Newcastle Building Society

August has been jam-packed with volunteering, from beach cleans to harvesting for foodbanks - here's what we've been up to... 👀​

​Newcastle Foodbank The People's Kitchen Hospitality and Hope

Dream home pending. 🏠​

Get an idea of how much you can borrow with our mortgage affordability calculator. 📱 ​

https://bit.ly/3X0rW9E

The countdown is on! ​

We're excited to be sponsoring the Newcastle Mela for the first time this year. Take a look at their posts to find out what's on. 👇

🎉 What's On at Newcastle Mela? 🎉

We're thrilled to announce that Punjabi Roots will be lighting up the stage at this year's Newcastle Mela! Catch them live at:

📅 25th & 26th August
📍 Exhibition Park, Newcastle

And don't miss out on their special performance at:

📅 24th August
📍 Mela in the City at Grey's Monument, Newcastle

About Punjabi Roots Academy:
They're not just performers—they're a powerhouse of talent and tradition! Punjabi Roots Academy is a specialist training provider with a mission to instil solid values and positive attitudes while equipping learners with new skills. From Eastern arts like Bhangra/Gidha and Bollywood dance to Western arts such as DJ Technology, Music Production, Radio, and more, they offer something for everyone. Whether you're into dance, music, sports, or media, their workshops and courses are designed to inspire and engage all ages.

With a proven track record of working with schools, colleges, universities, and community groups, Punjabi Roots Academy brings a unique blend of culture and creativity that you won't want to miss.

Get ready to dance, sing, and celebrate at Newcastle Mela with Punjabi Roots Academy! 🎶💃

We're aligned with Vital Signs, but what does that mean? ​

Vital Signs 'takes the pulse' of the North East, and highlights issues that need support. One of the areas that needs our focus is food poverty, and our colleagues have spent over 400 hours volunteering at food banks this year so far. 👏​

You can find out more about Vital Signs here: https://www.communityfoundation.org.uk/vital-signs/

Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland

🔦 Sponsor Spotlight: Newcastle Building Society 🔦
We are proud to have Newcastle Building Society as a sponsor of Newcastle Mela 2024! 🌟 Their support helps us bring this incredible celebration of South Asian culture to life, providing fun and enriching experiences for everyone.
Join us in thanking Newcastle Building Society for their commitment to our festival. We can’t wait to see you at Exhibition Park!

Need a helping hand? ​

We're working to make the biggest impact we can in our region and local communities, so we've aligned with the Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland North East Vital Signs 24 report, to focus on the areas that need us most. ​

On average, households in our region have lower weekly earnings than the rest of country, so it's important that we support members and communities who are facing difficulties.​

We've partnered with Citizens Advice Gateshead to offer our members and colleagues free confidential and impartial advice, information and guidance on a range of issues. ​

You can find out more about Vital Signs here: https://bit.ly/3WBDHUV

We've moved! 🏦 ​

Don't forget - our North Shields branch has moved just around the corner from our current Bedford Street home, to the YMCA North Tyneside on Church Way. ​

Our new branch at YMCA North Tyneside is now open!​

For a closer look at the exciting plans for your new North Shields branch, click here: ​

Opening the doors to our new North Shields community branch To get the best experience we would strongly advise using a more recent and compatible browser such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge or iOS Safari.

We're thinking differently about our branches...💭​

We're partnering with local organisations to provide face-to-face services to communities that need them. ​

📍 Our Yarm branch was opened in partnership with Stockton Borough Council in the library. ​

📍 In Knaresborough we opened a branch in partnership with North Yorkshire County Council, located within Knaresborough library. ​

📍 In Hawes we partnered with the Community Office after learning that the town would lose its last bank in 2019. ​

📍 We collaborated with the Glendale Gateway Trust to open our Wooler branch in the Cheviot Centre. ​

Where would you like to see our next Community Branch? 👀​

Read about our Community Branches here: https://bit.ly/3IaoQZD

We're definitely having a today, looking back at some of the amazing work our colleagues have been doing in their local communities this month, supporting some brilliant charities and causes. 😊​

St Oswald's Hospice 🌿​
Children's Heart Unit Fund Family Fun Day. ❤​
Feeding Families 🍴​
Stephenson's Railway 🗑​
Macmillan Cancer Support 🍰

Did you know we have 31 branches across the north east, Cumbria and North Yorkshire? ​

We believe branches play an essential role in the heart of our communities. You can set a 'home branch' on our website, to see local news stories and contact information as your browse. ​

Visit our website to set your home branch 👇​
https://newcastle.co.uk/

Hartlepool – meet your Branch Manager! ​

As a local, making a positive difference in the town is very close to Carrieanne's heart. She's worked at the society since 2014, and the Hartlepool team have a huge 52 years of service between them! ​

"The branch is so important to Hartlepool. In a town where branches have closed and passbooks are gradually being taken away in other banks, it really is important that we're here to help anyone and be able to offer the type of service the people of Hartlepool need.” ​

Get to know Carrieanne more: https://bit.ly/3VFjBHs

Our purpose is to connect communities with a better financial future, and one way we do that is through our colleague volunteering. ​

All our colleagues get two paid volunteering days per year, here's what they've been up to in June. ☀​

