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!

Blogs, Twitter, social networking: your new business tools

The construction industry is proving that social media and digital marketing is not just for consumer brands - with a wide variety of businesses now turning to digital channels to promote their business and communicate with potential clients.

Construction Manager magazine has pulled together some thoughts and tips from industry professionals including how to use Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogs.

• Read the full article on the Construction Manager website

......and we're mentioned in there too! ;-)

Carlisle Staff Give a Helping Hand

A team of volunteers from our Carlisle office recently renovated a local garden for a charity in Harker. Ten members of Capita Symonds staff took part in the project over two half days at Heathlands Farm, part of the Glenmore Trust.

The site is run by Glenmore Opportunities, a Social Enterprise that provides support and development for adults with disabilities.The users at the centre outlined what they wanted in the garden, which was designed by landscape architect David Richards, including plants to attract butterflies, something to deter rabbits, and a gnome.

After weeding, the volunteers completed the garden with a tidy up of the overgrown site, and adding new plants. Plans for the future of the Glenmore site include a tea room, farm shop and nature trails.

David Richards said: “All of the volunteers are really happy with how the garden has turned out. We put in a lot of hard work and we are delighted that the day centre users at Glenmore have a nice front garden they can enjoy throughout the year.”

The garden renovation is part of the Carlisle office’s ongoing Community Engagement plan which it is hoped will take on larger projects in the future.

Before

The volunteers

The finished article

Thank you to all the volunteers!

Capita Bobrowski engineers Goodwood Festival of Speed sculpture for 5th time.

Capita Bobrowski (our structural engineering brand) provided structural engineering design services for the spectacular central sculpture at last weekend’s Goodwood Festival of Speed.

This year's innovative display was sponsored by Audi in its centenary year, and was designed especially for the event by renowned sculptor Gerry Judah. Celebrating Audi’s achievements in motorsports, the sculpture features the legendary 1937 Auto Union Streamliner and the recently launched R8 V10 sports car at either end of a dramatic 'swoosh' of tyre tracks, as if they are driving off into the sky.

Although the 44 tonne, 32metre high structure is entirely fabricated from steel, Capita Bobrowski utilised in-house software that was originally written for tensile fabric to provide the complex cutting patterns needed for the steel plates that are welded to the central core tube.

Have a look at pictures of the sculpture on Flickr

Capita Bobrowski were also involved in the last 4 sculptures at the event:

• 2008 - Land Rover
• 2007 - Toyota
• 2006 - Renault
• 2005 - Honda