Member Article

Grundfos celebrates 45th anniversary of Sunderland plant

ONE of Sunderland’s leading employers celebrated 45 years of being in the city with a family festival for workers and their loved ones.

Global pump manufacturer Grundfos opened its Castletown plant in 1974 and employs nearly 150 people in Sunderland and about 18,000 around the world.

To celebrate the anniversary, General Manager Mark Lister and his team organised ‘Grundfest,’ an afternoon of fun, games and food for workers, their families and friends.

“Thankfully the weather held and we had a great time; a lovely afternoon which celebrated the anniversary and thanked staff for their hard work. We asked our teams what sort of activities they’d like to see at Grundfest and we had a great response.

“We wanted to make sure the event was something the whole family could enjoy, so we had facepainting and drawing in a large marquee; some great fairground rides and an e-sports area for young gamers,” Mark explained.

“We also had table-tennis, a golf game and a mini-Grundfos Olympics which culminated in a football match on a giant fusball pitch. We had a DJ playing in the marquee and we’d also arranged some tours of our site for family members keen to see where their loved ones work.

“One of the most popular activities were the stocks – people were nominated to go into them and get soaked by members of their own teams, and we also had pop-up bars and food concessions,” Mark added.

More than 500 people attended the event, and Grundfest raised valuable funds for Single Homeless: Action Initiative in Durham (SHAID), a Durham-based charity which provides accommodation for former services personnel.

“While wanting to celebrate our 45 years of being in the North East, we also wanted to put something back into the community and we’ve worked with SHAID before and know what important work they do for ex-services personnel in the region. We had a tombola and a raffle in gazebo in which SHAID explained their work. Prizes were very kindly donated by some of the companies we work with,” explained Mark.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Grundfos .