A half marathon is no mean feat, but for a group of determined Helping Hand supporters, this year’s Manchester Half on October 14, was a chance to raise some money in honour of a much-loved friend and colleague, who passed away this year.
 
The group of 46 aspiring runners from Helping Hand and Revolution Running club pounded the streets to prepare for the 13.1 mile half marathon, between them clocking up a huge 607 miles. This combined effort saw £3,500 raised to support the family of friend and colleague Chris Whittle, who sadly lost his battle with cancer earlier this year.
 
In the month Chris would have turned 40, the Revolution Running and Helping Hand fundraisers look back on the race.
 
Leyland Trucks’ Karen Sussams had no running experience  before she took up the challenge,  with just 3 months to train, but found the support from her Revolution Running club buddy Danny a huge help to cross the finish line.  Karen said:  “I’ve never even run 1 mile let alone 13.1 miles and, I didn’t believe that there was any way I could do it, but here I am, my first half marathon completed, I didn’t break any land speed record, but I crossed the finish line with a smile on my face.

“What we all achieved is monumental, whether you were an experienced runner or new to the sport, it’s fantastic what we all did and I’m so proud to be able to say that I was part of this team."
 
Julie-Ann Caton, from Revolution Running, who also ran for Helping Hand, and said:  “What kept me going on the rainy nights and windy mornings was the reason why we were doing it – because we are lucky enough to be alive and be able push ourselves for the good of others.
“I was so proud to be part of the team and see how far everyone had come, especially those that were non-runners at the start, they soon got the bug and performed brilliantly on the day.”
 
Cassim Tilly from the Leyland Trucks Finance Team also took part in the race, despite having suffered arthritis in the past.  Cassim said,  “Looking around a magnificent sea of runners all heading in the same direction was the best feeling ever.
“It is hard to comprehend that I finished my first half marathon. I was nowhere near what you would call fast, but I feel like such a winner. Thanks to the encouragement from Helping Hands and the worthy cause for which we all raised money.”
 
Alison Evans, coach at Revolution Running was part of the team that helped the runners train, and completed the run herself. She said, “From the moment I was asked to support some training sessions for MCR half marathon for Chris Whittle myself and Revolution Running jumped right on board.
 
“Athletes from the group and Leyland Trucks became great running buddies, offering support and encouragement to each other from day one. Every one of our hard working committed athletes who stepped over the start line skipped over the finish line. Our families all spurring us on, our running buddies shouting words of encouragement throughout the course but mostly we skipped with tippy toes and elbows for the man in all our thoughts Chris Whittle. "
 
Helping Hand’s Sarah Schofield was another runner to take up the challenge, and said despite the rain on the day, spirits were not dampened. “It was wet, eventful, wonderful and really enjoyable to be a part of the whole experience, in the knowledge that we all completed it in the memory of Chris Whittle.” Sarah said.
She adds, “Thanks to everyone who took part in this fundraising challenge, we have one final thank you to make and then we will publish the total amount we raised and when we will be making the donation.”
 

A team of intrepid cyclists have raised over £10,000 in an epic 105 mile ride across Lancashire – all to raise money for local charities.
 
One of the team, elite cyclist and former British Hill-climb champion Jim Henderson, gave himself an even bigger challenge, completing the course twice and covering over 200 miles.  To make things even harder, he did it all on a fixed-wheel bike, with no gears.
 

The cyclists -  all colleagues at Leyland Trucks and Lancashire DAF – completed the cycling extravaganza in a bid to raise cash for Leyland Trucks’ Helping Hand charity, which supports good causes in the region.
 
The Factory to Forecourt event saw the team cycle 105 miles, from the Leyland Trucks facility in Leyland early in the morning of Saturday 14th July, to the Lancashire DAF dealership in Preston, where they were welcomed home with a family festival later that day.
The route took the team and their two-vehicle support crew on a huge circle of North Lancashire, from Leyland to Preston, east to Settle, across to Lancaster and back to Preston, with just three rest stops. 
 
