What's going on at GOSS?

As part of our social value endeavours, we'd like to share some of the great things our employees have been up to recently. From company-wide initiatives to employee activity we're always looking for ways to give back to the world outside of GOSS.

Fundraising for St Luke's Hospice in Plymouth

As part of St Luke's annual Men's Day Out, the team at GOSS decided to sponsor a couple of our employees who participated in this event. St Luke's Men's Day Out is a fundraising event for St Luke's Hospice in Plymouth, an independent charity providing specialist care and support to people with progressive life-limiting illnesses in Plymouth. This year, 2000 men got together to walk a 12km route while enjoying beer and pasties, whilst finishing the day watching a rugby match. The team also decided to sponsor the employees who will participate in St Luke's Midnight Walk this July, which marks 40 years since the organisation helped its first patients. In this event people can choose to walk 5, 10, or 15 miles to celebrate the lives of the people they want to remember and raise funds to support more families in need of the organisation's services. 

Walking for Shelter

The team at GOSS sure love to walk for a good cause, and the wider team loves supporting them in doing so. Recently, the GOSS team sponsored their colleagues who walked 15km for the Walk for Home fundraiser run by Shelter. This organisation aims to defend the right to a safe home and fight the impact the housing emergency has on people and society. It gives advice, information, and advocacy to people in need to improve the lives of homeless and badly housed people.

Helping women in our community

Some of the GOSS team have been active in providing support to women throughout GOSS's local community area. One of our employees volunteers for the charity trust The WISER (Women in Safe and Empowering Relationships), a service for women in Plymouth with learning disabilities or borderline learning disabilities who are affected by domestic abuse. As part of her volunteering, she goes to a monthly group where she helps with reading, writing, and other activities. Furthermore, as part of this voluntary work, she also gets involved in amnesties for toiletries for women. Similarly, some of the GOSS team have recently organised a toiletry amnesty for PDAS (Plymouth Domestic Abuse Services), an organisation that provides support, advice, and protection for victims of domestic abuse.

Dog walking for the elderly

Pets are a great comfort for many, particularly in recent times during the pandemic, and especially for the elderly. The special relationship between an owner and their pet is proven to help improve well-being, however the joy of owning a pet can be offset should the owner fall ill, have to move to residential accommodation, or pass away. That's where the Cinnamon Trust comes in and aims to preserve the treasured relationship between owners and their pets. Through a national network of over 18,000 community service volunteers that has been established to provide practical help when any aspect of day-to-day care poses a problem. Here at GOSS our CEO and some of our other employees are part of this community of volunteers, and offer their time to walk the dogs of people who are unable to take them out themselves.

Supporting the fathers and partners of neonatal babies

One of our employees is a peer support volunteer for SNUG (Supporting Neonatal Users and Graduates), an organisation that aims to mentor and befriend parents of babies born sick or prematurely in Devon. As part of this, he focuses on providing support for the DAPA (Dads and Partners) side of the charity, offering online support and signposting to dads and partners who are experiencing or have experienced this situation.

Inspiring the next generation of graduates

To help inspire and get the next wave of graduates ready for the workplace, our CEO is currently involved in the local Plymouth community, helping those interested in STEM pursue careers in this industry. As part of this, he is currently mentoring three groups of students from the University of Plymouth on their second-year projects. Furthermore, he recently gave a talk at the Digital Plymouth meetup, an event that aims to bring together the local digital and creative community, and has also taken part in a video interview for Plymouth City College to encourage more people to enrol in software developer courses there.