In support of Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Day, May 13th, 2022, members of staff from Aylesbury's Waterside Theatre took on our Wheels at Work fundraising challenge, in partnership with Gerald Simonds Healthcare, for the day.

The fundraiser, encourages businesses to take on the challenge for a working day, to gain an insight into what life is like for those facing daily struggles due to spinal cord injury.

Commenting about the challenge, Emily Dimino, Waterside Theatre Customer Experience Supervisor and Stage Door Receptionist, said: "As much as I loved taking part in Wheels at Work, it made me appreciate there are daily struggles wheelchair users face that as a non-wheelchair user, I have never considered. I felt at times overlooked by customers and soon realised I’d need to allow extra time to logistically move around during my shift. It prompted several conversations with other members of the team as certain roles within the venue would be impossible to carry out in a wheelchair, for example ushering and duty managing due to needing to go up and down stairs in the auditorium. This said, I also felt proud that from a customer perspective all levels of the venue are accessible via wheelchair including our Norman Bragg Studio. We have facilities that cater for wheelchair users in terms of our toilets and lowered sections of the bar, and our payment machines have flexible cords meaning staff are able to easily reach wheelchair-bound visitors at the bars and kiosks. I have fed back my experience to our Customer Experience team during recent training and am confident taking part in Wheels at Work has raised awareness of the needs of our customers that use wheelchairs amount our customer facing team."

Thank you for supporting Stoke Mandeville Spinal Research.

To find out how your business can get involved in a Wheels at Work fundraiser, please click here