Retweet and support Polycom Asia Pacific’s charity donation campaign!

[Daniel Sheridan (Dan_Sheridan)]

Polycom Asia Pacific is very proud to be running a charity donation campaign through @PolycomAPAC on Twitter. The campaign calls upon everyone to follow @PolycomAPAC and retweet the campaign tweets, easily identifiable by the hashtag #CQPolycom. For every retweet by a follower, Polycom will donate $1US to one of our longstanding charity partners here in Asia Pacific, the Australian children’s cancer charity, Camp Quality.

You can support the campaign right away by retweeting some of the most popular campaign tweets featuring images and videos from the charity:

Campaign tweet:  26 June, 2014

Campaign tweet:  2 July, 2014

Campaign tweet:  3 July, 2014

Campaign tweet:  4 July, 2014

Campaign tweet:  6 July, 2014

Campaign tweet:  8 July, 2014

In this guest post Helen Merrick, General Manager – Fundraising and Marketing at Camp Quality, explains why the charity is involved in this campaign and how their organisation uses its own Polycom video solutions to enhance team collaboration, deliver training to puppeteers, and conduct remote meetings:

We're delighted to continue our longstanding relationship with Polycom by participating in this @PolycomAPAC Twitter campaign. Camp Quality’s purpose is to create a better life for every child living with cancer in Australia. We do this through numerous programs, including the use of educational puppets and recreational camps.

To give you an idea of our fundraising objectives as an organisation, $5,000 can help contribute towards sending six children living with cancer to their very first camp. These camps provide the opportunity for kids living with cancer and their siblings to feel just like other kids. They play, explore and take on new challenges in a safe and happy environment where it's all about fun, friendships and laughter away from a medical environment. Best of all it's about creating great new friendships with kids just like them. It also gives Mum and Dad some time to themselves! Children living with cancer face harsh treatments that have a significant impact on their physical and psychological development. These camps give them a chance to build their confidence and independence. At camp optimism is plentiful, laughter is contagious and resilience is strengthened.

Polycom has worked with us as a fundraising partner since 2009, helping us in our aim to build a better life for children living with cancer. In December 2011, Polycom strengthened the relationship by announcing an extended corporate partnership. This provided us with Polycom video collaboration solutions that we could deploy across our Camp Quality offices, based in every state and territory across Australia. This has truly transformed the way we work across a very large geography.

Camp Quality puppeteers defy distance with the help of Polycom solutions

Since we began using Polycom video collaboration solutions, teamwork has become a whole lot more enjoyable and meaningful. Video has provided a new visual channel for meeting and collaborating with multiple employees, volunteers, and partners regardless of where they are. It has impacted and improved everything from fundraising and reporting meetings, to the design and training of our Primary School Education Program, that is delivered through puppet shows for primary school children.

Using video, the puppeteers can rehearse together in real-time wherever they are and consult on new puppet designs. Polycom’s high-definition video enables detailed close-up views and relays vibrant colours, which are so essential for training in a program such as this. I recall one of our new performances was rolled out at our staff conference back in July 2012. What was incredible was that all rehearsals for the show had been conducted over video, and the results were astounding.

Camp Quality teams used to work in silos. About four years ago now, we worked towards a “One Team” approach to break down barriers in networking and communication. Our extended partnership with Polycom came at an amazing time, when we were launching and focusing on the One Team concept. Being able to meet face-to-face, see our employees being really engaged in the meeting and in the conversations, in fact, just being able to have these ‘real life’ meeting experiences over video at any time without needing to travel—we saw the benefits of this technology right away.

Polycom’s solutions have opened up a whole new world for us. Video has become very much a part of our organisational culture, with employees being encouraged to migrate from travelling and sending emails to engaging in more visual conversations across any distance. Every saving we can make through video has an instant impact on the children we help.

Full information about the Twitter donation campaign can be found on this page.

To read more about how Camp Quality is using Polycom solutions, read this case study and download as a pdf.