A world-record breaking football match was just one of the many fundraising events participated in by staff from a local newspaper publisher.
Over the past six months staff from Archant have completed skydives, ran marathons and trekked across Dartmoor, raising £13,900 for good causes which was matched by the Archant Gold scheme.
But it was Archant Specialist credit controller Chris Groves who arguably stole the fundraising show with his participation in a 40-hour marathon match, in Felixstowe.
Chris joined players from across East Anglia and further afield in the game to raise money for the ‘Have a Heart’ campaign, run by Ipswich daily the Evening Star, which was striving to have emergency heart attack care based in the Suffolk town.
About £7,000 was generated by the match which finished 339 to 210 – the previous world record stood at just over 36 hours.
Some of the other Archant fundraisers are featured below.
Welwyn and Hatfield Times editor Terry Mitchinson raised £569 for the Rotary Club and the Willow Foundation, which grants wishes to seriously people, by completing a 13-mile sponsored walk in the local countryside.
A number of Archant staff completed the Race for Life in aid of Cancer Research UK including Archant Norfolk sub-editor Gay Webster who raised £93.50, Archant London senior editorial assistant Maxine Leckerman who raised £350 and Archant Suffolk photographer Wendy Turner who ran the first Relay 4 Life in Suffolk, raising £80.
Andy Russell, EDP Saturday Magazine deputy editor, ran his first ever half marathon at the age of 48 when he completed the City of Norwich race to raise £1,434 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association. Andy has lost two friends to the disease and a third has it as well.
Weston Mercury reporter Emma Wright completed a 45-mile walk across Dartmoor in boggy, rainy conditions. She had to build her own shelter and survive on army rations and raised £271 for Secret World Wildlife Rescue.
Archant Herts and Cambs reporter Louise McEvoy ran her first London Marathon in 6hrs 26mins. She was overtaken by a rhino, an apple and a shower curtain but still managed to raise a £1,504 for Children with Leukaemia.
Web designer Catherine Gill, also from Archant Herts and Cambs, ran 5K to raise £215 for an MRI scanner at the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospital, to mark her grandad returning home from hospital.
Newham Recorder editor Colin Grainger raised £291 for the annual Community Links toy appeal, run in association with the Recorder, by completing a 50-length sponsored swim. The appeal gathered 13,500 toys for disadvantaged youngsters last Christmas.
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