Bristol software company helps provide holidays for heroes

A Bristol-based software company has just completed work on a website to help provide free holidays for injured servicemen and women and their families.

Spark! Data Systems based on Hotwell Road in the city, has partnered with self-catering luxury holiday firm Premier Cottages and charity Help for Heroes to create a dedicated micro site.

Spark! Data Systems is already the web developer for Premier Cottages, whose website premiercottages.co.uk allows the owners of more than 1000 holiday cottages across the UK promote their cottages to holiday-makers searching for a luxury self catered break.

So when marketing director Beth Bailey suggested setting up a system on the Premier Cottages website to allow Help for Heroes book free holidays for injured soldiers and their families, they turned to Spark! Data Systems.

“I was involved in a fundraiser for Help for Heroes last Autumn and offered a holiday in my cottage as 1st prize,” explains Beth, “and it got me thinking that it would be good to be able to use the cottage directly as a benefit to injured service personnel as well as raising money for the charity.”

Beth discussed her idea with the Board and the idea of Cottages for Heroes was born. But for the project to work, Premier Cottages needed an online system that could showcase the donated cottages and weeks on offer.

“We needed a relatively simple microsite consisting of a page for each week of donated holiday which would be taken down once it had been allocated leaving only those which were still available,” said Beth.

So far, Premier Cottages members have given away 60 weeks of luxury breaks which will be allocated by the Band of Sisters branch of the charity - a network within Help for Heroes that helps those who care for and support wounded servicemen and women.

Beth continued, “For Band of Sisters to administer the project, the site needed to be password-protected and procedurally sound to ensure the holidays were going to the right people.

“So we went straight to Spark! Data Systems and they drew up a proposal that we were very pleased with. Plus, they very generously offered to donate the site build to the project.”

Jon Jones, technical director at Spark!Data Systems says they were more than happy to offer their services free of charge to help make Cottages for Heroes - which is being launched ahead of Armed Forces Day on 25 June - a success.

“We have been working with Premier Cottages for a number of years now and have developed a very strong professional relationship with them. We are also supporters of H4H, so when Premier Cottages asked us to design http://h4h.premiercottages.co.uk we were more than happy to help such a worthy cause,” he said.

Members of the public who want to donate to support this and other Band of Sister’s initiatives can go to: helpforheroes.org.uk

For more information, visit: sparkdata.co.uk