This morning at Randox HQ we held our Annual Christmas Raffle for all our staff, and we had a special visitor join us!

A friendly old man with a fluffy white beard, a bright red suit, and a large stocking packed full of Christmas gifts stopped by with his team of Christmas helpers to give a present to each of the children, who were visiting Randox with their parents.

That’s right, it was Santa Claus! Santa’s visits to Randox have become a well-established tradition here since they began in 1982, the same year the company was founded. Mrs FitzGerald invited all the staff to bring their children to work on the final Friday before Christmas, where they were greeted by Santa and given a present.

Each year the room is always jam-packed and the air filled with joy and small squeaks of excitement, and 2016 was of course no different. This year Santa’s very busy helper Steven Moore searched high and low for the perfect gift for 108 girls and boys!

Each child got a present from Santa, sat with him to tell him what they want for Christmas, and had a family photo taken as a special souvenir of their visit to take home.

Santa’s time spent with the children of Randox followed a fun-filled morning of excitement and Christmas jubilation at our Annual Christmas Raffle.

We had some very lucky winners this year who walked away with some incredible prizes, generously donated in aid of our nominated charity, Hope 365.

Our biggest prize of the morning was a massive 55” TV, which was won by Craig Monahan from our IT Team, when his ticket was called out by our Master of Ceremonies, Michael Mulligan.  Congratulations Craig!

Neville Gorman, our Manufacturing Planning Manager was also delighted when he won a 16GB iPad Air 2! What a fabulous start to the Christmas weekend for Neville. 

Perhaps our most coveted of our annual Christmas Raffle is the extra day’s holiday kindly donated by our Human Resources Department.  This star prize this year went to Charis Gryparis, one of our R&D Scientists.

Other prizes at our raffle included a Canon Printer, boxes of biscuits and sweets, Christmas hampers, Amazon and M&S vouchers, and much more.

All money raised through our raffle ticket sales are going towards the very worthy cause of Hope 365. Hope 365 is an Antrim based charity with shops in Crumlin and Ballyclare, which works to help the lives of street children in Ethiopia.  

We are delighted to have been able to help Hope 365 in some way at this time of year and are very proud to announce that through our Christmas Raffle we have raised over £4200! Our money will furnish “Hope Homes” in Ethiopia with beds for these children.

Our team at Randox Teoranta in Donegal also held their own Christmas Raffle and Coffee Morning this week, with all proceeds going towards the local hospital in Dungloe.

We are very proud of our Teoranta team, who this year have raised a mammoth €740 for this hospital, through the Christmas Raffle and Coffee Morning, and additionally a Charity Lunch during the summer.

At the Teoranta Raffle, there were also a number of lucky prize winners – see the list below for the recipients!

Lorraine Boyle won a lovely voucher from Stepping Stone.

Paul Dunne and Imelda Bonner each won a festive bottle of whiskey.

Breid Gallagher, Brendan Bonner and Tony Sharkey took home a tasty box of sweets each.

Daniel Melly, Brendan Bonner, Dermot Sweeney and Kevin Boyle each won a bottle of wine.

John Boyle, Tony Sharkey, Eoin Boyle Pete McKee and Michael Boyle each took home a small gift from the raffle.

Lauren Kearns and Mark Reynolds were the lucky recipients of a box of Christmas biscuits each.

And lucky Conal O’Donnell won the coveted extra day of annual leave!

We have thoroughly enjoyed our Christmas Raffles and Santa Visit this year and we hope you enjoy seeing a selection of our photos from the events. We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all an enjoyable and relaxing break with your friends family at this time of year. Season’s Greetings!

For more information on our Christmas Raffles and Santa Visit at Randox please contact randoxpr@randox.com