Construction sites, offices and an awards ceremony were festively red on May 18th to help raise a grand total of £9,300 for CRASH Red Friday. The funds, which beat last year's total, will support the charity's work with the homeless.

Talking about the fantastic support CRASH received, the director Tom Biddlecombe said:

"The support was much more varied this year with companies thinking of different ways to support our dress down day. As a result, more funds were raised for which we are very grateful. Thank you to everyone who got into the spirit! We hope more companies will support this annual campaign and help make it an even bigger one next year!"

Carillion's offices across the country raised a record amount for Red Friday this year! The ladies at the Carlisle office turned into 'CRASH Red Devils' for the day to raise the highest amount!

Said a Carillion spokeswoman:
"As a long time supporter of CRASH, we are delighted to contribute close to £2,000 to the charity. Many of our offices got involved, with the largest donation coming from our M6 Guardsmill project team in Carlisle who donated an incredible £670! Well done to everyone who got involved and we now look forward to wearing red again next year."

Centre for Construction Innovation (CCI) incorporated the day with the recent NW Construction Awards which they organised in conjunction with Constructing Excellence and the NWDA. The Awards were held as a celebration of best practice and excellence in the built environment and construction sector in the North West. An amazing total was raised on the night thanks to guests who dug deep into their pockets.

Roy Stewart of CCI commented:
"It was nice to be able to help those less unfortunate than ourselves on such a prestigious event and I thought that the CCI team and presenters looked great in their red dickeyÐbows and cummerbunds in honour of Red Friday."

Some companies went a step further and matched the funds raised by its staff such as Faber Maunsell. Said Karen Cheetham, the Community and Charity Manager:

"Red Friday is a fun event and an excellent opportunity for all staff to participate. We were pleased to get a few more of our offices involved and managed to raise even more money than last year! We hope to do even better next year!"

The campaign was also part of one company's away day. Over 100 scarlet women, and men, from building consultancy Tuffin Ferraby Taylor mingled at Heythrop Park in Oxfordshire for the consultancy's first ever away day. To express support for the campaign, everyone wore a red item of clothing and in one brave case, even dyed his hair red!

Red Friday is now a regular fixture in Davis Langdon's calendar. Once again all its UK offices supported the day by doing wacky things like the men slapping on some red lipstick! However, the wackiest fundraiser must go to Guy Peters of Emap Construction who transformed himself to 'Gail Preety', in the required red outfit and hair, for the day!

Other Red Friday supporters were: Austin (Heating & Air Conditioning), Barbour, Lend Lease, British Gypsum, Castle Cement, Click4Construction.com, CMP Information, Diamond Build, George Wimpey, HBG Construction, Holloway White Allom, jmArchitects, J T Dove, Kier Group, Kingspan, Packexe, TradePro and Wates Group.