This week the CSR Haifa office celebrated Shavuot.  As part of the holiday tradition, dairy food is consumed on Shavuot holiday and to mark this, the office held an amazing cheese cake competition.

Anat Laufer, Group Techincal Learning and Development Manager, explained that, ‘In the contest we had a variety of 14 beautiful, tasteful and home make cheese cakes. One of the cakes had CSR’s logo as part of the Israeli flag and CSR products on it made out of sugar pastry. The System Group presented the biggest COACH (Camera On A Chip) cheese cake designed as a camera with a zoom mechanism inside. Each contestant presented their cake to a panel of seven judges who marked the cakes based on taste, creativity and presentation. Also, we had the honor of a famous and well known chef and pastry-cook called Dudu Outmezgine as chairman of judges panel.’

The competition was initiated and organised by Nir Shildan from the Verification team.

And the winners were…

1st place – Shani Ezer from the HR team
2nd place – Reuven Berkun from the Algorithms team
3rd place – Hadas Haytner from the Physical Design team

Boaz Foreman, one of the contestants, also put together his own video of the day. 

We’re still waiting for our slice in the post!

MapAction receives a special £3,160 donation from CSR. Photo by Natalie Faux

In the aftermath of a natural or man-made disaster thousands of people can suddenly find themselves battling to save lives and livelihoods. MapAction is a UK charity that maps life-saving information about disaster situations so that aid agencies can target relief efforts effectively and help those in greatest need. It is the only non-governmental organisation anywhere in the world with a capacity to deploy a fully trained and equipped humanitarian mapping and information management team, often within a few hours of an alert. Its highly skilled volunteers play a vital role in helping to co-ordinate the national and international emergency response.

Last year, CSR’s UK employees voted MapAction their “Charity of the Year” for 2012. This year, despite not taking the majority of votes required to retain this title, CSR’s Social Responsibility committee decided to make a special donation to MapAction – an amount totalling £3,160 based on a “runner-up” donation of £2,500 plus £10 for each of the 66 employee votes cast.

Presenting a cheque for £3,160 to MapAction volunteer Nick McWilliam [pictured left] outside CSR’s Churchill House headquarters in Cambridge last week, Will Gardiner [centre], Chief Financial Officer of CSR said, “Once again CSR is pleased to support the humanitarian services provided by MapAction – aid that saves many lives. This unique charity works in disaster zones providing frequently updated situation maps showing where relief help is most urgently needed.” CSR engineer Azadeh Ebrahimi [right] represented the company’s Social Responsibility committee.

Since 2002, MapAction volunteers have responded to 39 humanitarian emergencies worldwide, including earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and tsunamis. Recently returned home to Cambridge from a deployment supporting the Syria response, Nick McWilliam has been with MapAction since it started 10 years ago. Nick has previously been deployed to emergencies in Burma, Japan, South Sudan, Niger, and Pakistan.

Commenting on CSR’s gesture, Liz Hughes, Chief Executive at MapAction said, “MapAction volunteers are on standby 24/7 to respond to any humanitarian emergency anywhere in the world.  It is wonderful to have the support from CSR for a second year. It goes a long way in ensuring we can be deployment ready. MapAction supports humanitarian partners in saving lives and minimising suffering when a disaster strikes. Through our relationship CSR employees are also helping reach men, women and children in urgent need.”

Known as RAFT, Resource Area For Teaching is a Californian non-profit organisation who’s aim is to inspire, engage and educate children through the power of hands-on teaching. As Mary Simon, the 1994 founder and executive director of RAFT says: “If kids don’t learn the way we teach, then we have to teach them the way they learn.” Today, RAFT’s low-cost teaching supplies enrich and improve the education of over 825,000 young Americans every year.

