Meet the man behind the 365-day Cha Cha Slide Plank Challenge which raised nearly £50k for Lancaster's CancerCare

His 365-day Cha Cha Slide Plank Challenge brought in £48,000 for CancerCare - a charity chosen in a bid to give something back to the place that helped Steve's sister Andrea in her fight against breast cancer.

Steve posted daily videos of his challenge on his Facebook page - leading to him becoming something of a social media star.

In total he posted more than 150 videos which were viewed more than 332,000 times in 138 countries around the world, including exotic locations such as French Polynesia, the Falkland Islands and the remote Arctic island of Svalbard.

They had 18,500 likes and were watched for a total of 144,000 minutes - more than 100 days of continuous viewing.

However, the associated fame from the challenge was merely a sideshow to the main reason behind Steve's epic challenge - his sister Andrea, who had stage 3 breast cancer, and underwent chemotherapy, a mastectomy, radiotherapy and reconstruction.

CancerCare helped her to cope with all her treatment and the issues she faced when she was first diagnosed.

"Andrea was the main reason for me doing it, said Steve.

"I had said to her before Christmas 2018 that I wanted to do something to raise money for CancerCare but I didn’t know what to do.

"I do fitness classes as well as personal training and I had seen the Cha Cha Slide Plank on YouTube. I had been looking at introducing it as a fun activity in my fitness classes and it went down well.

"At first I thought maybe I would do a one-off and set a world record big event, but then I just decided I would do it every day for a year.

"I knew I could do it physically but I was quite naive about actually doing it every day, and it became like a full-time job, asking people to take part and travelling to places.

"It wasn’t easy to get going; at first I just thought I would do it myself but try to make it interesting so I changed my hat every day, but it became obvious after a few weeks that if I could involve others it would be more interesting.

"I started using my contacts; I know a lot of people and have been around the fitness environment and know a lot of people from that."

Morecambe firefighters were among the first to take part, and from there it started snowballing, with Steve visiting a variety of organisations around the district and further afield.

"It was a real opportunity for anyone who wanted to try to get their name out there to get involved really," he said. "It's a fantastic teambuilding event, and you could see the fun people were having and some of the feedback I got from businesses was great.

"I did it with tots in nurseries right up to old people’s homes; they didn’t even need to be able to do it physically, just to be there was fine for them.

"It worked well for everyone, because it was an all-inclusive activity. From the onset I never thought it would be a community thing but it became obvious pretty quickly that it could be, and from then on it was a no-brainer that people should be involved."

After five months on Facebook alone, Steve's videos had reached more than 400,000 people and been seen in more than 100 different countries.

"That helped a lot, because being able to then say that to a business showed them what a big opportunity it was for them to get involved," he said.

"I was trying to keep it local because it’s a local charity but I was really interested in anyone who would be involved.

"I decided I wanted some people from the army involved, and an ex-client is in the Parachute Engineer Regiment in Ipswich, so I went down there to do it."

Among the hundreds of challenges Steve carried out over the year, many are memorable for a variety of reasons.

"All the schools were great, they all loved it. At Bolton-le-Sands Primary School, there was a little boy of about four who was behind me on the video jigging about and dancing. He was so excited and that really stood out for me.

"Another time I went to a bullring in Mijas in Spain. It was just me and two friends, I was wearing a sombrero, and there were two retired couples there from New Zealand.

"I told them what we were doing and they joined in, one wearing a matador cape and another picked up a guitar.

"The following day I was up the Sierra Nevada with the British Ski School behind me. That’s really memorable.

"The mounted police in Morecambe, they were absolutely brilliant, and within the space of two days the Facebook views reached more than 50,000."

Other highlights that stand out for Steve include performing at the Highest Point Festival, a methodist church congregation, on the helipad at Royal Lancaster Infirmary and another with lifeboat volunteers.

He also took part in a Cross Bay Walk and the Three Peaks Challenge, as well as performing the cha cha slide plank at two weddings - and even his own 60th birthday party!

"One that I missed out on that I really wanted to do was sub-aqua, that would have been a good one but it didn’t materialise," he said.

It wasn't all plain sailing however, and there were times when Steve was left in the lurch and having to use his imagination.

"If there were times I couldn’t get people to do it, or if people had to cancel, I would do it on my own," he said.

"One time I went up Helvellyn and got someone to video me on Striding Edge.

"Another time went to Arnside as the tidal bore wave came in, but as it came in we were expecting a really big wave and it was just a ripple!

"I did it anyway but you could hardly see it, so as it got to the end I just stripped off and ran away from the camera!"

Steve, who lives in Morecambe, feels much of the success of his challenge stems from the fact that so many people could relate to his own back story.

"If you have got a personal story, people can relate to it, it pulls them in," he said.

"People would come up to me and say that they had cancer and say thank you for what I was doing. Everyone has their own story.

"Although it was for cancer, it was a good fun thing to do. I would tell people that if they were having a bad day to think back to this two minutes and remember that they had helped someone with cancer, so it was very poignant in that sense.

"It also has to mean something to you. I am quite a determined person, so I was never not going to complete it, however tough it got.

"I had a broken toe for months, but even if I had a broken leg I would have still done it somehow.

"Financially it was a bit of a challenge for me as well because it took up a lot of my time."

However difficult things got, it was never far from Steve's mind exactly why he was undertaking the challenge.

"Just doing it for two months could help affect other people’s lives who needed help," he said.

"It was important to do it, because CancerCare do an amazing job of giving free support to everyone who needs it, not only to people with cancer but the people linked to them.

"It costs £1.3m every year to provide their services, and my sister is adamant that she wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for their support."

Steve brought down the final curtain on his epic challenge with a grand finale in Williamson Park on New Year’s Eve.

He then visited Barton Grange garden centre in Garstang, where generous bosses handed over a cheque for £20,000 in match funding.

Amazingly, Steve's initial target had been a modest £200.

"I made that really quickly so I kept putting the target up by a few hundred and then after a few months I just put £20,000," he said. "I never expected it to do so well."

Steve's exploits also saw him nominated for the prestigious JustGiving Community of Fundraiser of the Year Award and he attended a glamorous awards ceremony at London’s Royal Lancaster Hotel in October.

View Steve’s dedicated challenge Facebook page here where he has also been doing home workout videos to help people during the coronavirus isolation period.