Meningitis Research Foundation was chosen as Bristows' charity of the year after the untimely passing of their friend and colleague, Joe Sako in November 2019. “Joe was loved and admired by everyone with whom he worked, and is sorely missed by all of us at Bristows.” Over the past year Bristows has raised an incredible £15,000 in his memory. We want to highlight some of the best Bristows fundraisers to date, hoping they’ll inspire other teams.

Quiz Night

In June 2020, Bristows kicked off its fundraising activity with a fantastic quiz night over Zoom. With a huge turn-out of over 120 attendees, the quiz was a great success and raised over £2,000. The quiz was opened with an introduction to MRF from one of our directors, Rob Dawson, and included numerous rounds such as Music, Picture, Sports, Food & Drink, General Knowledge, Fancy Dress and a specialist “How well do you know Bristows?” round, all hosted by various partners and employees from across the firm.

“Despite the Covid-19 lockdown (meaning we were unable to kick off our fundraising for MRF with a live event as we would have liked) the quiz night was a roaring success. The majority of the firm got involved in some way, and the variety of activities and different rounds meant that there was something for everyone to enjoy. It got extremely competitive between the teams at the top of the table and provided everyone involved with a chance to see their colleagues again after several months of working from home. It was certainly an event to remember (mainly for the fancy dress) and kickstarted our fundraising for the year with a bang.”

Kew Gardens 10K

In September 2020, for one of the only in-person running events of the year, 13 Bristows team members donned their running shoes, MRF vests and even added an elephant costume – because why not!, and ran 10K through the beautiful Kew Gardens. The team had a fantastic day and together raised an incredible £4,177!

“The Kew Gardens 10K was my first ever race and it was a fab experience. The sun came out, my lockdown training paid off, the course was flat and we raised a lot of money for a great cause.”

Keyhole Ex-clue-sive

In October 2020, despite another looming lockdown, the fun(draising) activities continued. Ten Bristows partners gave the firm a peek behind the curtain as they hosted their own version of ‘Through the Keyhole’. Each week a new home would be shown through a range of photos and video clips, which included clues as to the identity of the homeowner. People donated to participate, and the first person each week to guess the correct homeowner would win a prize – which was also hidden in the clue.

This turned out to be a very popular event raising just over £500, proving that it can pay to be nosy!

“Who wouldn’t want the chance to take a peek inside their bosses’ house to see how they live as well as possibly winning a decent prize just for being nosy?!”

Strava Challenge

The second UK lockdown in February didn’t stop the Bristows team either. They challenged themselves to collectively walk and run over 1,500 km – the equivalent of the distance from their London office to the Brussels one and back, twice!

Not only did they complete their challenge, they actually surpassed their original distance target and covered over 1,900 km, that’s London to Rome!

Using Strava to track their collective progress and share pictures, the team raised over £1,200 from the event and enjoyed some beautiful views (and adverse weather) along the way.

“The Strava challenge gave me the motivation to get out of the house during lockdown despite the awful weather! It was also really fun to re-connect with colleagues through the app by sharing kudos and commenting on each other’s efforts!”

Cook-along

Last April some of the Bristows partners kindly offered to host a cook-a-long from their homes for the rest of the firm and raised over £430. The evening included wine, laughs, chicken pot pie and a delicious chocolate tahini dessert. We love this activity and it sounds like a great way to connect with your colleagues outside of work.

“My pie definitely didn’t quite look like it was supposed to – I think I was distracted laughing too much at Zac’s commentary instead of stirring my sauce, but at least it tasted good! A really fun evening and I now have some new recipes I would definitely cook again.”

It has been a pleasure to partner with Bristows for the past year and we are very much looking forward to continuing as their charity of the year for 2021/22.

We can’t wait to see what they get up to next!

If you'd like to get involved you can join one of our fundraising events or contact jennyr@meningitis.org if you'd like to hold your own event.