STAFF at a Kidlington publishers swapped their pens for table tennis bats to ‘Get Batty’ for a school, as part of Oxfordshire Community Foundation’s (OCF) drive to boost volunteering.

OCF launched Get Batty last year to encourage fundraising through the playing of table tennis, and 160 delegates at the Elsevier Global Operations Conference and Elsevier employees last month paid £1 each to take part in a Get Batty table tennis tournament. All money raised went to buy books for Pegasus Primary School’s new reading room.

The room is a purpose-built space at the school in Field Avenue, Blackbird Leys, Oxford, where volunteers help pupils, aged four-11, develop their reading skills and their passion for books.

All Elsevier employees are given two days off a year for voluntary work as part of the company’s ‘caREes’ initiative, and the Get Batty event will be followed by future staff volunteering with groups around Kidlington.

Among staff taking part in the Get Batty tournament was customer services team leader Brenda Kahl. She said: “It was great fun, although I don’t think I will be a table tennis champion anytime soon. It’s great to know we are now helping Pegasus School.”

The tournament was also combined with a Get Batty ‘Bake off’ and cake sale .

The events raised over £1,000 which will now be matched by OCF as part of its Get Batty Spring Match Fund and also by the Elsevier Foundation, bringing the total to £3,000.

Pegasus school manager Jane Caffyn said: “We are thrilled that soon our children will have a fabulous new room dedicated to reading.”