Agrovista UK Limited
Agrovista UK Limited was formed on 1st January 2001 following the merger of the Profarma Ltd and Crop Care Group of companies, to provide specialist agronomy and crop protection products to British agriculture.
Agrovista's roots were firmly established over 60 years ago, yet the company still maintains its traditional values of professionalism, technology, and service. The new business is part of Agrovista BV, a leading European organisation in the field, itself part of the international Marubeni Corporation. This makes Agrovista UK a significant UK supplier of crop protection inputs and advice, with around 20% of the crop protection market.
Agrovista UK is totally committed to providing unrivalled value and innovative solutions for British farmers, both now and in the future. This commitment is focused on customer service, research driven advice and technical innovation. It relies strongly on the dedication, expertise and professionalism of all employees as well as the company's many global and local suppliers. It also embraces care for the wider countryside with an understanding of the politically important environmental role now played by farmers. All of this adds up to a company that 
can genuinely position itself as "the growers choice".
Agrovista have a great admiration for the work that Help for Heroes is involved in and the company and staff are looking forward to raising as much money as possible during 2011, through various fundraising activities and events.
Agrovista's Fundraising Activity
As the first of Agrovista’s monthly fundraising activities throughout the year, a raffle was held on Friday 25th February. Prizes were donated from staff, local businesses and organisations, and included items such as 2 tickets for a t20 Cricket match at Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, an overnight stay in a local Holiday Inn, Marks and Spencer vouchers, champagne, wine and chocolates. The raffle was very well supported by all staff including the field and depot staff up and down the country and the total amount raised was £356.00. Other fundraising activities coming up during the year are dress down days, cake sales and a national cycling event.
The second fundraising activity for Agrovista this year was to take part in the Colossal Cake Sale! Several members of the Head Office volunteered to bake cakes, and the sale was held on Friday 25th March. The event was very well supported with all staff buying cakes to help raise money and we also had support from Enterprise Rent-a-Car who are tenants in our building. The event raised £88.10 and this will be added to our fundraising pot which will be presented to Help for Heroes at the end of the year.
Agrovista held their Charity Cycling Event and Fun Day last week. Kicking off proceedings, six Sherriff Amenity cyclists, Mark Pyrah, Neil Pullen, Rebecca Turner, Tito Arana, John Marland and Richard Wood - with Mark Dunwoody driving the support vehicle left Lymm depot on Wednesday 6th July, starting a four day, 180 mile cycle ride. They stopped along the way at Uttoxeter,Wing, and finally Huntingdon, camping each night in what can be described as 'challenging' weather conditions! The Agrovista Cycling Team, James MacWilliam, Simon Pretty, Hazel Stockdale Wright, Hank King(BASF)and Bill Lankford (Bayer) set off from Lichfield Rugby Club on Thursday evening with Chris Pye from Dow Agrosciences driving the support vehicle, stopping over in Hinckley and then heading down to Huntingdon to join up with the Amenity team.
Both teams ended their cycle ride with a 20 mile journey on Saturday 9th July to St John's College joined by Alex Radu and a third team led by one of our glasshouse specialists Roger Beard and his teammates Franco Pullara, Joe Cuffaro and Robert Morreale who took on 75 miles on the Saturday morning . When the cyclists arrived at the St John's College on Saturday 9th July they were greeted by colleagues, family and friends who had come along to cheer them on and join the Agrovista Company Fun Day. Congratulations to all of the cyclists, the effort and training that has been put in must have been immense and to cope with the weather conditions and camping overnight must have really added to the tiredness! The current totals on both fundraising pages currently stands at £9,291.54 - this is a total of all Agrovista and Sherriff Amenity fundraising to date. http://www.justgiving.com/teams/agrovistah4hcycle2011/
The Fun Day was a great success! There was a bouncy castle for the children, a cake stall which was very well stocked, a drinks bar and a BBQ again provided by our resident company chef Johnny Beck and some helpers! There was even a visit from Hero the Bear who was there to greet the cyclists and meet some of the children.
To finish off the afternoon, Bayer CropScience, Dow Agrosciences and Agrovista provided teams to take part in a 6 a side cricket tournament. The first match took place between Bayer, captained by Tim Short and Dow, captained by Christopher Pye with a close fought contest, Dow reaching a total of 53-2 but with Bayer taking the match 54-0. The second semi-final took place between our two Agrovista sides, Agrovista 2, captained by James MacWilliam reaching a total of 36-5 and with Agrovista 1, captained by Chris Sprigg winning 40-0. So with Bayer and Agrovista 1 in the final Bayer won the toss and decided to bat first reaching a total of 43-1, special mention in this match should go to Chris Sprigg for his excellent bowling in the final over and Glenn Aungles for his energetic wicket keeping! However, the total was unfortunately too much for the Agrovista team to beat with a final tally of 18-3. The Bayer Team were presented with bottles of champagne for their win and in good sportsmanship shared this with the losing Agrovista side. Special thanks to all who came along and played in the match, especially to Bayer and Dow for being such good sports and helping make it such a successful afternoon. 
The Bake Sale Cake Competition was a great contest and it was hard to pick a winner so we had two! Margaret Robertson kindly judged the contest for us. Charles Coslett's daughters Helen and Alice who made a beautiful iced fruit cake with flower decorations and Anna Morreale who made a delicious Baileys Cheesecake (this sold out within minutes!). Both winners received a bottle of champagne. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the bake sale and entered cakes into the contest.
The Raffle was also very popular on the day and with 10 bottles of champagne and 10 boxes of chocolates up for grabs there were many winners from those who attended on the day and also winners from the entries made prior to the fun day. Winners have been contacted. 
Finally, all of the Fun Day donations made before and on the day have been counted and we raised a total of £720.00. Once again, thank you to all who attended, donated and contributed towards the event, it was a great day and hopefully we can do something similar again!
We are delighted that the total raised by staff and customers was a fantastic £12,000. This was the result of a lot of hard work and effort by staff, especially those that put on their lycra, and peddled their way to Cambridge for the fun day.
The cheque was presented by James MacWilliam to Kevin Mitchell of Help for Heroes in Stapleford, supported by colleagues. 
The £12,000 raised was a culmination of all the events that have taken place throughout the company during the year, and all down to the hard work and dedication of Agrovista employees who are very proud of the amount raised