My Favourite Chocolate Moment with Virgin Atlantic

Virgin Atlantic staff send in their Favourite Moment with Chocolate snaps!

James, a Virgin Atlantic Flight Service Manager, wins first prize

Divine UK and Kuapa Kokoo farmers in Ghana were excited to hear that Virgin Atlantic Airways would be flying from London Heathrow to Accra, the capital of Ghana.  The inaugural flight is today, Monday 24th May 2010!

Divine and Virgin Atlantic have worked together lots in the past so together we created a competition called My Favourite Moment with Chocolate for Virgin Atlantic staff.  Staff were tasked with taking photographs of themselves with chocolate and 34 entries were received – with a handful having to be discounted for being a little too risqué!!  Virgin Atlantic sent me the six pictures that had made the final shortlist and asked me to pick the winners.

It was a tough job deciding, but this picture of James, one of VAA’s Flight Service Managers wins first prize because he looks like he’s been caught out on board attempting a sneaky snaffle of chocolate.  It was taken at 5am one morning en route to London from Las Vegas.  The picture was sent in by Rebecca Sheppard who will be receiving a hamper of Divine chocolate shortly.

These two pictures were joint runners up and will shortly be receiving a box of Divine.  Mind the molten chocolate on your crushed velvet purple jacket Daniel!  Laura Wood and Sara Haider of Heathrow Cabin Crew and Cabin Services Supervisor Emma Allen on board a flight to Newark in the United States still manage to look super glam despite their choccy coated faces!

Daniel from Virgin Atlantic with a vat of molten chocolate is joint runner up

Laura Wood & Sara Haider of Heathrow Cabin Crew and Cabin Services Supervisor Emma Allen, joint runners up

Thanks for the funny pictures everyone!  And enjoy Ghana!

Sophi inspires students at Sussex University

Posted by Sally Wright, Project Manager in Enterprise, Sussex University

Sophi Tranchell with the Enterprise team at Sussex University

On Thursday 13th May 2010 Sophi Tranchell was the keynote speaker at the University of Sussex’s “Enterprise Thursday Grand Celebration” event. The evening was a celebration of the entrepreneurial endeavours of Sussex students throughout the last academic year. Sophi’s talk focused on the story of Divine, and gave the audience of students, staff and business people a real insight into the heart of Divine: it was amazing to learn how such a successful social enterprise can be run on such a large scale. Sophi’s drive and passion for social enterprise was abundantly clear, and her talk seemed to ignite a similar passion in the audience too. It was fantastic to have Sophi come to speak, especially as the values of Divine really seem to fit with the ethos of Sussex University as a Fairtrade campus with Divine chocolate sold in our campus shops and cafes.

We had lots of positive feedback from our audience including;

“Very to the point about her goals – yet devoted to her cause. The 3 p’s ‘partnership , passion and persistence really stuck out in my mind.” Chariton Papakonstantinou 1St year Engineering student Sussex University

“Fantastic, inspirational and in depth explanation of fair trade and the Divine Chocolate company” Jonathan Gaiger 2nd Year Business and Management Student Sussex University

Sophi Tranchell speaking at Sussex University

“Insightful, with an incredible focus on CSR. She’s developing a brand that people can or want to relate to. Truly inspirational.” Colin Harrison Breathe Brighton

“It’s interesting how competitive and focussed a social enterprise can be” Tom Saunders SIFE Southampton

“What a fantastic, powerful person! Her speech was incredible, and so fluent.” Kim Macdonald Short Sweet Lets

Guess who’s loving Divine (6)

Beverley Knight

The simply gorgeous Beverley Knight stood up at the podium at the recent SHE Inspiring Women Awards – and proclaimed her love for Divine.  We love her lots in return!  This is what she said:

” No one needs to sell me the virtues of Divine Chocolate! One bar and I was sold. I absolutely love it! Why? Well, the clue’s in the name!!! It’s ethical too! You have GOT to try it!”

 

See who else is loving Divine here

 

 

 

 

 

Wonderful women

Posted by Sophi:

It’s been a weird and wonderful week with women at its heart.  On Tuesday I made a presentation to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills with Kresse Wesling www.eako.co.uk  the wonder woman who specializes in using waste materials to make lovely things.  Her current products include high-end hand bags Elvis & Kresse, made from reclaimed fire brigade hoses and jute supermarket bags made from coffee sacks.

Beverley Knight

On Wednesday I received the International Business Women award from SHE magazine announced by Tara Palmer Tomkinson.  Beverly Knight was next on the platform and confessed that she to was a Divine devotee.  I’m pretty sure she said “I love Divine…. and so do my thighs!…”

On Thursday, my daughter voted for the first time and it made me think about how the opportunity for women to vote is so hard fought for around the world.  It was sad waking up on Friday morning to find we had lost some staunch supporters: Angela Smith,  Minister for the Third Sector and Social Enterprise, and Linda Gilroy Co-op MP for Plymouth, Divine’s champion in the House.

Divine MD Sophi Tranchell with Mica Paris celebrating Dubble's 10th Birthday

Over the weekend we were at the first London Fairtrade Festival by Tower Bridge which celebrated the 10th Birthday of Dubble, the Fairtrade chocolate bar with added Comic Relief.  Mica Paris drove down from Wales to cut the cake say how much she liked the fact that Fairtrade enabled everyone to support people around the world everyday.

The election result was frustrating and in 2010  the Men in Suits have gathered to negotiate our future – what happened to the women?  On Radio 4 Thursday night Shirley Williams, Margaret Beckett and Baroness Young were impressive with their experience and gravity but today there was no place for them.  If they really were committed to a new way of governing and to delivering the change they all spoke about,  it would have been refreshing to see Caroline Lucas invited and it might have made us believe they were serious about a future that was good for all of us.