Staff from a Shropshire accountancy firm are putting their best foot forward to raise vital charity cash.
The team from Dyke Yaxley Chartered Accountants, in Old Potts Way, Shrewsbury, has joined forces with neighbouring firms FlexIT and Kingsland Wealth Management to launch “The Steps Challenge 2017”.
As part of the initiative, teams of four employees will be given a pedometer to calculate their total steps over the course of eight weeks, raising money for the firm’s chosen charities – Midlands Air Ambulance Charity and Shropshire Blood Bikes – at the same time.
Marketing Co-ordinator Jackie Young said: “The average daily recommended step count for people across the UK is 10,000, but for those of us working in an office environment, it’s not uncommon to clock up fewer than 5,000 steps a day.
“Our aim with the Steps Challenge is to give staff some extra motivation to get moving, which will boost their own health and help to raise charity cash as the project progresses too.”
Mrs Young said the teams were selected by pulling names from a hat to keep things fair, and the programme will run until Friday, October 27.
“The team that clocks up the most steps over the eight weeks will receive a prize too, but our main objective is to raise as much money as we can for this year’s chosen charities.”
Each year Dyke Yaxley staff select two local causes and commit to spending the following 12 months raising as much cash as possible for those organisations.
This year they are backing the Midlands Air Ambulance Charity – which funds and operates three air ambulances serving Shropshire, Staffordshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands.
It’s the largest air ambulance operations region in the UK and requires over £7 million a year to keep its three air ambulances operational, all donated by the public and local businesses.
The second charity is Shropshire Blood Bikes – an urgent volunteer service providing transportation of blood products for free to NHS hospitals across Shropshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire.
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