We are delighted to welcome Amanda Clements as our new New Media Executive. Amanda joined us on 4 January and is currently learning all about BEN as a whole, her role and colleagues.

Amanda says;"Before BEN I worked for Newsweek's marketing department but was made redundant due to relocation. Taking a positive stance of my situation I decided to put my skills to good use and have done various voluntary roles from helping an ex-colleague set up a global travel website to helping a music producer re-design his entertainment website.

I've been volunteering with BEN since before Christmas and was thrilled to be asked to join the Marketing team on a permanent basis. What attracted me to BEN was what the charity stood for, how it cares for people in the automotive industry and their dependants, and the people working in the company who have been so welcoming and made me feel at home! "

We are, of course, doing everything we can to help Amanda settle into her role and are all sure she'll bring wonderful things to her role.

The staff from Thames Territory & Carole Dacombe (Regional Fleet Manager South West) had a fabulous day last Wednesday putting up the Christmas decorations at Town Thorns Care Home.

After fighting our way through the snow, fog and ice on Wednesday morning we arrived at Town Thorn to be greeted by boxes and boxes of decorations and lots of walls, corridors and rooms crying out to be decorated ready for the festive season.

We immediately split into two teams and started on the main areas which included the reception, lift area and main function hall. The function hall was a particularly important area as this would be the venue for the annual pantomime. The boys put up the huge tree in the hall along with the ceiling hanging decorations and the girls did the metres and metres of garlands around the reception foyer and the entrance hall tree. We have to give it to the boys they did a fantastic job at decorating the tree although it was tools down for a while due to a technical hitch (how many men does it take to change a fairy light bulb?!).

After a quick tea break we then moved on to decorating the chapel and physiotherapy, all the time being careful of where we were placing the decorations in order to prevent any trip hazards or danger to walking frames, wheelchairs etc.

The maintenance team were on hand to help us with additional tools and for trips back up to the loft to find even more decorations!

After a quick but delicious lunch break it was back to work where we finished off by decorating the corridors and lounge of the high dependency suite.

It was an exhausting day and the time just flew by, we had Christmas music playing all day and received some wonderful feedback from the staff and residents before we left. It was just the tonic we needed to get us all in the Christmas spirit.

Denise BASHFORDEuropcar UK Group

Hi everybody,

We apologise for any inconvenience caused by the demise of the BEN website over the weekend.

We have chased the gremlins away with big, pointy sticks and promise it won't happen again.

Emily

Cassandra Faria, BEN's New Media Executive left the charity yesterday after over two years. This brilliant website is entirely down to her genius and hard work so she's definitely left her mark!

From a personal point of view, I've shared an office with Cass for a year and a half practically every day and I feel really bereft today. Those tiny size three shoes are going to be mighty hard to fill.

Em x

Bangers4BEN kicked off yesterday and the challengers are currently making their way to Monaco!

Follow each teams' progress on Twitter.