Giving back: Georgian House and its charity network

At Further Afield we love finding partner properties which, as well as offering wonderful accommodation and welcome every traveller, also give back to their community in some way.  Here we talk to Ellie Steele from Georgian House, one of our newer partners, about how important it is to the hotel that it gives something back to its wider industry community. 

You may remember a while back we met with the inspiring Ursula of ArtSpace Gites in the beautiful French village of Mayenne. Through renting her gites she helps to fund artists’ residencies, which in turn enriches the cultural experience of the village (check out our blog from March). Ursulas’s attitude is a great example of what we love, but this time we’re chatting to a much larger, but still family owned business, which shares this belief in contributing to the wider community and which illustrates how enriching a belief in “giving back” can be.

Georgian House – which joined Further Afield in July – is in London’s beautiful Pimlico, an area of the city which manages to retain an almost village-like feel despite being close to Victoria station and many of the city’s highlights. Perhaps that small town feel, coupled with it having been in the same family for over 150 years, is one of the reasons that the hotel has a strong sense of responsibility to its staff and also to helping those who deserve recognition.

We caught up with Ellie, part of the Georgian House marketing team, to get a fuller picture of the partnerships they’ve made and work they do with them

What’s your approach to collaborative charity work at Georgian House?

At Georgian House we’re always looking to get involved in relevant charities, so many of them are related to the hospitality industry. We’ve always seen it as important to be able to help those in our industry who, for whatever reason, need support and encouragement to become the best they can be. I can confidently say that since working here I have never been treated better in terms of wellbeing and support both internally and through having charities such as Hospitality Action available to our team members.

Talk us through some of the charity collaborations you’re involved with at Georgian House.

We work with a number of charities:

Room to Reward (https://www.roomtoreward.org) was created to recognise “hidden heroes” –  inspirational people who do an incredible amount for others. They celebrate these individuals’ commitment to charities and volunteer work and, as part of our contribution to their work, we donate unsold rooms to them. With – on average – 140,000 hotel unsold hotel rooms across the UK each day it’s the ideal way for hotels of all sizes to donate in a way that directly rewards those deserving individuals. Our contact there, Adam, is always happy to chat about how hotels can get involved and their work in general. (You can contact Adam via [email protected])

We also work closely with Hospitality Action (https://www.hospitalityaction.org.uk). Established in 1837, this charity offers assistance to all who work or have worked in hospitality within the UK and may find themselves in a crisis. It provides a variety of services – from grants, to employee assistance programmes and alcohol and drugs awareness programmes.

We find that guests often ask about the work we do, so for visitors here we offer the option to add an additional £1 to their bill, which is collected over a period of time and then donated to Hospitality Action.

The Georgian House team is also keen to champion sectors of society that can benefit from additional support. Women in Travel (https://www.womenintravelcic.com) is a charity set up with the aim to promote networking and support for women in the travel sector. One arm – “women returners” – specifically helps get women back into jobs within the tourism and travel industry. Some of these women may be homeless or in sheltered accommodation – they work with Crisis UK – and through its workshops and classes helps to put them in a better position to find suitable employment.

As part of our collaboration with them, we regularly contact the charity with details of any potential vacancies at Georgian House.

Springboard (https://charity.springboard.uk.net) is a charity created to help to improve job opportunities for those under the age of 25 within the hospitality, leisure and tourism industries.

They offer free, specialist careers advice whilst developing and delivering innovative educational resources to improve teaching and learning. They also facilitate excellent work experience and mentoring programmes in order to help unemployed and disadvantaged job seekers back into sustainable employment. In 2017 we were lucky enough to win the Springboard award for excellence – an award we’re extremely proud of!

To find out more about any of Georgian House’s charity work you can contact Ellie directly via her email ([email protected])

To find out more about the hotel or book a stay – Georgian House on Further Afield