5K Your Way participants
How a chance social media meeting could change lives
Social media is a funny thing, isn’t it?
Sometimes it can add undue pressure by making vulnerable people feel they don’t stack up against often impossible standards or comparisons.
But then, out of the blue, you can also learn about someone who captures your heart and you realise that without social media, you would never have the privilege and pleasure of crossing paths and meeting and lives would not be changed.
One such chance ‘meeting’ in May 2020 led to exactly this situation for me (Hil) and eventually for the whole team at trundl.
Early in lockdown, I stumbled across a running feed on Instagram called @runningthroughcancer, run by a young man called Matthew Pullan. He was looking to become a sports ambassador for businesses. I also realised, through his social feeds, that he was a really talented poet and so we took to messaging every now and then.
As I learned, Matthew had been diagnosed with an ependymoma brain tumour when he was just three years old. He’d made a good recovery and enjoyed several years of stable MRI scans, but in June 2020, just after we started to correspond on social media, he was diagnosed with a new tumour and underwent surgery, followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
I sponsored him and his twin brother for some of the charity fundraisers they devised. Alex ran 5k every day through Matthew’s chemotherapy. These determined and supportive 18-year-old twins inspired me so much.
We continued to write, but by August I realised that having to write to a stranger was taking energy he needed for his treatment and, feeling sure we would chat again when he was recovered, we stopped writing. However, he must have masked just how poorly he really was because on September 9th 2021 Matthew sadly passed away, joining his Mum who had also died from this awful disease some years earlier.
On the 12th Sept the twins’ dad, Gary Pullan, tweeted a photo of Matthews’ twin Alex sporting a 5K Your Way, MOVE Against Cancer t-shirt. I had not come across 5K Your Way or MOVE but by now we were looking for a charity that was connected to outdoor exercise for trundl, and MOVE seemed to be a fantastic fit.
A bright future with some amazing young women
On the 16th Sept 2021 we contacted MOVE Charity and told them about our fledgling business. That we were building an app and had the ambition to create a community of people who couldn’t go as far or as fast for all sorts of reasons, but who would respond positively to the motivation of walking for charity.
This led to a Zoom meeting with two really inspiring members of the MOVE team: Georgie and Sophie. Young women who took the time to listen to some enthusiastic oldies talking about a business and an app that didn’t yet exist. Being smart and empathetic people, they understood the potential of trundl and took the idea to Gemma Hillier-Moses and Lucy Gossage, founders of MOVE and 5K Your Way.
We’re delighted to say that we’re starting to justify their early confidence in trundl. MOVE have received just over £275 in donations since February 2022. And from April 28th- 8th May we will be running another Community trundl through the app, aiming to reach a collective distance goal and so donate £200 to this fab young charity that is doing great things for people who need advice on how to keep active within the constraints of their particular diagnosis. These may be small beginnings, but as trundl grows, our members’ “power of one” contribution, multiplied thousands of times, means we have huge potential to make sizeable donations that may truly transform lives.
I’ve never met Gary and his family, he doesn’t even know that his son was so pivotal in this lovely relationship with Georgie, Sophie and the whole team at MOVE charity. But Matthew’s legacy is already living on in so many ways and he will always be an integral part of the story behind the trundl/MOVE partnership. Thank you.
Hil Mines, trundl Founder
Hil Mines getting ready for a 5K Your Way meet in Northwich, Feb 2022
trundl notes:
Hil attends 5K Your Way events held on the last Saturday of every month as part of the Park Run initiative as a good reason to get active herself and to ensure that the trundl community are kept updated on MOVE’s on-ground activities and achievements.
Tess Caven, trundl’s Marketing Director and co-founder of trundl adds:
“Small charities like MOVE have been really affected by the pandemic and changes to donation habits. New ways to raise funds and improve awareness are key. trundl is currently looking for an outdoor brand partner to help support MOVE through our Community trundls. This would be the icing on the cake for all of us and we would love to hear from brands who share our vision of better health and well-being through movement and exercise.”
To find out more about how trundl works, click here.
trundl exists as an alternative non-competitive activity app by motivating differently to get people outdoors and walking that bit more.
We do not encourage you to stop any of your current charity donations or personal sponsorships, that’s not what we are here for. We simply ask you to see if trundl suits you as a way to support your own health and some great charities, have fun and exercise your kindness in the process.
