Community Work

Here at Punch we are committed to making a positive difference to local communities and during our last financial year, we donated over £10,000 to 28 charities and good causes.

Beneficiaries range greatly; a young person suffering from cancer received a compassionate respite break with their family and through the Happy Day Children’s charity, a group of local children and their carers got to go on a special day trip to enjoy “Christmas at Chatsworth House”. Elderly residents from a local care home will also soon have a Dementia Friendly garden space to enjoy.

We also support the Royal Marines Charity who aid wounded and injured Royal Marines and seek to improve the quality of life for each and every Royal Marine. The Royal Marines charity continue this support long after people have severed their formal links to the Corps and actively seek to build lasting relationships with leading UK companies so that Royal Marines leaving the Corps can go on to find meaningful second careers.

Our sponsorship of Meet, Eat, Drink and Learn (MEDaL) has helped equip 16 students from Paget High School, Branston, with vital life skills by providing a series of innovative employability skills workshops, designed to arm school leavers with the key skills needed to be successful as they enter the world of work. The weekly sessions take place at The Blacksmiths Arms in Branston and include: communication and presentation; team building and leadership; and managing projects and events, as well as offering support with constructing a personal statement and CV, and interviewing for success.

Other donations include contributions to national campaigns too, such as the Police Community Clubs of Great Britain and their anti-bullying project reaching children all across the UK.

Support for larger national charities has included £750 to Children in Need, £500 for Sport Relief and over £3,000 for Stand Up to Cancer.

Punch is delighted to work with the Careers & Enterprise Company which help provide career opportunities and connections to local employers to prepare and inspire young people for the fast-changing world. The Careers & Enterprise Company was created as a social enterprise in 2015, and the team blends expertise from education, business, the private sector, third sector, academia and government to help young people to build a rewarding career.

 Punch continues to play a full role in the pub sector through membership of the British Beer Pub Association (BBPA) and UKHospitality (UKH) as well as support for the British Institute of Innkeeping (BII), All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group and the Federation of Licensed Victuallers Associations (FLVA).

Pubs play a vital role in the economy providing local employment particularly for young people. We have enabled our publicans and Management Partners and their staff to reap the rewards of Government-funded Apprenticeship schemes.

We also partner with Pub is the Hub which inspires Publicans and local communities to work together to support, retain and locate services within the pub as well as PubAid, a working party dedicated to promoting pubs as a force for good in their local communities. Initiatives include the World’s Biggest Pub Quiz, which has raised £750,000 for charities since its launch in 2016, and annual competitions to find the Best Charity Fundraising Pub – renamed as the Community Pub Heroes in recognition of the outstanding Coronavirus lockdown efforts by pubs – and Corporate Charity Fundraiser.

More recently, we have partnered with ‘Ask for Clive’, a registered charity that works with venues and organisations to:

• • Promote LGBTQ+ inclusion and provide welcome spaces
• • Ensure zero tolerance towards LGBTQ+ discrimination and hate with any instance countered
• • Actively follow discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community and push for both appropriate sentencing and education
• • Ensure that their venues are seen as safe spaces where discrimination can be reported by both victims and witnesses
• • Support measures to ensure that LGBTQ+ equality is present in education.

Following the implementation of the Pubs Code Regulation in 2016 we maintain regular positive engagement with the Pubs Code Adjudicator and also continue to engage with Government on the need for investment in the sector as a key part of the wider growth agenda for the UK economy.