Our company's chosen charity for 2016 is the Teenage Cancer Trust, a charity for young people in the UK, providing life-changing care and support so young people don’t have to face cancer alone.

On Saturday 16th of April 2016  our team will be taking on one of the UK's greatest outdoor adventure the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge, the peaks of Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough. We are walking in memory of Stephen an ex colleague who sadly passed away in January 2016 at just 24 years of age. 

Our day will begin 0600 and we hope to complete the 24.5 miles  within 10-12 hours. It will be a tough day, but worth it for that feeling of satisfaction upon completion.' A tough challenge for us is just a walk in the park compared to the challenges some of these young people have to face. Our team consists of 18 people of various ages and fitness levels, we have a few veteran's although somewhat older and dare I say bigger this time :-) but the majority of the team have never completed the challenge before. The team: Ian Partridge, Mike Procter, Matt Williams, Craig Morrison, Kelly Comerford, Sirje Sillama, Phil Stothard, Matty Gough, Ian Vickers, Richard Taylor, Cliff Hodge , Adam chodan, Rik Nadin, Brent Richardson, Tony Metcalf, Mick Preston, Nicky Preston , Beth Crawshaw, Dorota Piotrowicz and last on the list as will probably be on the day, me Jane Cartman. 

Please spare anything you can to show us your support for this great cause. 

About Stephen:
At the end of Jan 2015 Stephen had just nicely passed basic training in the Royal Navy when he was taken into hospital for stomach cramps. Whilst having tests and scans to find the problem it became apparent that there was a lump on his left kidney. Over the next month Stephen had further tests and scans including a biopsy. After a few weeks of waiting for results, Stephen was diagnosed with a rare form of kidney cancer. It was determined that chemotherapy would be the first treatment to try which we started in the Royal Marsden in London due to him being based in Portsmouth.
    However due to the distance from home we were then transfered to the Teenage Cancer Ward at St James Hospital in Leeds for the rest of his treatment.
  After 3 cycles of chemotherapy, Stephen's scan wasn't showing the results the doctors were expecting to see so another biopsy was done. From this the doctors decided the next course of action was tablets, which Stephen started in July.
After 12 weeks (now September), Stephen had another scan to check on progress, at which time the results came back in our favour. However, after a further 8 weeks and Stephen starting to feel unwell, another scan was done which sadly came back negative . From the start of December Stephen was trying different tablets to find the right treatment, but was still getting worse as time went by.
   January 2016 Stephen was taken into hospital feeling very ill. Sadly 4 days later Stephen lost his battle and passed away peacefully in his sleep.
  Throughout Stephens battle, the nurses and staff on the Teenage Cancer Ward were very professional, kind, and supportive. They treat us we great dignity and compassion and always made us welcome. The ward was great, it was almost a homely feeling when were there even though we knew every one that was there were all suffering with Cancer. Without them, Stephen would not have had the fight and positive approach he had to battle his disease.
  The ward is supported by The Teenage Cancer Trust that raise money to make the ward almost home from home for the patients.

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