Throughout 2024, Nottingham Express Transit (NET) has raised more than £15,000 for a range of local charities and community initiatives in Nottingham, as part of its pledge to celebrate its 20th anniversary through an acts of kindness campaign.
As NET’s 2024 charity of the year, Nottingham Central Women’s Aid was a key focus for NET’s charity initiatives throughout the year. This included raising nearly £2,000 during a ‘walk the network’ initiative in May, which saw 30 members of the team walking along the tram network for over 13 miles from Hucknall to Clifton South. NET also raised funds from its family fun day in August, and this Christmas, transformed a tram into a Santa’s grotto which welcomed 14 children and their mothers who are supported by the charity, for an afternoon of festive fun.
Alongside the charity of the year, NET team members were also encouraged to nominate their own chosen charities and take part in individual fundraising efforts. Their efforts included supporting a fundraiser by 13-year old Lillie for the Brain Tumour Charity, a cause nominated by network controller Lee Wood. Meanwhile, experience agent John-Paul Redman raised £950 for When You Wish Upon a Star by walking 1,815 miles in 127 days.
The network also supported external fundraising efforts by Jacob Gadd, son of tram driver Alun Gadd, helping him to raise more than £2,000 for Our Dementia Choir. This charity has now been named as NET’s 2025 charity of the year.
Other group-wide donations included £700 towards Step Out Stay Out, giving more than £1,200 to Aspley food bank, and two separate donations of £1,000 to the Strelley Family Fun Day and Operation Polarised, an initiative in partnership with Nottinghamshire Police to support Nottingham’s youths ages seven to 17.
Rebecca Horne, business engagement manager at NET, said: “2024 has been a really strong year for us in terms of fundraising and we’re incredibly proud of the amount raised for so many worthy local causes. Central Women’s Aid, our charity of the year for 2024, was chosen by our colleagues and it’s been fantastic to see how much of a collaborative effort the team has put in to support them.
“Last year we also saw many of our colleagues undertake their own charitable work in support of a range of causes, and we will continue to champion this in years to come.”
During 2024, NET retained its Disability Confident Accreditation and strengthened its ties with local charities to improve accessibility across its network. Alongside its work with visual communication experts Widgit, which saw the implementation of explanatory images and symbols on NET trams, the team has also worked closely with the Nottingham Sight Loss Council (NSLC) to improve accessibility through the development of audio guides and app accessibility.
To support this work, the NSLC visited the NET depot at Wilkinson Street, as did many other local people and groups in 2024. This includes Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue who attended the depot for a training exercise, while females were invited to learn more about the industry at NET’s Women in Engineering Open Day.
Considerable efforts continued in 2024 to support local schools through a number of initiatives such as giving presentations from staff about life as a tram driver, attending careers fairs and highlighting the importance of safety on the network, with three new safety films being unveiled in 2024. In total, the year saw NET’s dedicated team engage with over 2,500 students across Nottinghamshire.
Rebecca continued: “As a core part of Nottingham’s infrastructure, our teams have the pleasure of being embedded into the city’s communities every day, and being able to give back to these communities is something that's really important to us. Through our charity and community work, we’re able to see first-hand the positive effect that support can have on the causes that need it the most, and we look forward to building on this further in 2025.”
To find out more about Nottingham Express Transit, visit https://www.thetram.net/