Six colleagues at the Trust which runs Shropshire’s two acute hospitals are proving the sky’s no limit to their fundraising exploits, by taking part in a charity skydive.
The brave volunteers – all members of the Resources Directorate at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) – will carry out the daredevil stunt to raise money to purchase a Prostate Biopsy Machine for the Trust to help combat Prostate Cancer.
They will carry out the skydive at Tilstock Airfield near Whitchurch at the beginning of April.
The team is made up of Lindsay Roberts, Martin Hall, Michael Darbhanga and Liam O’Neill from the Finance team; Paul Corbett from Facilities and Derek Bolton from Estates.
Members of the Resources Directorate agreed last year to undertake a series of fundraising events as part of the SaTH’s “Our Commitments” campaign.
The Trust launched “Our Commitments” to give staff the chance to share ideas about improvements the Trust could make to benefit everyone.
The Resources Directorate committed to carry out more fundraising and community work in order to both showcase the work that the Directorate does, and to help staff in the various departments feel more connected to patient care.
Derek Bolton, Head of Capital Projects at SaTH, said: “We’ve talked about all sorts of fundraising ideas, and when the idea of a skydive came up, a number of us jumped at the chance.
“Only one of the team – Paul – has jumped before and a lot of us have it on our ‘bucket lists’, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to fulfil a dream and raise money for a very good cause at the same time.
“Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer in men, but it is an area that often gets overlooked, which is why we decided to raise money for the department.”
Members of the team are also planning to hold a fundraising night in Shrewsbury ahead of the jump. Details are still being finalised.
Derek said: “We are all really looking forward to doing the jump. It should be an incredible experience and hopefully we can raise a lot of money in the process.”
You can sponsor the team by visiting their JustGiving website at www.justgiving.com/skydivesath