Northumbrian Water Group Step up for 30 to raise awareness

Jane Dunn, Internal Communications Consultant at Northumbrian Water Group explains how colleagues joined our fundraising campaign Step up for 30 in 2021.

Claire Sharp, our Customer Director at Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) was diagnosed with bowel cancer in October 2019. She thankfully beat the disease and came back to the business the following year. Claire got her latest super important, all clear scan on New Year's Eve 2021. Claire now helps raise awareness of the importance of getting checked early to all our colleagues.

Last year over 75 of our people joined the Step up for 30 challenge in support of Claire's story and to raise awareness and vital funds for the charity.

Our team took part in a huge variety of activities from kitchen dancing, walking, hula hooping, wild swimming, sprinting, running, cycling, athletics coaching, HIIT, fell walking, tree felling, dog walking and tennis, to name a few.

We set ourselves a target of £1,000 but together we raised over £3,000 throughout the month.

This year we'd like to take on the challenge again to raise awareness and funds for Bowel Cancer UK. We are hoping to plan some face to face events this time around as we were still in lockdown on the last challenge. Keep up to date with our progress on social media @NorthumbrianH2O and @eswater_care.

Our advice to anyone taking part? Do whatever you enjoy, that's why we all enjoyed it so much and kept each other going in a WhatsApp group.

I'm delighted we're taking part in the Bowel Cancer UK Step up for 30 challenge once again. It's a cause that's incredibly close to my heart, and I know has also affected colleagues, their families and friends. Knowing the signs of bowel cancer really does save lives so the more we can do to raise awareness and funds the better.