Sound Design

IET Faraday (from The Institute of Engineering and Technology) is an exciting year-long programme of resources, activities, competitions and events designed to inspire young people about science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).

'Urban Evolution' - this year's theme looks at some of the most innovative structures we live amongst today, as well as what we might have in the future. As part of this theme they have showcased the work undertaken by Capita Symonds' Acoustics team on the O2 in Dublin.

"The Acoustic Engineering team were faced with a daunting challenge – turning the historic Point Theatre in Dublin into a 14,000-seat modern concert venue. The whole site had to be transformed and completely redeveloped from the existing warehouse space into a world-class venue with unparalleled acoustics. The challenge? The building is right in the centre of a residential area – requiring the acoustic team to come up with a solution that means the noise from the newly named O2 Dublin did not exceed its planning licensing limits." Find out more and watch the video on the IET Faraday website

My digital world

Kate Nelson, Principal Sustainability Consultant, Talks about her Digital World.

The original article appears on Building Sustainability Design's website

What is your favourite website?

I am hooked on www.etsy.com – its mission is to reconnect makers with buyers and it has a fantastic shop local function which hooks me into all the UK based designers and artists. As someone who works in responsible procurement, I love the idea of buying one-off, handmade items instead of mass produced goods.

What is your favourite gadget?

It isn’t really a gadget but last year I became a mac user and it was love at first drag and drop.

What’s the most useful website you access for your work?

I recently worked out that the best way to get the latest information was to stop subscribing to email newsletters and follow your favourites on twitter instead. It keeps your inbox clear and you can pick and choose what to follow up on. At the moment I am following Ethical Corporation, Building and the UN Climate Change 09 tweeters.

What was the last track you downloaded?

I am all about spotify.com at the moment where you can listen to most albums for free (legally!) but the last download was Useful Chamber by Dirty Projectors.

What was the subject of the last email you received?

Skittles! We are currently building an intranet for our sustainable design lab which will link our designers, architects, engineers, planners and project mangers together in sharing best practice and developing new tools for our projects. We have been inspired by the skittles website which plugs into twitter, flickr and youtube to generate content which means it is by the people for the people.

Social networking or face-to-face?

Hard to say, I am a fair weather friend of facebook but I can see its potential. At this stage I must say a conversation over a pint of ale is my preference.

Who is your favourite blogger?

My favourite blogger at the moment would have to be my friend Charlotte who is on gastro boot camp at the moment in Ireland - http://chopchop-charlotte.blogspot.com

Charlotte works for Sustain and she has helped me be a more ethical eater particularly when it comes to fish.

What’s been the best link you’ve ever been sent?

www.walkit.com – we are based on Victoria and I find I can walk to all my meetings instead of spending time cooped up in taxis and tubes.

What was the last thing you bought online?

A fruit and veg box from Abel and Cole

What was the funniest piece of spam you ever received?

Spammers have become so lazy so I haven’t had a good piece in ages, but I did hear a funny story about spam which involved a major tunnelling project and a filter which automatically deleted emails which included the word 'shaft'.

Big Gig, Big Cause

Capita Symonds and Capita in Blackburn have joined forces with Blackburn with Darwen Council and the NHS to offer a fantastic night of live music on Friday 16th October.

Bands featuring staff from across the partner organisations will be playing at the BIG gig in Blackburn in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust.

Blackburn Landscape Architect Nick Miller and his band - Second Hand Wings - will play tracks from his debut album ‘War of the Roses’. Also playing are local bands ‘shakeys brother’, ‘the majesticks’ and ‘luva gunk’. Tickets are free with fundraising on the night.

Donna Neely, Business Developer from the Blackburn office said "Following the success of the JAM Tribute night earlier this year we decided to hold another music event for our staff and partners. The BIG gig will raise valuable money for Teenage Cancer Trust and showcase some of the finest local talent. All of the bands are fantastic and I hope they receive lots of support from their colleagues on the night!"

Capita Symonds celebrates Ramadan

Capita Symonds and Capita sponsored Blackburn's first ever Chand Raat Festival, held to celebrate the end of Ramadan.

Hundreds of people flocked to Blackburn Market and then to Town Hall Square for the special Eid Festival, which was held the day before Eid-ul-Fitr – the annual celebration ending the Islamic month of fasting.

The finest in Asian produce was on offer with stalls selling a wide range of items from clothes, embroidered material, jewellery, scents, hijabs and purses to foods, accessories, Islamic art, shawls and scarves.