Back in early March, a group of eleven employees from CSR Sunnyvale spent an afternoon prefabricating retail-ready teaching materials that RAFT members can purchase to support local educators – and had some fun into the bargain. The group, including those pictured ([left] Denise Martin, Jeannette Opalski, Nedu Duraiswami and [right] Tuan Mai ) assembled and shipped a variety of hands-on activity kits for maths, science and art. To keep costs down for budget-constrained schools, the kits are made from re-purposed materials donated and sorted by other volunteers. RAFT has a presence in San Jose, Redwood City, Sunnyvale, Sacramento and Denver.

At the end of April 2013 CSR employees from the Haifa office took time out of the office to participate in the “Mountain to Valley relay race”. The M2V starts in “Tel Hai” and ends 21 hours and 215Km later in “Timrat”. Around 4000 runners in 518 groups participated in what has become one of the biggest and most popular running events in Israel.

This is the second year CSR Israel has participated, and this year 19 “CSRunners” with support of additional mountain bike riders and logistics volunteers, tackled the challenge of the 24 running sections. Particularly challenging was the heat on the first day, but this was compensated by the full moon night runs and the finish after sunrise on the second day.

Assaf Sagir, one of the CSR runners, said that ‘Besides the running itself we took the time between the runs to rest on the shortes of the Kinneret and later at night to also eat and rest on the lawn of Zeev Rich’s house near the running course.’

Assaf went on to add that he and the other CSR runners warmly ‘Invite CSR employees worldwide and also from the local office to join us next year as this even which became an unforgettable experience with great views and a great running challenge and lots and lots of team spirit and fun.’

Congratulation to everyone who tookm part and to our brilliant CSR Haifa team.

You can watch the brilliant video the runners put together of the event here

Staff from CSR’s Churchill House office at Cambridge Business Park recently took a break from their normal day jobs – designing silicon and software for consumer electronics products – to plant a much-needed hedge at Milton Country Park.

Volunteers from the Cambridge head office of CSR plc spent a day in the great outdoors helping staff at nearby Milton Country Park plant a hedge around the Park’s “Wild Place”. The Wild Place is an enclosed area which has been developed for use by various local young people’s groups. Since it was created it has been surrounded with a basic wire fence. As one of its social responsibility projects, CSR donated £950 to purchase enough saplings and tree guards to plant a replacement hedge. The plants – nearly 800 in all – were a mixture of native species which over time should form an attractive natural hedgerow.

Cambridge Sport Lake Trust has managed the 95-acre Park for the last five years. Mick Woolhouse, a park ranger for the Trust said: “We are very grateful to CSR for this donation and the volunteers. The Park relies on it users for its income, and it’s great to see a local company showing their support.” The Wild Place is used by school groups for educational visits, by youth groups for learning “bush-craft” skills, and can be booked for children’s parties.

Ann Rone, chair of CSR’s UK Social Responsibility committee, added: “Many of our employees are regular users of the Park, visiting at lunchtimes or weekends. CSR is committed to working in partnership with community organisations, charities and the public as part of our social responsibility programme and is happy to support such a worthwhile cause.“

Today, Monday the 8th of April, Boston’s famous Fenway Park opened its gates for the Red Sox opening home game. At CSR Burlington, the employees enjoyed a special lunch to celebrate the season opener while also hosting a bake sale to raise money for “Cookies for Kid’s Cancer”. While Fenway was opening the park gates, CSR employees were opening their wallets to donate to this great cause. Thankfully, a good few talented bakers donned aprons to make some fabulous and tasty baked goods. Equally as important, it seems that a lot of CSR Burlington employees have a “sweet tooth” and were pleased to make a donation for the tasty treats. Thanks to all the staff who donated and made the bake sale such a success: a total of $448 was raised. (more…)

The Pan-Massachusetts Challenge is an annual bike-a-thon that today raises more money for charity than any other single athletic fundraising event in the United States. Since its inception in 1980 the PMC has raised $375 million for adult and pediatric cancer care and research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute through the Jimmy Fund. In 2012, the PMC attracted over 5200 riders, 3300 volunteers and donated a record $37 million.

