BAM’s Three Snowhill team abseils 200 feet to help Birmingham homelessness charity

BAM’s Three Snowhill team abseils 200 feet to help Birmingham homelessness charity

Birmingham, 23 May 2018 - Eleven of BAM’s Three Snowhill team for developer Ballymore in Birmingham have taken the plunge to help a homelessness charity in the city – quite literally – by abseiling 200 feet from one of its tallest buildings.

The BAM team, organised by site administrator Demie Smylie who did the challenge herself, abseiled 200 feet and 19 storeys down the neighbouring Holiday Inn Express building. They have raised over £2,000.- so far for charity SIFA Fireside.

Demie, 22, burst into tears twice during the descent. She said: ‘I felt overwhelmed. I just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible! I really didn’t think I could do it. I kept looking at my hands all the way down. But I’d asked for one person in every department to do it, so I had to do it myself. I could hear everybody from the site had come outside and were cheering me on and my mum was there too.’

Senior Site Manager James Beardmore said: ‘Ciaran and Demie were petrified of heights. I remember her clinging to the columns when she first went up our building, she would not even go near the edge. Ciaran would not commit to doing it all week. But the guys from Redpoint were very professional and this was excellent community relations for us because the Holiday Inn has helped us out with our time lapse camera so we’ve tried to help them out in return.’

Other corporate teams also took part and SIFA Fireside’s Chief Executive Carly Jones said: ‘We are very grateful to the Holiday Inn Express, BAM and the other companies who came together to do this exciting activity and support the work we do. We work with some of the most vulnerable adults in society.  Many have complex mental and physical health problems, such as addictions.  We run a friendly day centre providing support to over 160 people daily. As well as offering food, clothing, showers and laundry facilities, we also offer housing advice, welfare rights, employment opportunities, healthcare and social activities.’

The charity’s day centre in Digbeth recently became the first official visit for new Housing Minister James Brokenshire.

If you want to donate please do so via https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/bam-abseil.

BAM’s full abseil team also included: Ciaran Hearn (trainee QS), Wes Williams (crane supervisor), Glenn Cook (assistant design manager), Jess Duffell (sustainability advisor), Phil Poole (senior planner), Nick Edwards (electrical engineer), Steve Murphy and Rob Rencher (mechanical site engineers) and Jeff Robinson from sub-contractor Interlock Ductwork.

Further information: Mark Slattery, Press and Media Manager, BAM Construct UK Ltd, 01442 238415.