The 18-strong cycling team were inspired to take up the cross-county challenge by the work of Helping Hand, the Leyland Trucks employee charity, which will donate all money raised to the Rosemere Cancer Foundation, Cancer Help (Preston) Ltd and The Christie Charity.
 
The riders themselves ranged in ability and role, with three members of the senior management team taking part along with Lancashire DAF MD Paul Entwistle.  The team split into groups, and made sure even those who were not finding it easy, kept going.
 
Peter Jukes, Leyland Trucks Operations Director said: “It was certainly a tough challenge, but we really wanted to do something meaningful and ride as a team. The charities we chose to support were brought into sharp focus recently when we sadly lost Chris Whittle, one of our own employees to cancer just a few weeks ago, this spurred us on to raise as much as we could. The ride was not about getting a fast time, but about working together as a team as we do at work and helping each other complete the ride, which I am proud to say we did.”

Helping Hand Chairman Matt Kersey, and support crew for the day said, “Last year Helping Hand raised a staggering £50,000 for charity, which is amazing. This year, we want to raise even more, and this event is one of the major fundraisers in our plan.  We are so proud of the team for raising such a huge amount for some really good causes.”
 
He added, “The three cancer charities we have chosen all do so much for our community, and with a large workforce, sadly many lives of our employees have been effected by the disease, and many helped by these amazing charities. This is our way of giving something back.”
 
The group were met at Lancashire DAF by the Mayor of South Ribble, Councillor John Rainsbury and a true British summer party.  Cllr Rainsbury said, “Congratulations to all the riders for their efforts, it’s a wonderful thing the Helping Hand charity does and it’s been a pleasure and an honour to be a part of this event today.”
 
Helping Hand presented the three chosen cancer charities with donations as the riders arrived.  Speaking at the event, Cathy Skidmore, Corporate Fundraising Manager at Rosemere Cancer Foundation said, “What a terrific challenge and congratulations to all those who took part on their fantastic achievement.  We are so grateful to the team for their fundraising efforts. The money raised will be used towards the creation of a completely remodelled cancer ward at Royal Preston Hospital with state of the art facilities for patients and their relatives, to create a ward with modern and flexible spaces, particularly of benefit to those travelling long distances to visit loved ones, offering more privacy and dignity to patients and more age appropriate areas and facilities for teenagers and young adults.  Thank you to the staff of Leyland Trucks for all their support!””
 
Jeanette Smalley, General Manager at Cancer Help (Preston) commented: “The Helping Hand Charity has done great things supporting local charities over the years and we are delighted that they have thought about supporting Cancer Help again. All the hard work and dedicated training has paid off and we’re grateful to everyone for taking on such a long ride through at times a challenging landscape.”
 
The Helping Hand team worked with business partners to sponsor items such as team shirts, and the food and drink at the party, with companies including Atlas Copco, Handley James Consulting, Lancashire DAF, Specsavers, Goodyear, PPS Commercials Limited, Slater Safety, TCC Life, Fylde Executive Cars, Actemium, Made Profiles, and KP Industries all signing up to help raise money.

A team of intrepid cyclists are making final preparations ahead of a 105 mile ride across Lancashire – all to raise money for local charities.
 
The team of cyclists – all colleagues at Leyland Trucks and Lancashire DAF – are taking part in the cycling extravaganza in a bid to raise £10,000 for Leyland Trucks’ Helping Hand charity, which supports good causes in the region.
 
The Factory to Forecourt event will start at the Leyland Trucks facility in Leyland early in the morning on Saturday 14th July, then, a mere 105 miles later, the team will be welcomed home from their epic journey at the Lancashire DAF dealership, in Preston.
 
