by Fern Shaw | Jul 13, 2022 | water cooler, Water Coolers
In spring 2002, three university mates clubbed together to launch their own recruitment agency focussed on the construction industry. Optima Site Solutions was born.
Having worked hard to build up their enterprise, they got through the global financial crisis and more recently Brexit, which has affected labour supply, and COVID, which gave a temporary shake up to the internal organisation. Proving time-and-time again that theirs is a sustainable and progressive business.
Optima now has more than 35 employees and supplies thousands of contractors to hundreds of clients each year; making it one of the largest recruitment agencies for construction in the UK. The company’s success has been built on years of effective trade and sticking to its core values of candidate quality, being transparent and best service for all.
Optima is well aware of the importance of their employees maintaining good hydration habits, consequently they installed AquAid bottled water coolers in their Head Office in 2008. Not only has this led to their organisation having constant supply of refreshing drinking water, it has also meant automatic donations to the charities they support through AquAid with each bottle of water delivered.
This partnership has also led to a water well, known as an Elephant Pump, to be built in a water scarce region in Zimbabwe on their behalf. This pump, constructed using locally available materials, has a capacity to supply up to 10,000 litres of potable water per day, and due to its award winning design will do so for decades.
AquAid look forward to being able to present the Optima Site Solutions team with a certificate, a photo of the pump and a letter of thanks for their participation in this life-changing build in due course.
You can read more about Optima Site Solutions here.
by Fern Shaw | Jul 6, 2022 | aquaid tyne wear, Charity, Christian Aid, water cooler, Water Coolers
By Fern Shaw
AquAid Tyne & Wear, operating since 2002, this year celebrates twenty years in the provision of an extensive range of innovative and high-quality water coolers and dispensers, along with a total commitment to offering superior services to their 2,000 customers.
Reaching this 20-year anniversary holds more than one reason for celebration though – it also marks an incredible achievement with the branch donating just under £500,000 to the charities AquAid have supported since our inception in 1998.
In view of this remarkable achievement, we spoke to Gordon and Emir Dobson, who own and operate AquAid Tyne & Wear and asked for their comment.
“We are absolutely delighted that our donations have reached this level: these small contributions we know have made a big difference to those who need it.
Here’s to the next £500,000!” ~ Emir Dobson, Owner Director – AquAid Tyne & Wear
Extracts below are from a letter to Emir and Gordon written by Ian Thorpe, CEO of The Africa Trust, in recognition of this milestone.
“Many congratulations as you approach your twentieth anniversary for the Tyne and Wear franchise of AquAid. I was astonished to learn that your franchise alone has raised such an extraordinary amount of money for charity during the last two decades. With a current donation figure of £487,915 I have no doubt that during your anniversary year, you will achieve the tremendous milestone of over half a million pounds raised.
Thank you for the part you and your colleagues at AquAid Tyne &Wear are playing in lifting people out of poverty to live healthier and more productive lives.
You have also raised over £240k for Christian Aid, and during the last three years alone, 3,321 people in Malawi have received entrepreneurial training (at a cost of £12 each) and assistance to start small businesses.“ ~ Ian Thorpe, Chief Executive – The Africa Trust
Should you too like to play a part in this phenomenal, philanthropic movement simply by keeping yourself and your company, organisation or school hydrated, contact AquAid today.
by Fern Shaw | Jun 21, 2022 | water cooler, Water Coolers, water dispenser
As the temperatures soar throughout the UK, so does the demand for chilled, refreshing drinking water.
At AquAid, where we have been in the business of providing a wide range of AquAid water coolers and water, both spring and bottled at source, for over 23 years, we understand this more than most. That’s why it’s important to us to be able to ensure that we are able to offer the very best in mainsfed and bottlefed water dispensers and bottled water.
We’re not only about the provision of high-quality water dispensers – we also firmly believe that providing water to those who may not necessarily have access to water as we do – is absolutely vital.
When it’s hot, keeping hydrated with AquAid is as simple as touching a button, but for millions of people globally, not having access, to not only drinking water but also any water, at all, is a daily reality.
Remember, this is just water for you, your children, family and community to drink. This is not the water needed to wash your clothes or utensils or water with which to irrigate your food crops. This is water to drink for your very survival.
Sadly, this is the day-to-day existence for many communities across Africa. During droughts and in the dry months access to water becomes increasingly difficult.
Which is just one reason, since our rather humble beginnings in 1998, we chose to work with sustainable charities like The Africa Trust and Christian Aid. Using donations from AquAid, both charities work tirelessly implementing sustainable water projects for communities in need.
As an AquAid customer isn’t it nice to know that while you’re sipping cool water from our water dispensers, there’s another water well or water project being installed in Africa, bringing clean drinking water to another community in need? We think so and we are sure you will agree.
by Fern Shaw | Jun 1, 2022 | water cooler, Water Coolers
With World Environment Day coming up and a theme of #OnlyOneEarth, here at AquAid we thought it pertinent to highlight the systems we have in place which help make sure we reduce our impact on the environment, while we continue to supply a wide range of high-quality water dispensers and bottled-at-source and spring water to our customers across the UK.
