Same Craft, Different Canvas: Inside Array UK’s Volunteering Day at Leicester Outdoor Pursuits Centre
At Array, responsibility is not a side project – it is woven into how we operate across every market we serve. From the materials we specify to the communities we work within, we believe a global business carries a local obligation: to leave the places it touches better than it found them.
Giving back is part of how we understand that obligation. Across our markets, supporting the communities around us sits alongside the way we look after our people and our environment – not a program bolted onto the business, but an extension of it. And for a company that works at a global scale, the proof of that commitment is always local: it shows up in a particular place, on a particular day, through the people who choose to be there. Recently, colleagues from across Array’s UK team did exactly that, coming together at Leicester Outdoor Pursuits Centre.
A Centre at the Heart of Its Community
Leicester Outdoor Pursuits Centre (LOPC) gives children, young people, families and visitors the chance to learn, play and grow outdoors – from woodland learning to archery, climbing and watersports. For many of the young people who pass through its gates, it is where confidence is built and first adventures happen. Keeping a site like this thriving takes constant care, and the people who give their time to clear, plant and maintain spaces like these do genuinely valuable work.
Array wanted to add something of its own to that effort. Working closely with the LOPC team, our colleagues set out to help deliver improvements the Centre had long hoped to make – bringing not only energy, but the skills our people use in their day jobs. As LOPC’s employee Chris put it, the team arrived “not just with enthusiasm, but with ideas – real, practical, creative ideas.”
A Familiar Discipline
The approach felt familiar, because in many ways it mirrored how Array works every day. Our teams spend their working lives turning briefs into retail environments – moving from insight and concept through design drawings and material sourcing to precise, on-site builds that bring a brand’s space to life. Designing and installing point-of-sale displays and in-store experiences calls for exactly the disciplines this day would demand: planning well ahead, solving problems before they appear, and delivering a flawless build without disrupting a space that has to keep running.
So the team treated the day as a design brief, not a favor. Weeks before anyone set foot on site, colleagues were developing concepts, producing drawings and coordinating materials – sharing visuals so the Centre could picture the finished result in advance. By the morning itself, timber deliveries were stacked and ready, and the teams arrived prepared and self-sufficient. Much as a well-run retail installation keeps a store trading, that planning meant LOPC could carry on operating as normal, with barely any disruption to its day.
What the Team Achieved
Working across the site, Array volunteers:
• Built woodland seating for a new outdoor education area, along with a dedicated wood store
• Designed and constructed four mud kitchens from scratch, fully equipped for outdoor play
• Cleared a large area of scrubland to give newly planted trees room to thrive
• Painted vibrant murals across the outdoor archery shelter
• Designed and built four sensory walls to begin a brand-new sensory trail
• Weeded, resurfaced and re-bordered the play equipment areas
The pace told its own story. Within the first hour alone, the gardening team completed what the Centre’s own staff said would normally take a full day, and the detail in the artwork, seating and activity stations went well beyond what anyone had expected. For Chris and Hayley at LOPC, the outcome was straightforward: the team’s contribution, they said, “has made a real difference” – not just a day of time given, but improvements their children, young people and families will enjoy long after the day itself.
One Team, Lasting Impact
A day of this scale was possible because others gave alongside us – and we are grateful to the suppliers whose generous donations helped bring these projects to life: LDA, Solstar, Dale Studios, Logix Instore, Dezign Lite, Melita Group, EBI, POS Instore and Worldwide Express. Impact grows when partners pull in the same direction, and the result is what giving back looks like for a global company: not a gesture, but something made to last. The same care our teams bring to the spaces where people shop, they brought to a place where children learn, play and explore – and long after the timber was cleared away, those improvements will keep working for Leicester Outdoor Pursuits Centre and the community it serves.
