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My MBE - a spring board to our healthy people, healthy planet vision

Co-founder of The Great Outdoor Gym Company awarded MBE

by Georgie Delaney
 
Tuesday 5th April 2022 Matt and I went to Windsor Castle to collect my MBE medal from Princess Anne. The Department of International Trade nominated me last year and that evening we celebrated the team effort that this accolade deserves. Receiving this amazing award has made me reflect over the past 15 years and also think about the future.

The Great Outdoor Gym Company (TGO) is a family business and my father, who was our chairman, always used to joke about me becoming a Dame one day. The DIT nominated me last year, a couple of years after he died – Dad suffered from lifestyle diseases. 
 
The MBE was largely about the gyms we make and export work we do and the ethics of what we do:
• We make outdoor gyms in the UK and export them worldwide to break down the barriers to people getting active to prevent lifestyle diseases like Type 2 Diabetes and Heart Disease.
 
• We manufacture in several places throughout the UK – Gateshead, Selby, Ipswich, The Highlands and Galashiels. We pioneered the outdoor gym movement in the UK and did a lot of work on safety and inclusivity standards early on which helped us build a trusted brand. We now export worldwide. I am an export champion for the DIT. 
 
• One feature we are well known for is our power smart technology which recycles human energy and turns it into usable electricity. Last year we got confirmation of our European patent for this system. 
 
• We also plant trees. We have so far planted over 50,000. 300 trees have recently been planted with the NHS Forest in Dundee near the hospital my mother in law died of Cancer.
 
• Movement is a powerful preventative medicine and our gyms are a great tool for communities to access free facilities that they can use without the need for a gym membership.

I feel, however, what we have achieved so far is just the foundation of what’s to come! 2030 is looming as a time we must cut our emissions by half and with health and peace at risk, we need to focus on solutions. We want to go NET zero with our range and we want to take people with us!
 
We believe people are central to the solution. We are working on ways to train communities to become healthy and sustainable. We believe in people power and our mission is to unlock that power for the common good. How we care for ourselves and our neighbours is vitally important. How we care for the planet is now critical. 
 
The next few years for us will be about how we bring communities together to be a force for good for themselves and the planet. My MBE honour from the Queen is a huge incentive to move forward confidently towards the next stage of the business and bring all the vision together.

  Blog News
  07 April 2022

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