Panasonic Elves build bikes for Barnardos in Santa’s workshop

For most of us, Christmas is a cheerful time filled with friends, family, feasts and fabulous gifts. But for disadvantaged children, Christmas can be very sad and lonely. When even meeting basic their basic needs is difficult, the Christmas presents we take for granted are something that most of these children can only dream about.

This year, Panasonic brought some Christmas cheer into the lives of ten children in need as part of the Barnardos “Gifts for Kids Christmas Campaign”. Under the guidance of Thrill’s Build A Bike 4 Children’s Charities, staff at Panasonic Head Office built ten BMX stunt bikes to donate (with Australian safety standard helmets) to Barnardos for children who deserve to feel the joy of Christmas.

Watch the entire build unfold in this short time-lapse video:

It was a team effort

After arriving at our picnic location, we were split up into ten groups to participate in fun bike building activities. Tyre Pumping and Wheel Rolling relays got the teams competing in exciting challenges. Each team will then completed a series of activities in order to assemble the bikes, part by part, with the supervision of professional bicycle mechanics and Thrill hosts.

The rainbow team made rapid progress through their bike build.

It was really easy

Thankfully we weren’t left on our own with a flat pack and complicated instructions. Each stage of the bike build was demonstrated and hosted like a game, so that our teams moved through the build together. We even got to create personalised gift cards to be delivered with the bikes, so a range of talents got chance to shine.

We learned new skills, worked together and built great bikes for Barnardos.

In this challenge, everybody won

While the winning team was judged on quality control and team work, everyone won this challenge. The whole company got to participate in a fun activity that was really worthwhile and ten children in need got a fantastic bike for Christmas.

Annalise from Barnardos takes charge of our carefully built bikes.

￩￫ x

Christmas