l-r Sara Gough and Neil Johnson (Inviron) Jimmy Graham (Europa) and Brian Boundy (CSC)

Earlier this year, the industry's first Facilities Alliance was formed between three partners - Capital Shopping Centres (CSC), Europa Support Services and Inviron.

The Facilities Alliance teams have been working so well together that last month, six members got together and donned their trainers and sweat bands to join 54,000 others in the world's biggest half marathon, the Great North Run.

Brian Boundy from CSC, Jimmy Graham and Russell Muldoon from Europa, and Neil Johnson, Amanda Lee and Sara Gough from Inviron, ran the 13.1 mile race from Newcastle to South Shields to raise valuable funds for The Stroke Association in memory of CSC's Bob Tingle, who sadly passed away earlier this year.

Neil Johnson says: "Professionally we work very closely together and when we sadly lost a colleague earlier in the year, we wanted to do something together in his memory and to help others in the future.

"The Great North Run was a tough challenge, we all completed the race and together have raised nearly £1,500 for this extremely worthwhile cause. Thank you to everyone who sponsored us."

The Facilities Alliance was set up to provide the best service model to create increased contractor innovation and consistency as well as local accountability with the aim of offering best value to CSC's tenants - major shopping centres across the UK.

Hard services specialist, Inviron, has been providing full technical services management across CSC's 10 shopping centres, including planned and reactive maintenance and fire officer duties at each location, whilst Europa Support Services has been continuing its five-year relationship with CSC delivering a full range of soft services across the portfolio.

For more information about The Stroke Association please visit www.stroke.org.uk