Fundraising for Brain Tumour Research: 6 months in

We chose Brain Tumour Research as our charity of the year for 2024. Brain tumours are an urgently underfunded disease, one which our Business Manager, Hannah Bateman, has experienced personally when her father, Gavin, was diagnosed with a brain tumour in December 2022, sadly passing away in May of 2023. As you can imagine, fundraising for the charity that has helped Hannah and her family endlessly through this ordeal is very close to our hearts.

We’re now six months into 2024, and have already exceeded our goal of raising at least £2,000 for the charity, and we are immensely grateful to everyone who has already donated.

January

In January we announced Brain Tumour Research as our charity of choice for the coming year, working closely with their team to kickstart our fundraising. January can be a tough time for many, following the festivities, so we started the year off with a Penny Drop, asking people for their small change as donations. We did some bucket rattling around our offices at Wizu and Clockwise and raised an admirable amount for the charity.

February

Heading into February, we took on Run 15 in Feb – you could run 15 days out of the month, 15 miles or 15km to raise some money and get ourselves out of the winter slump.

We also took part in the Business Fives five-a-side tournament, and passed the £500 mark for donations! It really felt like our fundraising was gaining some momentum and we were excited to see what the next few months had in store.

March

March was #HatsForHope month. We all donned a hat each day of the month, sharing pictures online with vital facts and statistics about brain tumours to help the charity raise awareness.

We also held a bake sale, with our team cooking up lots of treats for the other folks working in our buildings! We raised £128 in March, bringing our total closer to half of our annual goal at £728.

April

Chloe and Suliman took on a massive challenge in April, on Saturday 27th, cycling from Leeds to Liverpool along the canal, a total of 126 miles covering the whole length of the canal. They were determined to raise a ton of money and tackle this huge challenge head-on; neither of them being cyclists, this was going to be an absolute slog.

They made it through a huge portion of the ride but were beaten by the mud and the sheer physical exertion of it, making it over 80 miles to Chorley with barely any training. They raised an incredible £600 for our total, taking us over the £1000 mark – we were 4 months in and already over halfway to our goal! Chloe and Suli are determined to finish the ride at some point, and this is currently planned for July.

May

May brought with it one of our biggest plans – a team of us were taking on the Yorkshire Three Peaks on 9th May. Hannah, Chloe (yes, the same one who’d cycled 80+ miles a fortnight prior!), Lawrie, Betsy, and Jag, accompanied by Hannah’s partner Ol and her sister Sarah, pitted themselves against the 24-mile round trip, cresting the peaks of Pen-Y-Ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough, totalling 1585m of ascent! Leaving at 7am, the whole route took them over 11 hours, with each peak getting progressively harder. The team dug really deep, supporting each other when they were struggling, with the rest of us cheering them along the way and sharing on social media to help with donations.

And the donations rolled in thick and fast! We smashed our annual target in May, bringing our total to £2420 – the team had raised over £1000 in only five days! We’re really proud of those who took on this challenge, and it absolutely paid off.

June

June ushered in the sunshine, and our Kids Walk for BTR. Our team took their children on a 5k challenge walk around the Newmillerdam Country Park lake, asking for sponsorship from family and friends. They completed their goal, and raised almost £100 more on our total.

We’ve had a fantastic six months so far, raising money for this vital cause. We can’t wait to see what the next six months bring (we've got big plans, you'll just have to wait and see!), and see just how far over our annual target we can get!