We’re part of our local community here in Carrickfergus and as a company we are always looking to give a little back to the community in which we live.

We do receive requests almost daily for charitable donations and sadly it is not possible for us to help everyone. If you have asked us and we have not contributed we do apologise. We hope you can see some of what we have done in the past 12 months within Carrickfergus and Beyond:

 Ulster University IMD Course – 2016
We have a long partnership with the IMD course at Ulster University having sponsored the major project prize for the past 5 years. This year we are pleased to offer 3 months complimentary web hosting for the hosting of major projects. Students have been invited via the twitter hashtag (#uuimd) to follow and DM us for access to the promo code. After graduation we’re pleased to offer the same students 50% discount for 12 months to help them get started as web designers and the boost their profits from selling hosting and web development.

Work Experience Students – Local Schools and NRC 2015 / 2016
We love education here at BWF and our company owner was a teacher for 12 years from 1997-2010. We’ll always say yes (when possible) when any of the local schools / colleges in Newtownabbey, Carrickfergus or Larne ask us to take students on placement. This year we have had students from Carrickfergus Grammar School, Carrickfergus College and Ulidia College on placement with us. We are also facilitating a 3 month placement for four students from the Northern Regional College and we have rented a temporary office (directly opposite the main BWF office) for them to work in. A small cost to us but a massive opportunity for these students to gain real world employment opportunities. Dylan whose name you may see on these blog posts is one such student.

Alzheimer’s Society – 2016
We see the great work done by this society in the local community for people affected by Alzheimer’s and their carers and families on a daily basis. If you check out the local branch of this charity you will see their offices are in the same building as ours (in fact they are next door). We made a donation in memory of Mr John McKee who sadly passed away earlier this month to the work of this great charity.

The Rainbow Project – 2016
Local man Gareth Buchanan (and BWF client) is taking part in Strictly Come Dancing in aid of the work of The Rainbow Project in Northern Ireland. It’s been cool to follow Gareth’s preparation for this on social media and we wish him all the best as he makes final preparations for the event. We were happy to be able to make a donation in aid of this event.

Carrickfergus Under 10’s Football Kit Sponsorship – 2015 / 2016
For the second year in a row we’re pleased to sponsor the kits of the local Carrickfergus Under 10 kids team. This team are the future of local football and it’s great to be a part of this team. We follow them weekly and they are doing well.

Friends of MS Research QUB – 2015
A member of staff spent some time helping this charity put together a website using Weebly our website builder product. We also provided a free domain name and free web hosting. We also were able to make a cash donation to this great charity as well as buy 8 of their charity mugs. If you visit us in BWF you may get your coffee in a £5 MS Research mug!

UK Little Owl Project – 2015

One of our clients runs a website dedicated to ‘little owls’: http://www.littleowlproject.uk/ asked us to move her website to an isolated server as she was appearing on National Television. We moved her website to a ‘hot spare’ server for a week and made a small financial contribution to her charity.

IXD Belfast – 2015 / 2016
The Interaction Design Degree at the Ulster University in Belfast is run by Chris Murphy and Paul McCormack and this course is turning out the ‘kick ass’ designers of the future! We were delighted to sponsor 3 students from this course to attend Hybrid Conference in Dublin. You can see pictures here: http://danrubin.pixieset.com/hybrid-2015/ We also give any student on this course a free web hosting account for 3 months followed by 50% recurring discount for as long as they are a student and 12 months following graduation.

Belfast Design Week – 2015
We were pleased to be one of the Sponsors at the Belfast Design Week 2015 organised through Blick Studios. You can see more about this event here: http://belfastdesignweek.com/sponsors/

cPanel Conference Denver Colorado – 2015

Mark from the Level 3 IT course at Northern Regional College has been doing work experience with us for 12 months. As a way of thanking him for effectively working for free on our helpdesk one day a week for a year we took him to the cPanel conference with us in Denver. It was a joint effort! The good folks at cPanel sponsored the event ticket and BWF sponsored travel and accommodation.

Cancer Research UK – 2015
We made a donation via Justgiving to Cancer Research for a ‘Wear Pink to Work Day’ in November at PwC in London. BWF Client Adam McMeekin was taking part.

Fields of Life Drinking Water Project – 2015
We made a donation via Justgiving to Fields of Life. When local man Drew Buchanan MBE knocks on the office door asking for donations for a 5 mile walk carrying a Jerry Can full of water to raise money for Christian Charity Fields of Life how could we say no. Respect to Drew as we’re sure it was a difficult challenge. We complain at having to carry diet coke from our car to the BWF Diet Coke Fridge so it was great to make a small contribution to bring fresh drinking water to those actually in need.