Social Charity Spy: Macmillan jumps on #Wimbledon, while hospices say they are #NotDingy

10 Jul 2015 Voices

This week Macmillan is highlighting testicular cancer through#Wimbledon and charities are explaining that hospices are #NotDingy.

This week Macmillan is highlighting testicular cancer through#Wimbledon and charities are explaining that hospices are #NotDingy.

Macmillan say check your balls at #Wimbledon

Macmillan have used the last week of the tennis at Wimbledon to encourage men to check their balls for the risk of testicular cancer. The charity has been tweeting pictures of various shaped tennis balls, alongside slogans such as “almost 2000 balls are used everyday at #Wimbledon. Don't forget to check yours!”

Why we love it: By talking about an event that people are intently following, Macmillan has been able to highlight an uncomfortable issue with a degree of humour.

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Hospices are #NotDingy

Hospice UK and St Giles Trust have led a campaign to rectify public opinion following episodes of popular soaps that described hospices negatively. In one example, characters in BBC One’s Casualty described an elderly woman being “stuck in some dingy hospice”. An episode of Eastenders also described them as “grotty hospices”.

Hospice UK’s director of policy and advocacy, Jonathan Ellis, wrote in a blog post for the Huffington Post titled “The BBC drama department is a terrible place to die” that it is important to get across that even if “you live in Walford or Holby, your local hospice is likely to be an amazing place with dedicated staff and volunteers”.

Following this, various hospices around the country have taken to Twitter with the hashtag #notdingy to show supporters that they are bright and caring places - not dark and depressing like they are often portrayed on TV.

Emma Hodges, deputy chief executive at St Giles Trust, said: “There is nothing ‘dingy’ about hospice care or the incredible support we have from staff, volunteers and our community. Being described as ‘dingy’ fuels the anxiety of patients and their families and is detrimental to patient care.”

The #NotDingy campaign has even spread as wide as Perth, British Columbia, Texas and California.

Why we love it: It is great that hospice charities are leading the initiative on changing ingrained media bias of hospices. It is a truly organic social media response to a contemporary issue highlighted by television. 

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