HERITAGE - LIBRARY MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Each Christmas IS Oxford donates to charity through the Good Gifts scheme, giving each member of staff £200 to spend on whatever gifts they choose.

Each year the company also sponsors an Indian Village Library. This will be our eighth year of supporting Good Gifts, and they keep us informed during the year of sites previously sponsored, together with photos and feedback from the groups that run them, which is very heartwarming.

Good gifts for children are always popular. This year our staff have chosen to provide one travelling library for African schools (plus a book grant), provide schooling for 10 African children for a year, support 11 Afghan girls, nurture 5 abandoned children for a year, transform the lives of 7 street children, undertake 6 cleft lip and palate operations, provide 6 maternity kits, provide 30 school dinners for African schoolchildren, provide 2 years of song for British schoolchildren, 2 pairs of shoes for Afghan children and 1 toy for a child at Christmas who would otherwise receive nothing.

The elderly also benefit from the gifts chosen. We have provided 5 hospital kits, 5 hot lunches, 3 Christmas hampers, 2 cats and 1 dog for comfort for an elderly person.

The gifts aren't limited to the old and young. We have provided the gift of sight for 19 people, 2 deep and 4 treadle pumps for African villages, a tailoring business, 1 chicken bank for a family, 2 orphan's dowries, provided training for an apprentice, equipped an African builder, supplied 'magic' beans to provide food for six families, provided fresh roots for 2 homeless people, sponsored a work camp, provided a hive of bees for a family, provided medicine to save two lives and enough to save a life every day for a week.

Doing our bit to help the environment, we have provided 4 meadows of flowers, 4 bluebell woods, planted 50m2 of UK woodland, 7 cherry trees for Japan, 1 spring flowering cherry, preserved 1 acre of rainforest, fixed 2 square metres of path on the Fells, planted 10 metres of hedgerow and 1 oak sapling for UK woodland.

Animals aren't left out. We have provided retirement for two dogs and two month's fruit for a monkey troupe!

Finally, we have also cleared 60m2 of minefield, collected and destroyed a weapon, provided 2 solar lamps for African villagers and sponsored a brain cell.

All in all, we've donated over £5,600 worth of gifts, and this is in addition to the money raised by our Advent Calendar! For more details of the gifts we have given please visit Goodgifts.org.