As we draw closer to the end of 2020, the team at First Financial has continued to find ways to keep motivated and stay connected.
After more than eight months working from home and going through the strict Melbourne lockdowns, it’s been great to share our camaraderie and keep each other feeling positive.
Over the last three months, we’ve been involved in a fantastic fundraising campaign, and we boosted the amount raised by hosting a digital trivia session.
FightMND 27 Challenge
Founded in 2014, FightMND is an organisation focused on generating greater awareness of Motor Neurone Disease (MND). The organisation funds world-class research and drug trials to find an effective treatment and, ultimately, a cure. It also provides assistive care equipment to many Australians fighting the disease.
The FightMND 27 Challenge specifically references the number 27, because the average life expectancy of someone diagnosed with MND is just 27 months.
The challenge ran from 27 September to 27 November and members of our team were enthusiastically involved in the fundraising campaign. Hayley Wong, Roel Burghouwt, Rebecca Ruck, Ben Rossi, Vivek Mishra, Chris Pomaroff, David Jackson and Katie Stevens committed to completing a physical challenge 27 times over the two month period. Katie explains:
“We all set our own challenges… everything from running, skipping jump rope, chin ups, pull ups, pumping iron, cycling, ab workouts…
…anything that posed a physical challenge for us.
I chose to skip… jump rope, my puppy Keith made my challenge extra difficult…
…but I got there in the end and skipped over 8000 skips!”
Vivek created his own outside gym area in his backyard so that he could complete his pull ups without needing to leave his home.
For everyone involved, it was an excellent way to keep a focus on our fitness during some of the tough times in isolation.
Team trivia
In addition to the physical challenges our team completed, we also held a virtual trivia session to help increase our fundraising total. With most of us still working from home every day, it was a great opportunity to catch up and enjoy some social time with our colleagues. Everyone made a small contribution to be part of the trivia session and we added these funds to our overall challenge total.
The trivia was hosted by Katie from First Financial and Bec and Georgia from FightMND. The ladies very kindly donated their time in preparing the quiz and co-hosting the afternoon. We had four different topic rounds – Science and Technology, Entertainment, Sport and History and a ‘First Financial’ round which was mostly some interesting and funny facts about our leadership team. Did you know that Brad Jackson played trumpet in his school band and David Pitt can knit?
Our final deciding round was a quick Price is Right competition and Matty Benic was crowned First Financial Trivia Champion 2020, taking home a $100 Prezzee gift voucher.
Congratulations to Matty! Plus, congratulations to everyone involved in the challenge – our fundraising goal was $1,000 and our final total was just under $1,345 – a fantastic effort that will go towards a highly deserving cause. Read more First Financial articles.
