Christmas charity challenge tests fitness of MSP Capital team

By Bridging Loan Directory 13th December 2024

Colleagues at a Dorset firm have put their own spin on the ’12 Days of Christmas’ with a gruelling fitness challenge in aid of the UK’s biggest multiple sclerosis charity, the MS Society.

Twenty-four team members at property finance specialist MSP Capital spent 12 hours exercising in their Poole office gym to tackle what they dubbed the ’12 Classes of Christmas’.

Starting at 7am and going through to 7pm, a succession of hour-long classes were themed around a fitness activity such as yoga, stretching, running and Zumba.

And to reflect a seasonal message of fun and good cheer, they were given festive names.

The line-up was: Mistletoe Muscles (high intensity workout), Get into the Stretching Spirit (stretching), Frosty Footwork (Zumba), Tinsel Twist Yoga (yoga), Reindeer Run Club (running), Winter Wonderland Walk (walking), Bauble Burn (burn workout), Santa Strength (low intensity workout), Candy Cane Core (body pump workout), North Pole Pilates (pilates), Christmas Combat (body combat) and Jingle Bell Boogie (circuits with glowsticks).

The 12-hour challenge raised £1,600 for the MS Society, a charity suggested by Finance Assistant Natasha Tomlinson who has a friend, Imogen, living with an MS diagnosis.

“The MS Society is so important to me,” Imogen told Team MSP. “When I got diagnosed, its website was so useful when it came to understanding the condition and what was happening to me. There is also support for family and friends, to help them understand too.

“The MS Society is working to find effective treatments to prevent MS and they also provide an MS helpline.

“This is so important to ensure that people living with MS, like me, can feel supported and part of a community.”

Praising the team’s ’12 classes’ initiative, MSP Capital’s Credit and Underwriting Director Lee Merrifield said: “It was heartening to see so many colleagues involved, all supporting each other throughout 12 hours of intense activity.

“Everyone did their very best so that we could collectively help Imogen and others like her who are living with MS.

“While taking the opportunity for some festive fun, we are thrilled to have raised so much money for a charity that provides such amazing and essential support.”

The ’12 Classes of Christmas’ continues an annual series of end-of-year charity challenges championed by Team MSP and held in the gym.

In December last year, 35 staff together lifted more than a million pounds in weight over 24 hours in aid of Forest Holme Hospice.

And at the end of 2022, a 12-hour triathlon involving individual stints on a treadmill, static bike and rowing machine raised funds for Young Lives vs Cancer.