the GEFCO team to ensure the equipment was installed to the safety standards required, and allowing them to work with our installation team during the team building exercise.

Paul Gambino went on to say ‘We had tight deadlines to meet, so we wanted to ensure these were all met to the clients satisfaction.  It was a great experience working with all at GEFCO and for such a great cause.  It goes without saying that we were delighted to have been asked to provide our services’.

‘There were many other different projects going on within and around the play area, and Creative Play UK were extremely happy to have been invited to be a part of that process’

Helen Grover, UK HR Director at GEFCO, had the following to say:

‘This year rather than spend huge amounts of money on the usual team building events like building rafts or working out how to get from one side of a river to another using only a pole and a piece of paper, we wanted to do something lasting, memorable and exceptional.’

‘We had the idea of working with a local school who needed a new secondary play area. The school has some amazing pupils who have many challenges, and they wanted something that would stimulate their imagination.’

‘Our biggest challenge was finding a contractor who would be willing to work with us as we wanted to not only buy the equipment for the school but also build it. Many of the companies we spoke to didn’t want to get involved and blocked us. However Creative Play were amazing. From beginning to end they bought into what we were trying to achieve, I only wish we have contacted them earlier. They gave us a really competitive price on the equipment but what I really liked was they also manufacturer the equipment which means they know everything about it. They only had 4 weeks to turn it all around, and they hadn’t even seen the site.’

‘We had lots of challenges along the way with other contractors but Creative Play helped up remove all the blockers. They went over and above what we asked of them and on the team building event they helped all our staff and also on the extra projects we had in the play area. They are a great team to work with, we had fun and they became part of the team. Above all they were professional, delivered on time and were amazing with the school and children, working around breaks and reducing noise to a minimum, being flexible and even enjoying school dinners with us!’

‘Thank you so much to Creative Play UK, we look forward to doing more work with you in the future.’

Click here to check out this fantastic video and find out more about this exciting project