b'DT team helps key workers in the Coronavirus fightIn April, during the height of the Coronavirusshields. In the next week a monumental effort was placed by pandemic, a national shortage of PPE wasa small group of staff, working in shifts to run the laser cutter around the clock to cut out parts for the visors. This needed predominant, with a vast number of medicalto be done before the teaching term began again and key workers and care homes unable to purchase orworker children would return to the school alongside running acquire basic Personal Protective Equipment.an online curriculum.With further generous donations, the voluntary group were able to purchase more 3D printers to supplement the Design and Technology Departments existing machinery to continue manufacturing visors through the school term. Alongside this has been help from a number of Old Ellesmerians and particularly OE Robert Oaks owner of DKL rubber who aided in manufacturing components through term time. To date 16,000 Visors have been distributed all over the UK and more recently, abroad to help countries that are still suffering from manufacturing shortages. This monumental effort is testament to the compassionate ethos and collective community spirit that Ellesmere College has installed in all Ellesmerians, past and present.A huge thank you goes to those members of staff who helped In light of this, a small group ofto prepare the components and assemble the visors - of which volunteers working out of thethere are too many to name. Also, a large thank you must be Design and Technology Departmentgiven to the efforts of Pete Evans and Jamie-Lee Warburton for set about building visors. Aftertheir dedication to delivering visors to places in need. And of sourcing scarce materials, a numbercourse, a huge thank you goes to everybody who donated.of staff including Andy Lycett,Pro Patria Dimicansto strive for ones country.Matthew Horton and Ian Williams set about making the first batch ofJonathan HaycockTeacher of Design Technology125 visors by hand. These were donated to Severn Hospice in Shrewsbury and were gratefully received.Following this a JustGiving charity page was formed to fund the manufacture of 1000 visors. The target sum of 550 was set and, through the generosity of staff and friends of the College, within hours the money was raised. With plans to produce more visors for those in need, social media was used to inform institutions in the local area that visors were available. In less than 12 hours the post had been shared 10,000 times and an overwhelming amount of responses followed. With the help of Phil Childs from the school IT department an order system was quickly created. A link was then distributed, and requests arrived in from all over the UK. As more donations flooded our JustGiving page, we were able to purchase more material to produce a further 3000 face The College would like to thank Mr Haycock for all of his time and effort in organising the manufacturing of visors. Jonathan was instrumental in sourcing the designs, material and people required to enable the College to help during the pandemic. He continues to help supplying visors to those organisations in need, in addition to his teaching duties.Ellesmere College Newsletter Michaelmas 202015'