The late Neil Manchester, who died suddenly last year, with his bike. An activity challenge held in his memory raised nearly £3,000 for local causes and donations added a further £1,522.

Thousands raised for community in memory of Kames MD Neil Manchester

Gareth Moore editor
Published

More than £4,000 has been raised for local causes in memory of Kames Fish Farming managing director Neil Manchester, who died suddenly in May last year.

Current and former staff at the Kilmelford-based, family-owned Scottish steelhead trout farmer spent last weekend remembering Manchester with activities including a hog and trout roast, clay pigeon shooting, and a collective activity challenge.

Kames set up the Neil Manchester Memorial Challenge on Strava, an app that records the distance covered when doing activities such as cycling, running, and swimming, and pledged to donate £1 per mile covered over the weekend by its own staff and anyone else who wanted to join in.

The company also set up a JustGiving page for those who didn’t want to take part in the challenge but wanted to contribute.

Stuart Cannon supervises grandson Christopher shooting.
The weekend's efforts included some serious cycling efforts.
An Argyll hog roast was one of the events held by Kames.

Over the weekend there were 2,902.3 challenge miles recorded on Strava, and as of today £1,522 had been donated on the JustGiving page, which remains open this week, taking the total to £4,424.30.

The majority of the money will go to the Craignish Community Company, which supports the First Responders who came out to help Manchester, and more than £1,000 will support additional local community projects.

Kames marketing and communications manager Cate Cannon, whose husband Andrew Cannon is now managing director and whose father-in-law, Stuart, founded the company, said: “We gathered together as a company with Neil’s family and including ours, to have an Argyll hog roast and shoot some clays together, which Neil really loved doing.

“Then we set a Strava Challenge and JustGiving page to raise money for the Craignish Community Company, who support the First Responders who went out to help Neil that day. The response was amazing. All over the UK we had over 80 friends and colleagues clocking up a total of 2,902.3 miles in two days.”

A reel of photographs giving a flavour of the weekend can be found on Kames’ Instagram page.

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