The route will take the team and their two-vehicle support crew in a huge circle of North Lancashire, from Leyland to Preston, east to Settle, across to Lancaster and back to Preston, where the mayor of South Ribble, Councillor John Rainsbury will greet them.
 
The 17-strong cycling team are all amateurs inspired to take up the cross-county challenge by the work of Helping Hand, the Leyland Trucks employee charity, which will donate all money raised to the Rosemere Cancer Centre, Cancer Help Preston and The Christie Cancer Centre.
 
The riders themselves range in ability and role, and include Jim Henderson, former British hill-climb champion and three members of the senior management team taking part, including Operations Director at Leyland Trucks, Peter Jukes, and Lancashire DAF MD Paul Entwistle.
 
While many of the Leyland Trucks team have taken on smaller cycle challenges before – last year riding coast to coast 84-miles from Bowness in Cumbria, to Wall’s End, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, this is the furthest challenge yet, and the first in partnership with Lancashire DAF, who will send a DAF demonstration truck to see them home along the final mile.
 
Peter Jukes, Operations Director at Leyland Trucks, said he was cautiously optimistic about the event: “We are obviously all getting nervous, but we have certainly all put the training hours in, and can’t wait to get going.”
 
Paul Entwistle, MD of Lancashire DAF said: “We are happy to be supporting Leyland Trucks Helping Hand charity and the good work they do in the local community”.
 
The ride is being encouraged as part of the company’s Leyland Life Healthy Workforce programme, staff have been encouraged to take on a physical challenge, to kick start a healthy lifestyle while raising money for good causes.
 
The team has worked with business partners to sponsor their team shirts, or sponsor the food and drink at the finish, with companies including Atlas Copco, Handley James Consulting and Lancashire DAF, Specsavers, Goodyear, PPS Commercials Limited, Slater Safety, TCC Life, Fylde Executive Cars, Actemium, Made Profiles, KP Industries & TCI all signing up to help raise money.
 
Helping Hand chairman Matt Kersey, and support crew for the day, “Last year Helping Hand raised a staggering £50,000 for charity, which is amazing. This year, we want to raise even more, and this event is one of the major fundraisers in our plan. 
 
He added, “The three cancer charities we have chosen all do so much for our community, and with a large workforce, sadly many lives of our employees have been effected by the disease, and many helped by these amazing charities. This is our way of giving something back.”
 

Helping Hand, the not for profit organisation run by a dedicated committee of Leyland Trucks and PACCAR Parts employees is excited to announce their most successful year of fundraising since the programme was started in 1994, raising an outstanding £50,000 in 2017.
 
Monies raised by the charity are distributed to a variety of causes throughout the year, all of which have some personal meaning for the Leyland-based workforce.  In 2017 Helping Hand donated to charities such as the Rosemere Cancer foundation, St Catherine’s Hospice, Derian House Children’s Hospice, North West Air Ambulance and 26 other causes including the support of a guide dog training programme.
 
2017 also saw the Helping Hand team encourage the workforce to prove that fitness really does pay – by raising money for charity in a series of endurance challenges. The initiative formed part of the company’s Leyland Life Healthy Workforce programme, encouraging staff to take on a physical challenge and kick start a healthy lifestyle, all while raising money for good causes.
 
One such challenge saw a team of intrepid cyclists from Leyland Trucks complete the Coast to Coast cycle ride – an 84-mile trek from Bowness in Cumbria, to Wall’s End, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The 11-strong team took eight hours to finish the route and raised £5,000. Elsewhere, fellow Leyland Trucks employee Martyn Thomas completed the London marathon, with Tom Sherliker taking on the Manchester half.
 
As is traditional, 2018 activity begins with the annual Helping Hand charity ball, now in its 15th year.  The ball, which this year took place at Park Hall in Chorley, was attended by around 230 people, including long-term company suppliers, staff and senior management. 
 
In addition to dinner, dancing and entertainment from local group, the Simon Faulkener Band, guests were encouraged to buy raffle tickets and bid for auction prizes such as golf days, theatre tickets and hotel breaks on the night. 
 
