UK PR agency livestreaming charity office cycle challenge

By Rich Leigh on Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Since working in PR, I haven’t known a time when it hasn’t felt like a community.

The various social media platforms initially bring us together with the people we pitch against or whose work we admire and/or secretly wish we’d thought of first, and then the plethora of events and award nights allow us to air kiss, gossip and get a bit tipsy together. It works.

Well, PR Land, a member of our community is doing something pretty awesome at the minute and I thought I’d tell you a bit about it. You might even fancy helping them out with a few quid.

BOTTLE is a PR agency based in Oxford. This is a live stream of BOTTLE’s office:

At present, the staff there are trying to collectively cycle 500 miles on a gym bike to raise at least £1,500 for their chosen charity SpecialEffect, which develops tech to enable severely disabled children to play with and interact with others through video games.

The BOTTLE lot started yesterday and will cycle during office hours until Friday (the 4th) at 5.30pm – the as-the-crow-flies distance is equivalent to cycling from their office to Geneva. There are about 25-30 employees, each cycling in 30 minutes shifts and hoping to reach 6.25 miles in that time to hit their distance goal.

The impact of SpecialEffect’s technology can be seen in the video below. Were I a crier, I’d be blubbing like a recently-dumped Gwyneth Paltrow at the Oscars (had she been forced to watch the opening scene of Up on repeat for 24 hours beforehand):

As of 10.30am this morning, they’d cycled 135 miles. They’re currently at 78% of their £1,500 total (their total stands at £1,170). Again, if you’re feeling charitable and would like to donate, simply visit their JustGiving page here.

BOTTLE’s head of digital (not MD as I said before) Paul Sutton is up at 1.30pm today if you want to tune in and watch him sweat IN REAL TIME.

Here’s associate director Emilie Lien hard at work right now: