FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

The Big Step takes place during October 2024.

The challenge runs from 1-31 October 2024. You can choose to walk either 5,000 or 10,000 steps a day during this time. You could complete 5,000 steps one day and then 15,000 the day after, it is completely your choice. If you have any further questions, please email us at hello@anhsc.org.uk

There are two distances to choose from;

• 5,000 steps a day - or 155,000 steps during the challenge, approximately 75 miles
• 10,000 steps a day - or 310,000 steps during the challenge, approximately 150 miles

You can sign up now, and we recommend signing up as soon as possible so you can prepare, share your page with friends, family, and colleagues and start fundraising and training straight away.

The event is free to enter, but we encourage you to raise as much sponsorship as possible. There are rewards for reaching fundraising milestones, you can find out more about them here.

You can complete your steps wherever you like. All steps count. Include all of the steps you walk, jog, run or dance during the day. We want to encourage everyone to increase their activity, so to make this challenging, think of all the ways you can increase your steps during the challenge.

There's no minimum sponsorship but we suggest a target of £135.

From the 1st October, you will be able to add your daily step total to your fundraising page so that you can monitor your progress towards your target. 

We recommend you begin tracking your steps now with a free app on your smartphone, a pedometer or fitness tracker. This will give you a good indication of what you are doing now, so that you can begin training and preparation to increase your daily steps during the Big Step.

There is no need to buy a new device in order to track your steps. We recommend that you use a free app on your smartphone to track your activity.

Please contact us at hello@anhsc.org.uk if you would like some more recommendations about tracking your activity

Yes, we welcome everyone to take part in the challenge - it's all about moving more and increasing your activity, in any way that works for you.

5,000 steps is around 2.5 miles (4km) and 10,000 steps is around 5 miles (8km).

If you're a wheelchair user, choose a distance that feels like a challenge for you each day. You could use an odometer, which can be purchased from a cycle or sports equipment store, and can be attached to the wheelchair and will monitor the distance covered each day. If you want to convert the distance into steps, you can do so using the following equation: 1km = 1250 steps.

For those who have limited mobility, please refer to this article to ensure you have smooth and enjoyable walking experience.

If you're under 16, please ask a parent or guardian to register on your behalf, they will need to create a new JustGiving account using a unique email address.

Of course. We'd love you to participate and are here to support you with whatever distance is challenging but achievable for you. For some of our past steppers, 2,000 steps was a challenge and they loved trying to achieve this each day.

Please log the steps that you are able to achieve on your profile page. The goal is to increase your activity in a way that we hope you can sustain in the future.

Remember to update our Big Step Facebook group with your progress.

You can start fundraising on your profile page right now, and that's also where you'll track your steps. But there's lots more you can do.

When you're logged in to your profile page, click the edit page button near the top of your page and you can:

• Change your page name
• Add a profile picture to make your page your own
• Update your story to inspire friends and family
• Change your fundraising target
• Change your steps from 5,000 to 10,000 or vice versa
• Update your email address
• Change your password

If you can't do any of the above or want some advice, email hello@anhsc.org.uk

Fundraising rewards are our way of saying thank you for the incredible fundraising you do.

Once you hit £50 you will be eligible for your medal which we will send to you after the challenge has finished when we send out our thanking.

Once you hit £100 you will receive the coveted Big Step tshirt. As anove, this will be sent after the challenge is complete when we do our thanking.

Thank you for your tremendous support.

Your Big Step profile page is the simplest and most secure way to receive donations from friends and family. It's automatically created for you when you sign up for The Big Step Plus your supporters can Gift Aid their donation with a few taps if they're UK taxpayers. But you can fundraise offline too, there's more info on that below.

You don’t need to. The money donated to your profile page comes directly to us.

No, but you'll need to create a JustGiving account. You'll be asked to do this when you register for The Big Step. It only takes a few moments to do.

The easiest way is to pay your fundraising into your own bank account and donate it to your Just Giving Big Step page by card payment. That way we have all your fundraising in one place.

If you have a cheque you can make it payable to NHS Charities Together and send to:

The Big Step, NHS Charities Together, Suite 68, Lake View House, Wilton Drive, Warwick, CV34 6RG

Include a note with your name and the event you have taken part in.

When the challenge starts, you can either use the paper tracker we sent to you in your welcome pack to log your steps, or you can manually add your steps onto your Just Giving Big Step page.

Register for The Big Step and you're halfway there. On your profile page where it says Edit Page, In the subheading Team, you can create a team by typing in your new team name, or find a team by searching for the team you’d like to join.

Your team members will have to register individually and then connect to your team, you just need to share your team name with them.

You take on your own target for the challenge, whether that’s 5,000 or 10,000 steps per day. Your team page will show your overall team count.

Here are a few things to try if your page isn't showing you're connected to a team:

• It can take up to five minutes for your team name to load to your page - give your page a moment
• Refresh your profile page
• Clear your cache. You can find your cache in the ‘history’ of your browser. You only need to clear the last hour or so of your cache history.

No problem at all - it is very easy to leave a team. When you have logged into your profile page please go to 'edit page' then click 'Team Details'. You will see two buttons click 'leave team'. It can take up to five minutes for this to update.