Our communities are at the heart of what we do...
We continue supporting local charities, events and organisations which contribute to the quality of life in the communities we serve. We’ve come a long way since our inception in 1953 and we continue to maintain our traditional values as we look to the future.
Our CSR programme continues to have two primary purposes and ensures we respond to our communities needs in ways that matter to them the most.
Firstly, by demonstrating our core best practice behaviours as a Building Society:
- Ensuring our commitment to providing responsible financial services
- Serving our customers with honesty and integrity
- Recognising our employees’ contributions and their part in our success
- Striving to optimise benefits for our Members
Secondly, to ensure we have an ongoing commitment to the local communities in and around where we operate.
We take great pride in the work we do in the local communities, our volunteering for local charities and also the fundraising our colleagues do for causes close to their heart. Take a look below at some of the work we have recently done within our local communities.
You can view our 2024 community stories here. Or you can view our 2025 stories below.
Watling View Volunteering
For the third year running, eleven colleagues from across the Society visited Watling View School in St Albans for a day this summer to help give their facilities a spruce up ahead of the new term in September.
Watling View is a special school catering for over 100 pupils aged 2-19 with a wide range of complex and profound learning difficulties. Their focus is helping their students develop individual social lives, independence and communication skills, ensuring they’re prepared for tackling in the wider world. Even during our short visits while the hallways are empty, we can see what a wide range of support is provided by their staff to their pupils, with specialist resources including a hydrotherapy pool, sensory and dark rooms, soft play facilities and a studio flat where older pupils can practice key life skills.
In time-honoured fashion, most of us set about giving a few classrooms and corridors a fresh lick of paint (trying hard to get more paint on the walls than ourselves!). Elsewhere a team gave the Watling School café a refresh both inside and out; the café is one of many examples of how Watling View provides a safe environment for its pupils to develop practical skills which they can bring forward into adulthood.
As always Mark and the rest of the Watling View Facilities team were excellent hosts, providing our painting tools making sure we didn’t get too lost around the school! Watling View’s guiding vision is to support their pupils to “Be kind, Be responsible, Be the Best You Can”, and we were delighted to lend a small hand in helping them to achieve this goal.
When work was finished, the Harpenden decamped to the local pub for a much-deserved refreshment. We look forward to continuing our tradition and visiting Watling View again once next year!
Sir John Lawes Interview Skills Day
On Monday 7th July, I visited my old secondary school, Sir John Lawes in Harpenden, to volunteer for their interview skills day for all students in year 12. The purpose of the day was for students to develop their interview skills, strengthen their confidence and to network with industry professionals who were acting as interviewers for the day.
Two weeks beforehand, students had to submit their CV and cover letter for a fictitious Trainee Team Leader role at M&S. This being the job they would be interviewing for on the day. As an interviewer, I was given these documents to review so I could make notes in preparation for the interviews and for the feedback session to follow.
On a glorious Monday morning, it felt a bit surreal doing the same walk to school I did for seven years. It is fair to say it brought back many happy memories. Once signed in, I was guided to the sixth form centre (it has barely changed since I was there) where I got to meet other interviewers and some of my old teachers too. Sixth Form Personal Development and Careers Lead at the school Mr Gilfeather gave us a quick run-through about how the day would run and how the students had prepared.
After a short while, we were shown into the sports hall where we each had a dedicated table to interview the students. Once we were settled, students were then allowed into the hall and were advised to sit by their group number which had been assigned to them. Each interviewer had a group of 6. Just before we got going, one of the teachers gave a small speech reminding the students of the importance of body language, eye contact and confidence.
After this, we then got to start the interviews. Questions were already provided to us by the school, however we were encouraged to throw in some of our own to try and challenge the students and to make the interview seem as real as possible. My group were an absolute pleasure to interview and all did incredibly well. All were different in their own way, some confident, some nervous, which was completely understandable given how for many it was their first ever interview.
Time flew by and before long, the interviews had finished. The next part of the day was a networking session where students were given time to walk round and chat to the interviewers. This was an exercise designed for students to ask us questions or advice surrounding our career or about the industry we work in. As someone in marketing, it was great to have students come up to me and say they were thinking about pursuing a career in a similar field. They really took an interest and asked a lot of questions which was fantastic.
To round off the day, we were then put back into our original groups. We had time to sit with each student we interviewed and provide feedback on how their interview went, their CV and their cover letter. To finish, each interviewer had to award the student in their group who they felt deserved to get the Trainee Team Leader role.
It was a brilliant day which I thoroughly enjoyed. All the students I had interactions with were really engaging and in return I could sense they were taking every bit of advice on board too. I fully look forward to volunteering again next year and helping the next generation on their journey.
Elliot Ashby - Marketing Executive
St Albans and Harpenden Careers Fair
Along with over 40 local companies, the Society was delighted to be invited to join the St Albans and Harpenden Careers Fair on Monday 30th June. On a glorious sunny day, colleagues from several departments across the Society volunteered their time to attend the careers fair at the historic Rothamsted Research Conference Centre in Harpenden. The event brought together students from local secondary schools, Special Educational Need schools and colleges with employers and training providers.
Joining the opening ceremony, Daisy Cooper MP, Councillor Paul de Kort (Leader of St Albans City & District Council) and Victoria Collins MP, all spoke about the growth of career opportunities across the region and the importance of inspiring the next generation of workforce.