Kinder to the environment
By using a water cooler dispenser, you help protect our environment. We use billions of individual plastic water bottles each year and millions end up in our rubbish each day. By drinking water from a re-usable water bottle and refilling our water bottles from a water cooler, we significantly reduce this number. This means that you can still enjoy the convenience of having water with you at all times and be safe in the knowledge that you are reducing the harmful impact on the environment.
More branches local to you
With 23 branches positioned across the UK, our multiple distribution centres allow us to be nearer to our customers – shorter delivery distances reduce fuel usage and associated carbon emissions.
Water from source
Our three sources of mineral and spring water, one each in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland, were all selected in large part due their central locations, which reduces the carbon footprint associated with the deliveries to our depots.
Creates opportunity and hope
At AquAid, an integral component of our business is helping those in need. This core belief is illustrated in each installation of our Mainsfed Water Coolers and each purchase of Bottled Water. We donate a portion of these revenues to charities that implement safe, sustainable water resources throughout Africa.
Whatever your water cooler requirements, AquAid have over twenty three years of experience in the provision of the right water cooler for your work space – wherever you’re situated and whatever space you occupy throughout England, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
by Fern Shaw | May 4, 2022 | mains fed water cooler, water cooler, Water Coolers
AquAid’s high-volume bottle fed and mains fed water coolers are the perfect solution where there is a high demand for a constant supply of fresh drinking water – wherever the location: football grounds; offices; worksites, warehouses; medical rooms; colleges; workshops; hotels; varsities or schools.
Every AquAid Large Capacity Mains Fed Water Dispenser is designed for ease of operation and to run efficiently.
For illustrative purposes, we are looking at the High Capacity Mains-Fed Hydrator Water Cooler, as it has an extra-large reservoir – a point-of-use water dispenser specially designed for serving a large number of people.
With a dispense gap of 230mm, easily accommodating varying sizes of water containers, the Hydrator can dispense up to 40ℓ of chilled water each hour, a sufficient volume to fill 120 x 330ml bottles.
The Hydrator’s sturdy design, developed for use in high usage areas, also boasts Hygiene Guard silver impregnated dispense tap reduces bacteria transfer and a flood guard anti-leak device for added security.
And there you have it, cool drinking water on tap. All the clever little (and large) mechanisms silently operating behind the scenes, all the while ensuring that you – thirsty Thelma or Thaddeus – remain properly hydrated and super productive throughout your working day or night.
Synergy
Every installation of an AquAid mainsfed water cooler and each bottle of water replenished brings with it donations that are used to build more water wells – referred to as Elephant Pumps – for communities in water scarce regions across sub-Saharan Africa.
So, the next time you press a button and fill your water bottle, mug or glass, think about the fact that not only are you keeping yourself healthy and hydrated but also with that simple push, you will have directly contributed towards:
Another draught of clean drinking water pumped into a bucket or onto a banana plantation that will pay for school fees and;
Another child now has access to safe drinking water, which will help them better concentrate in school and;
Another community with readily available potable, productive water for use every day, for all generations, for many decades.
Rather marvellous, don’t you think?
by Fern Shaw | Apr 15, 2022 | aquaid, Water, water cooler
In spite of what has almost become an AquAid tradition of writing an Easter themed blog and the role water plays at this time of the year, we’re constantly amazed there is more to discover out there with an (usually traditional) Easter/water connection. As well as other unusual traditions and events that is.
In previous blogs, we referred to traditions such as in Switzerland, people decorate wells and fountains leading up to Easter. Decorating a well symbolises the honouring of water, which is essential for life, and Easter, the feast of renewed life.
In another, we looked at where every Easter, hundreds of thousands of Norwegians indulge in crime fiction, known in Norwegian as påskekrim (Easter crime).
This year we discovered ‘l’eau de Paques’, or ‘Easter water’. The purity, healing and restorative powers of any water collected from any moving brook, stream or river in the hours* before sunrise on Easter hearkens back to a Catholic ritual performed in France hundreds of years ago and reaching as far as Quebec, and still performed today.
Egg rolling began in Central Europe and the United Kingdom and in Preston, eggs have been rolled for more than a century and a half. According to a Lonely Planet article Avenham Park, whose grassy slope is the perfect stage for children competing to roll their egg the furthest.
Fireworks are common during midnight church services on Orthodox Easter Saturdays in Greece. But on the island of Chios, Easter is incendiary. Two neighbouring parishes hold an annual competition to fire shots at each other’s steeples. Real cannons were used until the late 19th century, but these days homemade rockets are the ammunition for the town’s annual ‘rouketopolemos’ (rocket war).*
Of course, as AquAid is all things water, health and hydration, we do not recommend beginning a local version of the Easter rocket wars. What we will do is wish you all a peaceful and blessed Easter, however you choose to celebrate it.
*source: article Bangor Daily News
*source: article Lonely Planet
