Publish date: 13 June 2025
Throughout National Walking Month in May, our incredible Mersey Care staff have laced up their trainers, embraced the outdoors, and stepped their way to achieving something very special...
Together, Mersey Care’s participating staff have clocked up a staggering 56,002,121 steps – that’s the equivalent of walking around 28,001 miles – which would take you around the globe… more than once!
Once you’d walked the earth’s 24,900-mile circumference, you’d then have enough miles left to reach Toronto, Canada, where we’re sure you’d be more than ready for a little rest.
It’s been a huge team effort and we’re so thrilled that over 200 of you got involved.
Every stride taken helped us to raise over £1,000 for our Staff Wellbeing Fund, which will go towards funding future projects such as Wellbeing on Wheels and Wellbeing through Wildlife to support our hardworking NHS staff.
And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for… the winner of the Mersey Cares Step into Summer Staff Challenge is…
Team Coniston!
From the very first week, Team Coniston were tough opposition. Their team spirit, saw them claim the top spot in weeks one to three, only narrowly edged out in week four by the Churchtown District Nurses.
Throughout the challenge, Team Coniston walked an impressive average of 534,027 steps each — adding up to a remarkable total of 7,476,381 steps!
That’s the equivalent of 3,738 miles — enough to take them all the way across the Atlantic to the bright lights of New York City, or even to the sun-soaked shores of Bermuda, where a well-earned rest (and celebration!) would surely be waiting.
Congratulations to, Michael Mattson (Team Leader), Ben Dunkerley, Gemma Kelly, James Doolan, Chris Cullum, Grace Jones, Liam Connor, Ashley Freeman, Benjamin Rimmer, Holly Keane, Sam Cullum, Gemma Pye, Elin Tester and Gemma Finlay, who have won our grand prize of a day out for 12 people to Knowsley Safari Park for one of our Wellbeing Through Wildlife sessions.
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Coniston: 534,027
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Hartley Hoppers: 450,480
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Churchtown District Nurses: 386,350
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Stepsils: 344,787
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Budget Burners: 343, 081
As well as the overall winning team, we also wanted to highlight the individuals who have walked an incredible number of steps throughout the challenge.
Selina Gill of the Churchtown District Nurses clocked up the most steps of all our 223 challengers, with an incredible individual total of 1,103,501 steps. This is the equivalent to walking around 520 miles (based upon average stride) and would see her walk all the way to Frankfurt in Germany!
Hannah Savage of the Hartley Hoppers ranked second when looking at individual totals, reaching 799,587 steps. This is equivalent to around 380 miles – and would take her all the way to Paris, France!
Michael Mattson of Team Coniston took 757,553 steps throughout May, equivalent to around 359 miles, which sees him finish in third place overall. This number of steps would see him walk from Liverpool to Lands’ End in Cornwall – and with some miles to spare.
To mark these individual achievements and say thank you, we’ll be sending out some charity goodies including a T-shirt, stress ball and pen.
We have been incredibly grateful that a number of local businesses gave us prizes for our weekly winners, and we want to say a huge thank you for this.
Many thanks to Mersey Hampers who supplied two hampers packed full of delicious local produce for out week one and week four prizes.
Junkyard Golf gave us two tickets for a round at the Liverpool course, while we were also thankful to receive tickets for a tour around the iconic Liver Building.
Finally, thanks to Bents Garden centre for the afternoon tea voucher, which we’ve heard went down very well, with its thankful recipient.
We’d also like to thank our Occupational Health and Wellbeing Service who supported us with earmarking 12 Wellbeing Through Wildlife places for our competition winners. The project has been funded by our charity, with support from NHS Charities Together.
Finally, we’d just like to say thank you to YOU! To everyone who took part in our inaugural Step into Summer Staff Challenge – you were all incredible. We will be sending a feedback form out so we can improve things for next year, so please share your thoughts and ideas with the charity team.
*The overall Team Winner was determined by calculating the average number of steps submitted by each team between 1–31 May, based on all registered individuals’ weekly step submissions.