Spire to Spire Charity Cycle Challenge 2019

Spire Healthcare will be hosting its first ever company-wide fundraising challenge

Across our network of 39 hospitals and each of our support sites, Spire colleagues will be getting involved in a range of activities - including cycling - as we aim to raise as much money as possible.

The headline event of the week is the Spire to Spire cycle challenge. A team of colleagues including our CEO Justin Ash and CFO Jitesh Sodha will cycle a massive 333km from our Dorset Rise office in London to Spire Bristol hospital. The team will be in the saddle for over 15 hours and along the way they will stop off at St Anthony’s, Gatwick Park, Portsmouth and Southampton hospitals.

They will be accompanied by Mark Beaumont, the record-breaking long-distance British cyclist, adventurer, broadcaster, documentary maker and author who holds the record for cycling round the world in just 79 days!

As well as the team cycle, Spire staff from all over the UK will be walking and running to clock up those all-important kms, as each site is challenged to cover 1,000km. By the end of week we are hoping to have collectively raised £40,000 and covered 40,000km - the equivalent of one lap around the world!

At Spire Nottingham, we will be having a FUNdraising Friday where staff will have the option to come to work in their gym kit ready to hop on to our static exercise bike and help clock up the kilometres, there will be a gaming challenge and all proceeds from the café will be donated. There will also be a raffle with some great prizes to try and raise as much money as possible.

Half of the money raised will be donated to Spire Healthcare’s national charity *THET, a small international charity who work tirelessly to give developing countries access to affordable and quality healthcare. The other half donated to a local cause chosen by each hospital. Our chosen charity is Healing Little Hearts a UK based registered children’s charity that provides heart surgery in the developing parts of the world. Their primary aim is to ensure all children are given the opportunity to live the life they deserve.

We will be posting regular updates about our fundraising activities on our Facebook page.

*THET works to create a world where everyone, everywhere, has access to healthcare, and they achieve this by training and educating health workers in low and middle-income countries, in partnership with volunteers from across the UK health community. To give you an idea of how far the money we raise money can go, just £150 could fund a day of sexual and reproductive health training for rural health workers and teachers in South West Uganda, empowering communities and especially young people, with vital family planning guidance. £2,000 could fund 30 days of stroke diagnosis, treatment and care training to nurses and physiotherapists in Ethiopia, helping to reduce the morbidity and mortality of stroke, particularly in remote areas.