Staff at a leading regional newspaper group have shown they have a big heart when it comes to giving.

Archant employees have been swimming, running, walking, bowling and skydiving to raise close on £11,000 for charitable causes.

Now that amount – raised by 27 members from the editorial, advertising, digital and finance departments for 21 good causes –  has been doubled thanks to a matched funding scheme by the company’s Archant Gold committee.

Fund-raising efforts undertaken by staff of the Norwich-based publisher include the following:

The Herald Sharks – Stephen Sumner and Sean Keywood from Archant South West – competed in the Rotary Club of Sidmouth’s annual swimathon and raised £180 in aid of the Sidmouth Victoria Hospital Comforts Fund.

Archant Suffolk’s Ipswich Star and EADT health correspondent Lauren Everitt, ran the London Marathon on April 13 which was also her birthday. She raised £1,352 for the St Elizabeth Hospice in Ipswich which as a reporter she regularly writes about.

Oliver Pritchard, trainee reporter, together with five other Archant Herts & Cambs employees from The Comet – news editor Nick Gill; reporters Martin Dunne and James Scott; photographer Harry Hubbard and former editor Darren Isted – ran in the Knebworth 10k race which was sponsored by the paper. Together they raised £150 for the British Heart Foundation.

Daredevil Barking & Dagenham Post duo from Archant London, news editor Ramzy Alwakeel and reporter Molly Kersey, threw themselves out of a moving aircraft at 12,000ft to raise cash for the Post’s 30for30 appeal in aid of Saint Francis Hospice (pictured below.0 Ramzy raised £554 and Molly raised £420.

Claire Jennings, from the Archant Suffolk picture desk, took part in the 13-mile Midnight Walk/Run dressed as a cowgirl to raise money for St Elizabeth Hospice in memory of her friend’s husband Andy Wise and for the amazing help and support the Hospice gave her friend and her family. Claire also organised a cake sale and raised a total of £263 for the Hospice.

Terry Mitchinson, Welwyn Hatfield Times editor from Archant Herts & Cambs, raised £207 for Hertfordshire Action on Disability by participating in the annual Rotary Club sponsored walk which is sponsored by the WHT.

Archant Norfolk’s Eastern Daily Press assistant editor David Powles ran the London Marathon in four hours 25 minutes to raise a total of £2,368 for Ormiston Families vulnerable children’s charity.

David Harrison from Archant Finance, raised £400 for Big C by taking part in Diss and District Bowls Club’s 24-hour charity bowling marathon while Archant Dialogue ad sales executive Eleanor Watson raised £865 after running the London Marathon for Association for International Cancer Research having watched one of her best friends endure months of chemotherapy following diagnosis with testicular cancer.

Archant digital operations executive Adam Cole and senior marketing executive Sadie Jennings, based in Norwich, lived below the poverty line by limiting themselves to spending just £1 a day for food and drink for one month. They kept an online blog during the event that they updated daily and raised a total of £716 for Able Child Africa.

Claire Broadmore from the Archant Life advertising team inBirmingham, raised £510 by doing a sponsored slim and losing two stone over a three-month period for the Kelli Smith Appeal. Kelli is a five-year old girl battling neuroblastoma and her family and supporters are trying to raise £500,000 for potentially life-saving treatment abroad.