Branch colleagues volunteered at the Daisy Chain megastore in Gateshead, a charity that supports Neurodiversity. 🧠​

Our Operational Resilience team volunteered at Northumberland Zoo. 🐅​

Colleagues helped out at St Oswald's Hospice with some gardening. 🌿​

IT Operations headed down to Blyth beach and Sunderland’s Silkworth’s nature park to litter pick. 🗑​

We went back to school and helped with a Primary Enterprise World event. 📚

We're celebrating Volunteers' Week. 🥳​

We're opening a brand-new community partnership branch at YMCA North Tyneside in North Shields, but this isn't the first time we've worked with them - their allotment is one of our colleagues' favourite volunteering spots. 🥕🍅🌻​

Our colleagues love to get involved and help their communities make positive changes, all supported by our volunteering-friendly policies, including two paid volunteering days each year. So, our team can lend their time in a flexible way that works for them. ​

Find out more about volunteering at Newcastle Building Society: https://bit.ly/3OuMQuy

Vote for us in this year's What Mortgage Awards. 🏆​

We're really excited that we've been nominated for five awards this year:​
⚡ Best Regional Building Society ​
💙 Best Building Society for Customer Service ​
🏠 Best Mortgage Lender for First Time Buyers ​
⭐ Best Intermediary Lender ​
🏆 Best Overall Lender​

Cast your vote here: ​
https://bit.ly/NBSWhatMortgage
​

We're excited to announce that we're opening a brand new and unique branch in North Shields, in partnership with YMCA North Tyneside.

North Shields will be our fifth community partnership branch, offering our full range of branch services whilst sharing space with YMCA North Tyneside's community café, popular gym and offices. ​

This is just one part of our wider investment in our branch network, including a new flagship community branch in the heart of Newcastle city centre, opening later this year. ​

Read more about our new North Shields branch. 👇​
https://bit.ly/3vM2Em0

Image Credit ​
Design: Grace Choi Architecture​
Visualisation: NVision Studios

Our colleagues have been as busy as ever volunteering in their local communities. ⚡​

Colleagues from our Marketing department helped set up the Oasis Community Housing: Hope. Not Homelessness Black & Gold Ball. This year, the event raised a huge £44,000 that will help transform communities by creating access to housing. ​🥳

Our Stokesley Branch colleagues helped at the Age UK Teesside Mad Hatters Paw Party, raising funds for the elderly in the Teesside area. ​🌻

Colleagues volunteered at Veterans Launchpad, a charity set up to help transition people who served in the Armed Forces to civilian life. Our volunteers helped tidy up their garden area, one of the residents favourite places – and in preparation for a Royal visit! ​⭐

Alnwick and Wansbeck Food Banks had colleagues volunteer in their warehouses. ​🥕

You can find out about our colleague volunteering and its impact on local communities here: https://bit.ly/3OuMQuy

Last week, we celebrated Mental Health Awareness Week, by moving more for our mental health. ​

Our Health and Wellbeing team organised a jam-packed week of good-for-the-soul activities for our colleagues.

Here's a taste of what we got up to:

- Our yearly – you may have seen some of us at your local Parkrun on Saturday! ​🏃‍♀️
- Yoga taster session in our HQ 🧘‍♀️
- 5-a-side football tournament at Newcastle United Foundation rooftop pitch ​⚽
- Some are even braving the north sea for a sea dip, followed by a beach sauna with our Menopause network... 🥶🏊‍♀️

Despite a national trend of bank branch closures, we're growing our branch network. ​
​
We know how important branches are to our communities, so in 2023 we announced our plans to open our largest community branch yet, in Newcastle city centre. ​
​
Find out more about our commitment to branches in our Community Impact report
➡ https://bit.ly/3JxfLdX

Today, we are sharing details of a meaningful voluntary financial support initiative to help our members affected by the collapse of Philips Trust Corporation.

You can find out more here - https://bit.ly/3JKLzfK

Help and support | Newcastle Building Society Read our help section to find information on a number of key topics, including Power of Attorney, bereavement support, security, fraud and financial abuse.

Our Community Grant nominations are open until the 25th March. ​

Since 2016, we've supported organisations via our Community Fund at the Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland. 480 charities have received grants from us totaling over £1.7m, and now it's time for you to put forward who you think should be a recipient of our 2024 community grant.​

This year, we want to support charities and projects linked to: ​
🍴 Food poverty ​
🍃 Sustainability and the environment ​
💼 Work and opportunity ​
🏠 Insecure housing and homelessness ​
💸 Debt management ​

As a member-owned business, we only accept nominations from members and customers. Find out more and nominate here:

Our Community Grants | Newcastle Building Society Providing grants to local charities and community groups across the North East, Cumbria and North Yorkshire.

We're powering up the next generation. ⚡​

We donated 50 laptops to Newcastle United Foundation, to be used by the young people taking part in the Foundation's employability and skills programme. ​

The laptops will help them:​
💻 Search for jobs ​
📩 Write CVs​
📚 Improve their digital literacy ​

A huge thanks to our Community Development Specialist, Ken, and Colleague Device Technical Lead, Andy, for leading this. 👏​

Read more about it here: https://bit.ly/4c8pIeV