Warrington Wolves are helping put cancer screening conversations at the heart of the community as the ‘Two Minutes of Chat & An Early Screening’ campaign continues to have an impact across Halton, Warrington and St Helens.
Cheshire and Merseyside Cancer Alliance’s Two Minutes of Chat and an Early Screening campaign was created to tackle one of the barriers to early cancer diagnosis – people not always having conversations about cancer screening until it may be too late.
The campaign has moved beyond traditional raising awareness, with local organisations using campaign materials, events and activities to encourage people to talk openly about cancer screening with friends, family and their communities.
At the heart of the Warrington activity has been Warrington Wolves Community Foundation, Warrington Wolves have continued to take the message directly into their community – sharing campaign resources through their community programmes, bringing screening conversations to their Yoga on the Pitch event and engaging members of their Pow-Her of the Pack women’s group.
And it is not just Warrington Wolves getting involved.
All 11 LiveWire libraries across Warrington are now showing campaign materials, which also feature on screens across Warrington’s leisure centres, Warrington Market, 1 Time Square and Warrington’s Own Buses.
Across the wider campaign, organisations have been using conversation starters, pledge boards, affirmation cards, quizzes, posters, social media assets and ‘Campaign in a Box’ materials to bring the conversations into their own activities.
This has included community coffee mornings, wellbeing events, primary care settings, libraries, leisure centres, local sports networks and community venues.
So far, the campaign has:
• been seen more than 6 million times on buses
• been seen more than 465,000 times across Facebook and Instagram
• had more than 12,500 people visited the campaign website
• had 662 pledged conversations through the campaign platform
• started over 100 conversations already in St Helens
• started hundreds of conversations through Warrington community outreach
• engaged over 100 organisations across the campaign
Warrington’s Own Buses has extended its support beyond the original campaign, with advertising now running across 34 buses and generating more than 6 million opportunities to be seen.
Warrington’s Own Buses featuring the “Two Minutes of Chat & An Early Screening” Cancer Conversation with Sophie McCarthy & the team on filming day
In Warrington, the campaign is now present across transport, sport, libraries, leisure, primary care, community organisations and local media.
In St Helens, Jodie Cunningham and Emily Rudge from St Helen’s R.F.C and The Girls Offload Podcast, along with community groups and organisations have joined the conversation. Further activity now being supported through wellbeing services, community networks, Voluntary and Community Action organisations, Cancer Champions and local sporting clubs.
Meanwhile in Halton, where the campaign originally launched, existing partnerships have been re-engaged, with campaign materials being used across community settings, primary care, leisure and shopping locations.
The campaign builds on the success of its original Halton activity, which generated more than 440,000 video views and, prompted four in five people who had seen the campaign to start conversations about cancer.
A huge thank you also goes to all the interviewees who have shared their personal stories and experiences so openly, inspirationally and bravely in support of the campaign. By sharing their experiences, they have helped make conversations around cancer screening feel more real, relatable and accessible to others in their communities.
By bringing the campaign into the places where people already live, work, socialise and spend time, the campaign is making cancer screening a more visible and accessible part of everyday conversation.
The campaign’s ambition is simple: two minutes of chat could help start a conversation that leads to an early screening – and potentially an earlier diagnosis.
