How Care UK Healthcare supports us
We interviewed Alex Tigwell, Senior Recruiter for Care UK Healthcare, about why the health organisation chose to support us and what they’ve been doing to fundraise for the charity.
Q. Why did you choose to support Bowel Cancer UK?
Care UK Healthcare is a huge and diverse organisation with nine hospitals, 53 prison healthcare sites, GP practices, and urgent treatment centres to name but a few! With such a broad spectrum of care, we didn’t want a team or individual to choose our charity partner so we put it to all staff. Bowel Cancer UK were one of five charities that our colleagues could choose from and in the end Bowel Cancer UK won the vote. All the charities were very worthy causes, but this charity resonated with our staff the most.
Q. What fundraising activities have you done? How did they go?
We have done everything from bake sales, Wii Sport competitions, which everyone enjoyed right through to monthly book sales that we will be keeping up from now on. The bake sales are always a great thing to do within our one of our head offices based in Reading as we have a lot of keen bakers of not just sweet treats but also savory, so there is always something for someone to try!
Q. How has everyone at the organisation responded to the fundraising?
Everyone has been really supportive with the fundraising and have been involved in everything from helping set up, raising money, competing for prizes and also suggesting other ways to fundraise. We have a lot of different locations around the country and we have also found that our other sites including Emerson’s Green Treatment Centre, Will Adams Treatment Centre, Shepton Mallet Treatment Centre and our NHS 111 call centres have gone out of their way to raise as much money as they can! At our head office in Reading, we have had a great response from the teams and on one occasion we raised over £230 in a single bake sale! (I told you we all like baking/eating!)
Q. What have been some highlights and challenges? What have you enjoyed about the fundraising?
I really enjoy the buzz I get from coming up with an idea and watching everyone enjoy it on the day! Bowel Cancer UK is a charity very close to my heart and my immediate family so I know where the money is going - to help families and cancer patients that are going through a similar experience to what we had. In terms of challenges, it’s a tough one working within a corporate office because we have to take into account health and safety, people’s working patterns, if they are going to be allowed to come out of their day to day working hours to help or contribute so we tried to make everything super fun for lunchtimes! We also managed to get our higher level management team involved, which I personally always find such a pleasure to work with and show them how much we are raising.
Do you have any suggestions or tips for other organisations who might want to fundraise for Bowel Cancer UK?
Think outside the box but don’t make it too complicated! Things like the Wii competition was great because people could come and take part and challenge themselves against their colleagues. We are also about to launch a wellness week at the end of August to promote healthy living, meditation and good practice around how to spot the symptoms of bowel cancer. We have arranged lunch time yoga sessions, pure fresh fruit smoothies, craft days to ease the mind and recipes to promote healthy choices. Another great thing to do are sweepstakes on topics such as sporting events and TV programmes. Make it enjoyable for all ages and of course, at the heart of it, ensure we are promoting the signs to check for.
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