Last year I rode for the first time in the PMC and with the help of CSR and its employees raised over $4400 for this great cause. I’m heading back to the PMC again this summer for the two day 163 mile ride from Wellesley to Provincetown and have increased my fundraising goal to $6500. This year I’m asking the CSR family to support this cause once again and to help me not only achieve this lofty goal but surpass it.  I know they’ll back me up!

Individual donations can be made online via my PMC rider page

As a rookie last year I honestly did not know what to expect when I departed Babson College on Saturday for the 83 mile trek to Bourne. What I found over the course of the day was an enormously emotional experience that is difficult to put into words. What will stick with me is the tremendous number of people on the route cheering on the riders. Cowbells must be the official PMC sound as it seemed everyone from Wellesley to Bourne was ringing one. The route was covered with encouraging signs and banners. We passed people helping to cool us down with hoses and motivate us up hills with bagpipe music. The theme of the entire ride was “Thank You”. Everyone was thanking the riders in whatever way they could.

So I’d like to say thank you once again for the support last year and look forward to

your continued support as I gear up for the ride again this year.

Sincerely

Art Weeks
Product Marketing.Manager
Document Imaging Marketing Hardware
CSR Burlington, Massachusetts

Beit HaTavshil is an Israeli non-profit organization which runs regular soup kitchens and supplies food parcels to the needy. In the run-up to Passover, the staff of CSR Haifa donated funds for the purchase of groceries for people in difficulty. In addition, around 20 employees volunteered to deliver food parcels to local families, single mothers and the elderly. The job of transportation and distribution started around 6pm and finished around midnight. The volunteers from CSR Haifa felt privileged to take part in this charitable activity and to have the opportunity to give something back to the community.

EAAA receives CSR’s “UK Charity of the Year” cheque: (l-r) EAAA Dr Ed Gold, CSR CFO Will Gardiner, EAAA Critical Care Paramedic Jemma Varela, CSR Software Consultant Harith Haboubi, EAAA Area Fundraising Manager Barbara McGee.

Earlier this year, CSR’s UK staff voted to make the East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA) rescue service its “UK Charity of the Year” for 2013. Back in 2011, a member of CSR staff needed this helicopter rescue service when he was injured on the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, known locally as “the guided bus.”

Last week, Will Gardiner, CFO of CSR, presented a donation of £11,600 to Tim Page, CEO of EAAA at Cambridge Airport. Will said: “We are really pleased to help such a worthwhile charity. The money we’ve donated today, along with a donation we made to the charity last year, is enough to cover the cost of a mobile fuel tanker which will help them when they begin flying missions at night. It’s great that we’ve been able to help them purchase such a worthwhile piece of kit which will be instrumental in saving lives across the region.”

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On 5th March 2013, CSR Israel employees took part in several community activities as part of the national “Good Deeds Day”. Over 40 CSR employees volunteered to be part of the day and participated in a variety of projects which were chosen to contribute back to the community and to make life better for other people.

These activities included, renovating and painting eight apartments in a hostel for people who are mentally challenged, this was done by the System , PMO and the Software teams.

CSR has funded the renovation of an apartment belonging to a single mother with six children and CSR employees are contributing with clothes, toys, electrical equipment and winter equipment which will be delivered to the family

CSR employees from the Operations department helped to paint walls in the after school day care that we support with the kids from the day care, while the Finance and HR teams also got their brushes out and helped to paint a day care centre for kids who are mentally challenged.

These activities form a small part of the CSR Israel social reasonability projects. CSR Israel also takes part in a national tutoring program which matches volunteers with junior high school students to help improve their maths.

We also support Haifa Women’s crisis shelter by providing various social and leisure activities for women and children of all faiths who fall victim to domestic violence. CSR Israel is also proud to support after school day care for children at risk by providing them with a safe environment at one of the local schools. In addition to all this, CSR Israel also makes food donations to families in need, donates computers and run blood drives.

Thank you to everyone who has been involved in these projects. Your commitment and kindness has brought smiles to many faces. We have had such wonderful feedback from the CSR volunteers, who have told us that working with the children at the day care centre really made them feel as if they were making a difference to their community and giving something back.