31 Days Done: 310 Kilometres Walked and £17,000 Raised

31 Days Done: 310 Kilometres Walked and £17,000 Raised

Step Up For Oracle has finished! Mark walked his final 10 kilometres around Temple Newsam Park on 31 August, taking the month’s total to 310 kilometres, and the campaign has closed on £17,000 raised for Oracle Head and Neck Cancer UK.

When the first walk set off on 1 August, the target was £10,000. That was passed well before the end of the month, the stretch target was moved up to £15,000 and then to £16,000, and both of those have now been cleared as well. The JustGiving page shows 220 generous donations, with a further £2,942 in Gift Aid still to be added on top of the headline figure.

None of that happens without a lot of people deciding to do something. Clients, colleagues, friends, family, sponsors and plenty of people Mark has never met have all contributed. Thank you, genuinely.

The final six walks

The last stretch of the month took in Wensleydale; Spofforth, Wetherby and Linton; Thorpe Park; Aberford; Woodsford and St Aidan’s Park; and, on Day 31, a closing loop of Temple Newsam Park. Across the full 31 days the routes ran through Leeds, Wetherby, Harewood, Wensleydale, Hebden Bridge and London, and every single day came in at 10 kilometres or more.

As with the rest of August, Mark was rarely walking alone. Tremark colleagues, clients, friends and family joined for full routes and shorter sections right up to the last day, and more than one sponsor turned up to walk as well as donate. The company made the early starts easier and the final week, with tired legs and the end in sight, a good deal more enjoyable than it might otherwise have been.

Why Mark did it

The reason behind the campaign has been the same from the start. In the summer of 2023, Mark was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer affecting his throat, tongue and a nearby lymph node. An intensive course of chemotherapy and radiotherapy followed, under the care of Dr Mehmet Sen, whose expertise and support Mark credits with getting him through it.

Dr Sen has since retired from the NHS and now gives much of his time as a trustee of Oracle Head and Neck Cancer UK, which is what made this the right charity for Mark. In his own words: “I know first hand how much specialist care, support and awareness matter, and how frightening and isolating this diagnosis can be. Walking 10 kilometres a day for a month felt like the least I could do.”

Julie Child, Executive Director of Oracle Head and Neck Cancer UK, said the achievement was “truly extraordinary” three years on from stage 4 treatment, and that the connection to Dr Sen made it “even more special”. The charity’s thanks went to Mark and to everyone who walked with him for raising funds and awareness of a disease that remains far too under-recognised.

What the money goes towards

Oracle Head and Neck Cancer UK supports patients and their families through peer support, webinars and bereavement services, campaigns for earlier diagnosis and better HPV vaccination uptake, and funds research into better treatments and outcomes.

The scale of the problem is why that work matters. Around 17,000 people are diagnosed with head and neck cancer in the UK each year. It is now the fourth most common cancer in men, case numbers are rising by around 30% every decade, and only a third of cases are diagnosed early. Money helps, but so does simply putting head and neck cancer in front of people who had never given it much thought, and Step Up For Oracle has done a fair amount of that over the past month.

Thank you to our sponsors

Seventeen businesses formally backed the campaign, and their support made up a significant part of the final total. Our sincere thanks go to:

• Shadowfax Funding Solutions
• Baytree Interiors
• FRP Advisory
• Clarion Solicitors
• Reward Funding
• CWN Group
• Nurture CRM
• Wilson & Roe
• McCarthy’s Storage World
• TIB Group
• J9 Special Situations
• Addlestone Keane
• TFG Capital
• Fresh Thinking Capital
• Hilco Global
• Sydo IT Services
• Excello Law

The same thanks go to every individual who donated, shared the campaign, joined a walk or checked in on how Mark’s feet were holding up. The final figure is the sum of a lot of people doing something, however large or small.

One last thing

The JustGiving page is still accepting donations for anyone who meant to give and did not get round to it, and the full set of routes remains on the campaign page.

Oracle’s awareness work centres on a simple two minute #HeadNeckCheck: hoarseness, earache, a lump, pain, a mouth ulcer or difficulty swallowing. Anything unusual that has not cleared up after three weeks should be checked by a GP or dentist. It is a small thing to do, and earlier diagnosis makes a real difference to outcomes.

Step Up For Oracle forms part of Tremark’s wider community involvement work.