Zunny Dar from Capita Group offered henna painting at her stall (sponsored by Capita). Children from local primary schools were invited to take part in an eid card competition with prizes donated by Capita.

Starchitects

Congratulations to Nicola James, Richard Woods, Lee Griffiths, Kevin Jones, Matthew Richards and Adrian Jones from Capita Architecture’s Cardiff studio who came sixth in the team competition at this year’s Cardiff 10K.

The team donated £250 to Kidney Wales in the process via Katherine Jenkins' appeal: http://www.justgiving.com/katherinejenkins

Southampton staff help with Holy Family school improvements

Staff from Capita Symonds’ Southampton office and Southampton City Council gave up a precious Saturday recently to improve the indoor environment for children at Holy Family School in Millbrook, Southampton.

The project – part of the Business in the Community (BITC) Programme – saw the team tackling a variety of different challenges including redecorating a number of classrooms.

Tony Head, Deputy Headmaster said: “We are enormously grateful for the effort of all those involved. Collaboration such as this between business and schools allows us all to ensure that our children are given the very best learning environment that we can. It’s fantastic to work with other organisations that are as committed to making a difference as we are.”

Pat Smith, BITC Hampshire Area Manager said: “We are absolutely delighted to be working with Capita Symonds and Holy Family. Employee volunteering is one of the most important and effective ways that companies can increase their positive impact in the community and leverage a key resource beyond cash.”

Although it resides in one of the most deprived areas of Southampton, the Holy Family Primary School has risen from 30th to 5th in the school league tables in just three years.

Well done and many thanks to everybody involved.

New website

We've launched our new website!

Have a look at www.capitasymonds.co.uk

It's got lots of nice new features, and all new content - we hope you like it.

We'd love to know what you think - so if you have any comments, email us at website.capitasymonds@capita.co.uk

Capita Challenge Video

While we're on the subject of Challenges today, we thought you might be interested to see a little video about the Capita Challenge.

The Capita Challenge is an outdoor activity race bringing together teams of Capita colleagues from across the Group's 250 UK offices and 27,000 staff to compete for the Capita Trophy - raising lots of money for charity in the process.

This year's event took place in Stratford upon Avon, and hence had a Shakespeare theme!

You can also access the video on the YouTube site

Capita Symonds to Compete in Intelligent Sport World Series Final

Capita Symonds will be the sole representative for the UK construction industry at the Intelligent Sport World Series Final in Portugal.

The Intelligent Sport World Series comprises 12 annual corporate challenge events on six continents – including the Microsoft Challenge. These events culminate in the World Series Final in December where the top teams from each event will go head-to-head in the ultimate showcase of team performance. The event will take place in Geopark Naturtejo da Meseta Meridional in central Portugal.

Two teams from Capita Symonds recently took place in the Microsoft Challenge in the Cambrian Mountains in Mid Wales. They did well achieving 21st and 27th place, but narrowly missed out on a place in the final. Of course they were disappointed, but a sigh of relief went out across the team at the thought of no more training.

However their luck changed (for the better or worse?) when they received a phone call explaining that there was now a place available and would they like to take part!

So now we’re back in the game!

We’ve decided to create a Capita Symonds ‘super-team’, by picking the five strongest members of both Capita Symonds’ original teams. The squad will be training hard in the run up to the event and will be entering a number of adventure races and other physical events, to up their fitness and build on the lessons learnt in Wales.

Only 30 teams from across the world have been invited, and made up from the qualifiers from the USA, South Africa, Europe and the Far East. We will be competing against organisations such as Airbus and the US Air Force.

Good luck!

Find out more about the Intelligent Sport World Series at http://is.challengerworldresults.com/

Pryke on his bike

Andrew Pryke, Capita Architecture’s Design Director, and Capita Symonds’ Andrew Wheldon completed the King Sturge Property Triathlon at Dorney Lake, Eaton, recently.

The Property Triathlon is now in its third year and has already firmly established itself as one of the top five UK triathlons by size. Co-sponsored by Property Week, the event to date has raised over £500,000 for charity and has seen more than 3,500 people take part.

This year’s event included a 750m open water swim, 12 mile bike ride and three mile run. Andrew chalked up a time of 1 hr 15min 3 sec, putting him in eight place out of over 100 in the 45-49 year old category, 16th out of approximately 220 in the 40-49 category, and 97th out of 1155 overall.

Andrew Wheldon notched up a highly respectable time of 1 hour 30 min 15 sec.

Well done to both Andrews!