Speaking of the event, new Helping Hand chairman Matt Kersey said: “As always we’re incredibly grateful to everyone who makes the charity ball possible, our tireless organisers, suppliers, staff and all who donates prizes.  We’re hoping that the great success of this event will mark another fantastic year for Helping Hand.  It’s such a great programme, not only in its ability to raise money for worthwhile causes, but also in bringing together the local community to support those in need.”

On November 16th, Leyland Trucks Charity, Helping Hand, attended a “Supporter Celebration” at North West Air Ambulance for their long standing support.

The North West Air Ambulance charity is a helicopter emergency medical service, which rapidly deploys life-saving emergency treatment to the scene of incidents throughout the entire North West region seven days a week, 365 days a year. This life saving service covers 5,500 square miles and a residential population of almost eight million people.

A small token given to supporters as recognition.

On Saturday 17th June, in the blazing 30°C heat – the hottest day of the year so far – eleven of Leyland Trucks’ employee’s, along with a much appreciated support team, set off on the 2017 Coast to Coast cycling challenge from Cumbria’s Bowness to Walls End, Newcastle on Tyne – all in aid of Helping Hand.

The course was a gruelling distance of 83 miles long and the team had set themselves the target of achieving this in a maximum of 8 hours.

Throughout the west-to-east journey, the sun shone down on the cyclist’s right-hand side, catching out a minority who didn’t apply their SPF 50 lotion adequately! After the gentle roll through the flat lands of Carlisle, the picturesque sights of Hadrian ’s Wall and the rolling hills through Northumberland’s National Park spirits were lifted in amongst a couple of never-ending 15% gradient climbs half way into the ride. The green surroundings of the countryside quickly turned into the hustle and bustle of a major city centre (Newcastle on a Saturday afternoon) at about 65 miles into the trek which meant that cars, pedestrians (some of them after a few bottles of Brown Ale) and famous bridges over the Tyne (without fog) became the hazards. In the last few miles, the sound of seagulls was welcomed as the second coast of the day came into view.

There were no major incidents (if you don’t include the sunburn) or any notable mechanical failures which is a credit to everyone’s preparation for the event.

Most of the guys clocked around the 6 hour mark - all started together and all finished together.

A well-deserved glass of bubbly at the finish line topped off a fantastic day of cycling.

This year’s theme took place around the Mad Hatters Tea Party.  Crazy, wacky and fun decorations formed an array of miss-matching colours splashed around the room, to add to what was going to be the start of a fantastic fund raising night for Helping Hand Charity.

As the guests entered the crazy world of Mad Hatter, a welcoming glass of prosecco tantalised their taste buds ready for the night’s event.  Also, included this year on each supplier tables were an extra little treat of ‘Eat Me’ sweetie delights and a ‘Drink Me’ bottle of fizz to show off the theme to its full potential.

To kick start the evening ‘Neale Handley’ (Chairman of the Helping Hand) welcomed some familiar and new faces.  Neale spoke about some of the great achievements Helping Hand have done over the past year and how this evening (every year) helps raise considerable amounts for the Charity.

With so much to do in such a short space of time the meal commenced. Promptly afterwards the fun and games started with two games in particular ‘Reverse Bingo' and 'Heads & Tails‘ which are always a favourite at the Charity Dinner and it just wouldn’t be the same without them, this year’s lucky winners both bagged themselves an iPad Mini each… without a doubt two fun games to get everyone in the swing of things.

Now for the serious stuff... the Auction! This has to be our main fundraiser of the night which was energetically orchestrated by Peter Jukes, with a new ‘roving reporter’ type approach. A head to head battle of who can win the final bid of some excellent items – BTCC, Little Mix tickets, Cookery Course at Northcote and a signed Liverpool shirt to name a few.  All the items were kindly donated by our table hosts; and their generosity each year is phenomenal.  

