At our last sales conference we held a competition with a social value twist – a fast paced ‘Wheelchairathon’ which saw teams working together to complete a number of challenges, each of which unlocked wheelchair parts, before racing to build their wheelchair in the fastest time.

The event saw 6 teams of 11 presented with 4 challenges. Each team had to participate in four surprisingly gruelling challenges in order to win a ‘piece’ of their wheelchair to construct. The challenges included:

1. A jigsaw with missing pieces – teams had to find their missing pieces within the jigsaw of their opponents, and then negotiate to receive them to complete their jigsaw (this sounds relatively straight forward….but the jigsaws were just 10cm x 15cm!)
2. An escape room puzzle
3. Solving 10 cryptic riddles to spell out a word
4. A spaghetti and marshmallow tower – teams had to build a spaghetti and marshmallow tower which was at least 1.5m high and 50cm wide (this was by far the hardest challenge; despite getting covered in marshmallows no one was able to finish this task! Which meant a time forfeit for all teams.)

Each challenge was timed, and the winning team would have the lowest combined time for completing all challenges…. as the clock ticked away the healthy competition between teams began to show.

Finally, it was congratulations to Kelly Lake’s team who completed their challenges in the shortest overall time and were declared the winners by our Chairman, Colin Mustoe. The wheelchairs were donated alongside a cash donation to our charity partners.

All donations made to St Catherine’s Hospice were made in memory of Alice Pullan, a very dear friend and colleague who sadly passed away in 2021. Alice was a bubbly, wonderful person with a huge heart, and a supporter of St Catherine’s Hospice, which is one of our charity partners for 2023.

Alice’s bubbly personality and her contagious laughter continues to be missed by all who worked with her. The desire to continue supporting charities in her name is a testament to her kind hearted, generous nature.

“The team at St Catherine's would like to say a wholehearted thank you for your generous contribution of £250.00 in memory of your colleague, Alice” 

-  Kelly Thomson, Head of Donation & Supporter Care Team