The tropical temperatures did not deter the attendees and throughout the day over 700 students from 14 different schools from Harpenden and the surrounding area attended the fair. Later in the day, an additional twilight session was held for students to attend with parents and carers.
The event provided a valuable platform for local school children to connect with local employers and understand the different pathways available for potential career paths. We enjoyed a day of enlightening conversations with engaged students, sharing information about the variety of roles, skills and knowledge that we have across the Society. The careers fair was a rewarding event where we connected with the local community and hopefully helped inspire young people on future career pathways.
Elizabeth Weatherhogg - Senior Operations Manager for Mortgages
The Lea Primary School colour run
On Friday 16th May, I attended the Lea Primary School colour run. This was an event where Harpenden Building Society provided a £400 sponsorship, for which the school were hugely grateful for.
It was the school’s first ever colour run and from the get-go you could see how excited the kids were.
Over 130 children took part. With music blaring and the sun shining, each year group took turns to do two laps of the school field. There were various colour and water stations en route where volunteers were ready to cover the kids with colourful paint and water.
My job for the afternoon was to be at the start finish line to throw paint over the children as they did their first lap and then hand out medals for when they finished their second. Thankfully all wore goggles as some were absolutely covered head to toe in paint.
After the children, it was then roles reversed as willing parents ran two laps of the field whilst getting targeted by the paint stations.
The event was a huge success, and it was great to see so many children and parents enjoying themselves. The school managed to raise an just over £1,600 from the Colour Run alone, an incredible amount. This will go a long way towards much-needed school projects, including the resurfacing of the KS1 Playground.
Elliot Ashby - Marketing Executive
Sunnyside Rural Trust
On the 3rd June 2025, 4 of our colleagues went to the Sunnyside Rural Trust in Hemel Hempstead to volunteer for the day. We were given the task of clearing and tidying Poly 5 along with some of the trainees on site for the day.
We were tasked with sorting out plant pots into sizes and plastic plant trays into piles, discarding any broken ones, tidying and organising the poly tunnel and then sweeping through.
If you get a chance, it is worth a visit, the plants they sell are gorgeous, the café offers great food and very reasonably priced, and farm shop has a wide range of different items from chutneys to original art made into cards.
About Sunnyside
Sunnyside Rural Trust is a thriving charity and social enterprise offering training and work experience for over 170 vulnerable people. They train people with learning disabilities to acquire skills in a number of rural activities. These include beekeeping, looking after chickens, growing a wide range of plants and produce, landscaping and garden maintenance.
They have a focus on the full “plot to plate” cycle, from sowing seeds and nurturing plants to making produce to sell in the farm shop or market. They do all of this as environmentally friendly as possible.
Careers fair
In March, I was delighted to be able to attend my son’s secondary school for a careers fair. This gave me the opportunity to promote our Society as well as the Financial Services Industry amongst the younger generation. I felt privileged to be there, and talk to so many students, of a variety of ages, about all things careers within the industry. It was insightful for me, as much as it was for the students.
I received very positive feedback from the school, the students and even my son! I was able to do this using one of my paid volunteering days all society employees benefit from and I feel this was time very well spent.
Gemma Fient - Director of Operations
Open Door
Across two days in March, colleagues from our Operations and Commercial teams visited Open Door in Berkhamsted, a community garden and café, to visit the amazing volunteers, learn more about the positive impact they are having on the local community and get stuck into some gardening!
This was a great opportunity for our colleagues to spend time with the volunteers and see first-hand the hard work that goes into creating and upholding this strong community space. Our teams were put to good use and the volunteers were hugely grateful for all our efforts throughout both days.
Open Door is a community centre where the goal is to help tackle social inequality and isolation by creating a space where everyone is welcome to connect and contribute, for their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of the wider community. There is a café on site where all members of the community are encouraged to meet friends (new and old!). Our colleagues got the chance to sample the tea and cake within the café during their wellearned lunch break.
There is also a community pantry open 24/7 encouraging the community to “take what they need and leave what they can”, a great initiative especially during the ongoing cost of living crisis.
The Open Door ‘Wellbeing through Food’ project focuses on promoting social connections through food and the benefits that cooking, sharing and appreciating food can bring to wellbeing, often using produce directly from the community garden!
Last year, Harpenden Building Society donated £7,200 to Open Door. It has been amazing to support this positive influence on our wider community. The opportunity to visit the centre and meet and thank the volunteers was fantastic. We look forward to visiting again soon!
Open Door's Website: https://www.opendoorberkhamsted.co.uk/
Charity of the year
This year we have selected Keech Hospice as our charity of the year.
Keech provide free specialist end-of-life hospice care for people of all ages. Caring and supporting adults across Bedfordshire and children and their families across Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, and Milton Keynes with life-limiting conditions. At home, in hospice, or wherever we’re needed.(For more information, please click the attached link https://keech.org.uk/)
View more about our colleague support for Keech so far in 2025 here.
Youth Talk
Youth Talk are a St Albans based charity that provides confidential counselling/ psychotherapy to 13-25 year-olds who live, work and/ or attend school/college in the District of St Albans and surrounding areas.
We have a multi-year commitment with them which allows Youth Talk to provide free counselling, both digitally and in person, to young people with mental health issues. We have also worked with Youth Talk during Mental Health Awareness Week this year. Helping raise awareness of this years topic of 'Anxiety' with fellow colleagues. Youth Talk do incredible work and we are delighted to be able to provide continued support.
You can visit their website by clicking here.