Running along smoothly in the background we held a Silent Auction, a few of the items donated were Supercar Driving blast experience, round of golf for four and a signed Steven Gerrard picture.

Our final fundraiser of the night was the raffle, a selection of interesting prizes were won from a notepad and pen to a 45`` TV and not forgetting the prize which a few of the Helping Hand committee members wanted to win… the cuddly toy!

With the fun and games coming to a close and everyone raring for a dance or keen to queue for a pose or two on the always popular photo booth. Neale Handley closed the evening with a special thanks to suppliers, guests, committee members, Park Hall Staff and introduced the entertainment for the evening ‘The Cave’ a Mumford & Sons-styled Classics Band. Before we knew it, the dance floor was roaring with a lot of dance enthusiasts (you know who you are), which carried on until the early hours.

A truly marvellous evening... but one thing we will never forget is the purpose of the evening - our main goal - to raise as much money as possible for worthy causes!

Towards the end of 2016, Helping Hand decided to help the Guide Dogs Association by naming a guide dog puppy and helping this puppy through the first stages of its all-important training. The winning name - Comet - was decided upon by Leyland Trucks’ employees following a naming competition.

We are delighted to announce that Comet was born on the 9th December, along with his four siblings! Comet has already been placed with his Puppy Walker who will start to teach him the skills he’ll need as a future guide dog.  By 10 months, depending upon the progress made and his general maturity, he’ll start his advanced training, and in as little as 18 months, Comet could be a fully trained guide dog – helping someone to live the life they want to lead.

Helping Hand were delighted to be able to help The Guide Dogs Association with this donation and support the fantastic work they do around the UK. There are currently over 4,950 UK guide dog owners; and every hour, another person in the UK goes blind, meaning the demand for guide dogs never waivers.

Good luck to Comet throughout his training and career!

2016 has been a record-breaking year for Helping Hand, with the charity donating almost £50,000 to over 40 charities, organisations and causes; most of them local to the Leyland and Chorley area.

The bumper year culminated in a cheque presentation at the Leyland Trucks’ annual Christmas Dinner to just some of the charities and causes helped this year. Helping Hand’s Chairman Neale Handley proudly presented cheques to:

• The Meningitis Research Foundation via a remarkable young lady from Leyland - Sofia Crockatt – who is the Foundation’s first ever Junior Ambassador. The donated money was raised through a Zip wire challenge.
  

• The Guide Dog Association. Recently, Leyland employees got creative, suggesting Leyland-themed names for a – yet to be born – new guide puppy. The winning name Comet is also the name of one of our best-selling trucks that was sold around the world from 1947, and the donation made will help this new puppy through the first stage of its training.

Speaking about the success of 2016, Neale commented “It’s been an amazing year for Helping Hand. The committee and I are very grateful for all the support we receive from the Leyland Trucks’ team and local contributors, without which we’d never be able to help so many worthy causes. 2016 has been a milestone year in so many ways; we’ve seen some really imaginative fundraising as well as meeting some incredibly inspirational people along the way.”

Read more about Helping Hand’s work on the Blog.

On a wet and windy November weekend, two of Leyland’s Senior Managers undertook a brave – and incredibly fast – challenge to raise money for Helping Hand.  Neale Handley and Peter Jukes were sponsored at the Helping Hand charity dinner back in March to complete “Velocity” - the fastest zip line in the world and the longest in Europe. Located at Zip World in Bethesda, North Wales, this zip line descends over a quarry lake, often reaching speeds well in excess of 100mph! Watch their experience in the personalised video below.

To date, this challenge has raised over £1000 for Helping Hand, with more money rolling in to add to this total. Proceeds from this event will go directly to the Meningitis Research Foundation. This organisation is involved in supporting a remarkable young lady from Leyland - Sofia Crockatt and her story can be found on the Meningitis Research Foundation website