A Little Pick-Me-Up For The Leeds And Liverpool Canal
We’re no stranger to doing our bit for our local community. Throughout the year, we regularly get involved in fundraising for charities that are close to our hearts, from mental health and dementia charities to our local hospices, as well as supporting food banks and other community initiatives.
We love getting involved, we love bringing the team together and, most importantly, we love knowing that we’re doing something useful for people and causes that matter to us.
But recently, we’ve been branching out and looking for some new ideas. And this time, we didn’t have to look very far.
In fact, we only had to look outside the office window!
A little help for a beautiful part of Lancashire
We’re lucky enough to work next to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, and it’s one of our favourite places to head when we need a bit of fresh air. Lunchtime walks along the canal have become a bit of a regular for the team, giving us the perfect excuse to step away from our screens, stretch our legs and enjoy some of the beautiful surroundings we’re lucky enough to have on our doorstep.
We love Lancashire. We love the scenery, we love having the canal nearby and we love being able to get outside and enjoy it during the working day. So, naturally, we wanted to help keep it looking its best too.
That’s where the litter pickers came in.
Rather than just enjoying our walks, we thought we could make them a little more productive. So, we’ve started taking litter pickers and bin bags out with us and picking up the rubbish we find along the way. And, as it turns out, we’re pretty good at it.
Litter picking, but make it 21Digital
Of course, you can’t just decide you’re going to become litter pickers and head off down the canal empty-handed. There was some essential equipment to acquire first.
Litter pickers? Ordered.
Bin bags? Check.
And, because safety first, especially when you’re working alongside a canal path with cyclists flying past, we got ourselves some very fetching hi-vis vests too.
Once we had the full kit, we were ready for action. There’s something quite amusing about seeing your colleagues heading out of the office in their hi-vis, armed with litter pickers and ready to get stuck in. But once we started, we quickly got into the swing of it.
Now, we’ve started making litter picking part of our canal walks, heading out with our pickers and bin bags whenever the weather is on our side. It’s become a great way to do a little bit for the area in between all the other fundraising and community activities we get involved in throughout the year.
It’s also become a really enjoyable excuse to get outside with the team. We get some fresh air, have a chat, enjoy the canal and come back knowing we’ve left it a little cleaner than we found it.
Not a bad way to take a screen break if you ask us!
Looking after our canal neighbours
As it goes, our little stretch of canal has quite the crowd. Runners, casual strollers, cyclists, dog walkers and families all make use of the towpath, alongside plenty of ducks, geese, our resident swans and the local canal barges.
The ducks and geese are more than happy to share their patch with us. The swans, however, remain unconvinced (we’re working on it).
You never quite know what you’re going to encounter when you head out for a lunchtime wander. There’s the local fisherman, cyclists whizzing past, dogs stopping to investigate absolutely everything and, every now and then, someone casually canoeing along the canal – don’t ask.
And then there was the time a wayward sheep ended up in the canal and needed rescuing. Our SEO Exec Mark was more than happy to get amongst it, quite literally, and came out the other side as something of a local hero. He was absolutely drenched by the end of it, but the sheep was safely back on dry land, so we think it was worth the soggy lunch break!
We’ve also had the pleasure of meeting a pair of local goats on their daily walk, because apparently that’s just the sort of thing that happens around here.
So, between the runners, cyclists, fishermen, canoeists, barges, dogs, sheep, goats, ducks, geese, the other businesses around us and our slightly suspicious local swans, there’s always plenty going on. That’s what we love most about it.
A little something in between
We always enjoy getting involved in the bigger fundraising challenges and events throughout the year, but they only come around every so often. Litter picking gives us a way to keep doing our bit in between them.
There’s no big campaign to organise, no sponsorship target to hit and no complicated planning involved. If the weather’s looking good and we’ve got a bit of time, we can grab the pickers, pull on the hi-vis and head out.
It might not be our biggest CSR initiative, but that’s not really the point. We want giving back to be something we do throughout the year, in all sorts of different ways, whether that’s raising money for a charity close to our hearts, supporting a local cause or picking up a bag of rubbish on our lunch break.
For us, it all counts. And if we can keep our little corner of Lancashire looking beautiful at the same time, even better.
From picking up litter to picking up leads
In addition to being litter-picking extraordinaires, occasional sheep rescuers and avid lunchtime strollers, we’re also digital marketing experts with more than 20 years of experience. From web design, web development and SEO to Google Ads, AI search, digital consultancy, social media marketing and email marketing, we help businesses of all shapes and sizes grow with smart, creative digital marketing strategies that deliver real results.
So, if your business could use a little digital pick-me-up, get in touch. We promise the only thing we’ll ask you to pick up is the phone – or a brew if you fancy popping in for a chat!
