IS Oxford has made donations to charity via the Good Gifts Catalogue every Christmas for the last ten years.

Every member of staff is given £200 to spend on their own choices of Good Gifts. This year a new gift option to support children in the UK was a runaway success with seventeen choices of 'let no child go hungry' being made.

Supporting children in other countries was also popular with warm clothes for eleven children living rough in India being made and as with previous years support five Afghan girls, nurture five abandoned children, supply a year's schooling for six children and girl-friendly schooling for two. We also opted to supply exam fees for two pupils who had already struggled to fund their tuition and uniforms and therefore the opportunity to achieve a passport to a better life.

Closer to home we have supplied the elderly with four hospital kits, one winter warmth kit, helped three with heating bills, one Christmas hamper and two cats for comfort. For primary school children we supplied one child with 'a year of song' and one child with 'a years supply of books'. A new gift was to supply three youngsters from low income families in the UK with a bike, helmet and training allowing them low cost transport to get to work.

To help the environment in the UK we chose to save the dolphins, plant three meadows of flowers and two bluebell woods. We also chose to plant 10m of hedgerow, an oak sapling and a rambling rose in the UK hedgerow. Helping to supply water in Africa was also popular with two deep pumps, two treadle pumps and one drip irrigation being chosen. Another new gift was to prevent disability in Africa with three choosing this option.

Each year, as a company, we have also sponsored a Village Library in India and receive regular updates of the progress made and the difference our donation makes to the people in these very rural or deprived communities who have very limited access to resources.

All this is in addition to the money raised by our Advent Calendar. For more details of the gifts we have given please visit Goodgifts.org.