On Valentine’s Day, we set ourselves a challenge: could the Filter team collectively walk the 810 miles from Heathrow Terminal 5 to Alicante Airport, the exact distance a plane would fly? The reason? JD Wetherspoon had just opened their first pub outside the UK at Alicante Airport, and as their digital partner of many years, it felt like the perfect excuse to do something a bit daft for a good cause. Three weeks later, on Wednesday 4th March, we didn’t just reach Alicante. We sailed straight past it, clocking up 853 miles for Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity.
The concept was simple: any distance counts, as long as there’s no engine involved. Track it on a shared spreadsheet. Filter puts in £1 for every mile covered, up to the 810-mile target.
What actually happened was far more creative than just walking. Twenty-one Filterettes threw themselves into it; running, rowing, cycling (both indoor and outdoor), hiking, taking the long route home, squeezing in lunchtime loops, pushing prams, walking dogs, and in one case, walking a horse. G absolutely smashed it with an 18.64-mile session on a C2 stationary bike, which remains the single longest distance anyone logged in one go.
First, spreadsheets are brilliant motivators. Watching the total tick upwards, seeing who’d logged miles that day, and knowing you were all contributing to the same goal made even the dreariest February dog walk feel purposeful.
Second, remote teams can still do team challenges. We’re spread across the country, working on our own, but this gave us something tangible to connect over. A quick Slack message about someone’s countryside hike or glorious lunchtime walk became part of the daily rhythm.
Third, people will find time if the cause matters. We all know how easy it is to let wellness goals slide when client work piles up, but knowing it was for Great Ormond Street – and that every mile genuinely counted – made a difference. Parents walked with babies. Early risers ran before work. Night owls took evening circuits. It added up.
Why Alicante? Partly because we’ve worked with JD Wetherspoon for years, building and maintaining their websites, mobile apps, and other systems. When their first international pub opened at Alicante Airport, it felt fitting to mark the occasion. But mostly because it gave us a concrete target – something we could visualise, measure and collectively chase down.
The fact that we overshot by 43 miles just shows what happens when you give a team a shared goal and let them get on with it. No grand speeches, no complicated structure – just a spreadsheet, a charity we believe in, and a willingness to get moving.
We hit 810 miles and raised £810 for Great Ormond Street. The challenge is technically complete, but the spreadsheet’s still open and people are still logging miles, because why stop when you’ve built the habit?
If you’re thinking about doing something similar with your own team, here’s what worked for us: pick a tangible goal (a real place, a real distance), make it easy to track, tie it to something that matters, and then just let people get creative with how they contribute. The rest tends to take care of itself.
Big thanks to everyone who walked, ran, rowed, cycled, and horse-walked their way to Spain. Great Ormond Street does incredible work, and we’re proud to have supported them, even if we did take the scenic route.
Marketing Manager
Joy is Filter’s voice to the outside world, developing our content and marketing strategies, and communicating the great work that we do to the widest audience. Joy manages our website content, social media channels, resource centre, the UnFILTERed video podcast series, our Enterprise Guide eBook series and every aspect of our marketing activity.
