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Historically, much of this work has been driven by employees themselves and supported by Thomas Cook or MyTravel. Partly as a consequence, the levels and nature of activity have been broadly spread and somewhat patchy. Going forward, we aim to develop a more co-ordinated policy, and to channel our support through a more coherent framework. We are currently discussing proposals to establish an independent Thomas Cook Foundation as the primary vehicle for the Group’s corporate giving and for our support of employee volunteering and fundraising.

We also aim to focus our community and charitable support more tightly on causes related to children, education and the environment.

• In 2007 they raised some £140,000 for Cancer Research UK. This brought the total raised for the charity to £680,000 – supporting activities in Manchester, London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Newcastle, Glasgow, Bristol and Belfast.
• A further £46,000 went to Destination Florida, a UK-registered charity that organises holidays to Florida for seriously ill children aged 7-17 – supported by medical team of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and carers.

For the fourth year running, Thomas Cook Airlines hosted four Flights 0f Dreams for the Variety Club. These took around 800 disabled or disadvantaged children on a flight with Santa. Employees raised money to buy presents for the children and helped on the flights from Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow.

Since 2005 our Neilson business has worked with Sail4Cancer, a charity set up by sailing enthusiasts who have lost friends or relatives to cancer. Using the sport to raise funds for treatment and research, Sail4Cancer also provides patients with opportunities to enjoy the time on the water.

Neilson helps arrange and fund Beachplus holidays for cancer patients and their families – contributing increasing amounts through deductions from its margin. Its employees have also raised funds at home and abroad through quizzes, dodgeball tournaments, beach volleyball, sweepstakes and an inter-resort Swim the Channel marathon in hotel pools. Neilson is also working with Sail4Cancer to help raise awareness of skin cancer across the sailing community in 2008.

Thomas Cook Germany supports the children’s welfare organisation Kinder in Not. For the past 28 years it has focused on Tibetan child refugees in Nepal as well as on Nepalese children. Company employees raise money for the charity and volunteer to look after almost 400 children at a site near Kathmandu. The organisation funds children’s education and training, sets up schools and provides medical care and supplies.

Variety Club Children’s Hospital

In 2005, Thomas Cook pledged to raise £2m towards the refurbishment of the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) in the Variety Club Children's Hospital within London’s Kings College Hospital. Our £2m was to cover the estimated cost of building materials. Late in 2007 we learned that the actual cost would be £2.3m, so we agreed to fund the additional £300,000.

In 2006/07 we raised over £522,000, taking the total raised to just over £1.3m at 31 October 2007. We aim to raise the promised £2.3m before the PICU opens in Spring 2008; in any case, we’ll continue fundraising until we hit the target. Here’s what we raised last year:

• £90,652 by asking customers to donate a pound when booking Thomas Cook Holidays in our stores
• £98,271 from in-flight collections backed by a video appeal from Jonathan Ross
• £10,646 from customers donating unwanted foreign coins in our stores
• A further £172,636 from other customer donations
• £150,506 from staff fundraising – ranging from baking cakes and climbing mountains to parachute jumps, customer evenings in resorts, dress down days and marathons

For more on what we are doing with the Travel Foundation, see Destination communities.

• Young Enterprise Northwest, which visits schools to create awareness of the business world and prepare school-leavers for future careers. Last year we attended 19 workshops.
• Airport Community Network, which runs a regeneration project with Manchester Airport. Last year staff attended two workshops at Wythenshawe Primary School, teaching 6-7 year olds about working at the airport. The project continues this year.

“The best Xmas present I’ll have”

“An amazing experience… All the children ended the day with a big smile on their faces – the best Xmas present I will have this year. It’s amazing to think how such a small amount of time given by volunteers would make so many children so happy. We want to thank Thomas Cook for giving us this opportunity. It was the best thing that I have personally done this year.”
– Staff volunteer on one of the Flights of Dreams