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Going Green with the ‘Design Our Van’ Competition
17 February 2023
FR Scott is ‘going green’ with the help of our community and the sporting children of Hull.
We have just added our first fully electric van to our fleet and have decided to let local sports children design it in the hope of winning £1,000 sponsorship for their club or school.
Why Go Green?
Our business is keen to help the environment and reduce our carbon footprint. We have a fleet of 11 vans that support our Same Day / Next Day Delivery Service to our customers across the region and have a plan to switch all these over to electric in the coming years.
Last year we installed two EV chargers at our site in Canning Street for colleagues and customers to charge their vehicles whilst at work or whilst visiting our busy trade counter.
We have other significant ongoing environmental initiatives across our business. Fitting timers and motion sensors to the LED lights in our offices and warehouse whilst replacing our buildings windows with more energy efficient ones. We have also began installing tablets in our trade counter allowing account customers to digitally sign for their orders as we make steps to go paperless.
Why involve the Hull community to design the new van?
We have served the businesses and public of Hull since 1945 and always like to give back when and where we can. With the arrival of the new fully electric van we decided that it needed to stand out from the rest. We wanted to keep our iconic squirrel logo but be creative with everything else.
Many of our team are parents – and know that young children are probably the most creative people they know!
The idea then came about to set up a competition for all local children involved in sports clubs to create a design for the new van. As a proud and historic Hull business we have always made an effort to support youth sport in our area and continued to do so by putting some amazing prizes for the ‘Design Our Van’ competition.
The winning child/design receiving £1,000 sponsorship package for their club and £100 toy voucher. 2nd placed design winning £500 sponsorship package, 3rd placed design winning £100 worth of sporting equipment.
At the time of launching the competition, Head of Sales & Marketing Tony Rands said…
“Going electric is important to us as we want to reduce our carbon footprint. We want our new van to stand out against our existing fleet so thought it would be a great idea to engage with the community we have been serving for 78 years and let local children get creative and design it.
FR Scott already support local sports teams such as Hessle Sporting u13s, Sutton Park Primary with shirt sponsorship and Oak Road Rangers with matchday sponsorship. We have also recently partnered with Hull & East Yorkshire Eels Powerchair Football club to support the great work they do and with the fantastic prizes available we are happy to support more youth sports clubs, potentially helping the next generation of sporting talent come through”
‘Design Our Van’ – The results
The competition managed to capture the imagination of the people of Hull. The competition advert was viewed by over 60,000 people across social media and it generated numerous online news articles about the competition, with Tony even being invited on BBC radio Humberside to talk about it.
After a month of designing there were hundreds of competition entries. A group of FR Scott colleagues from each department, including some of our delivery drivers, met to review all entries and choose a Final Five.
The finalists selected were
Cody, aged 14, representing Kingston Sharks U16 Ice Hockey Club
Logan, aged 12, representing Myton Warriors ARLC
Phoebe, aged 6, representing Bellfield Primary School
Joshua, aged 9 representing PB Tennis Coaching
Layla, aged 9, representing Westcott Primary School.
The Final Five went to a public vote on our facebook page and had an amazing reaction.
The finalists designs were viewed 38,568 times with the posts shared 1,300 times and collectively gaining over 7,000 reactions.
The lead changed hands numerous times over the course of the week as sports teams, schools, local businesses and even celebrities shared and commented on the posts.
With 1,655 ‘likes’ at the time the voting closed Cody won the competition and the £1,000 sponsorship for his team. Phoebe came 2nd, with Joshua in 3rd
As a thankyou we sent each amazing finalist a sweet box and a gift card in recognition for their brilliant designs.
Over the coming weeks we will be involving Cody in the design process, using a local vehicle design and wrapping company to bring his ideas to life.
Watch out for more updates and be ready to spot the new electric van on the roads of Hull and the East Riding.
If you want to partner with businesses that really does support and invest in its local area contact us today
