Business Beats Cancer: Dundee man continues his late wife's campaign

We're helping our friend and his business beat cancer

mark from m3 Networks and Les Johnson chat about continuing the fight started by his late wife

Who's Les Johnson and why is he featuring on this episode of the "Techcess" technology podcast?

Les Johnson is a remarkable human being.

And we're not just saying that because he's done some magnificent design work for us here at m3 Networks.

Les has a heart-breaking story.

And it's what brought him into joining in with the campaign "Business Beats Cancer".

From hearing his story, we knew we needed to help him however we can, and this episode is part of an effort to do so.

This week's episode also provides us with an opportunity for a call back to a previous episode guest.

Remember Alison Henderson from episode 40?

Alison joined us from Dundee and Angus Chamber of Commerce.

We'll let you listen to hear for yourself how Alison fits in with this week's episode 😉

If you or your business are in visiting distance of Dundee, then you'll definitely want to listen to this episode.

Either way, you'll hopefully feel like supporting our friend Les Johnson in his campaign to raise awareness and funds for this very worthwhile cause...

As you'll know if you're a regular listener to the "Techcess" technology podcast, we're very enthusiastic in raising awareness of good causes and charitable organisations.

What's on offer for any businesses around the Dundee are who want to get involved?

As Les explains, the organisers of this very worthwhile cause really want to give attendees an incredible night.

Any business in the area (or even from further afield if you're a Techcess fan!) that wants to donate either a prize of a cash donation, you can do so by contacting either Les or Alison directly.

Here is Les's LinkedIn profile for you to connect with him.

Here is Alison's.

Click this is you're hard of hearing and want to just download and read the episode as a PDF:

http://traffic.libsyn.com/techcess/Techess_52_Business_Beats_Cancer.pdf

In an area with restricted data? Click this for a smaller sized version of the episode.

Episode transcript preview

You would have probably already seen the link to the PDF above.

Here's a very quick sneak preview of that transcript of episode 52

"Welcome to Techcess

Les Johnson is joining me today to talk about "Business Beats Cancer Dundee", who are our charity partners for quarter three this year. And if you've been following the podcast, you'll know that we here at m3, we choose a charity once per quarter, so we support four charities per year, where we donate all of our customer feedback satisfaction to the charity and we convert all of that feedback into pounds. I mean, donate it at the end of the quarter. So Les is going to tell us all about the great work that they are doing over there and how you can get involved, and about a fantastic up and coming event that I'm sure you don't want to miss.

There is a little bit of a connection, actually in history with you, Les, and m3 because you actually designed the m3 Networks logo way back. It must be coming up for our 13th birthday next month. So many moons ago.

Les

Yep still going strong. Which is good. Sign of a good logo.

Mark

Yes, absolutely. It always gets mentioned, even now about how strong it looks with the colours and stuff. So, yeah, it stood well, the test of time. But we're not here to talk about us at m3 today. We're actually here to talk about Business Beats Cancer. And so maybe you can tell us a bit about, obviously the charity, what's been set up, what it does and who it's helping and things?

Les

Well, business beats cancer. The Dundee chapter. The idea is being knocking around for some time. I think it's been a case of getting the right people on board. I think having the right people on board determines the success of any chapter. Something like this. I mean, the reason I got involved is because this means a lot to me, this charity. My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago and the first time, basically, she didn't want to tell anybody, which was her right. She kept it very quiet. She went through twelve months of radiotherapy chemotherapy, she had a mastectomy, and twelve months later she got the all clear. So we thought brilliant! New start. We moved to Dunday, found a lovely house, we've got fantastic neighbours, majority of our friends are in Dundee. Ruth came on board "Creative Orange", left, her job came on board. So it's the start of a really good, new, exciting chapter. And then, of course, Covid comes along and I would say about two or three months into Covid, Ruth then gets the devastating news that the cancer is not only returned, but it's stage four. It's untreatable. She went through 18 months of absolute hell, every different chemo going with times when we were left without Oncologists. We even looked as far afield as going to Manchester every week to make sure she got the treatment that she needed, treatment she deserved. And some things worked, some things didn't. And then she started going downhill and downhill and I lost her in November, which was incredibly cruel.

So I know first-hand what this disease can do to people. It's a very cruel disease and when you watch the person you love the most just disappearing before you, it's horrible. So when I lost Ruth, obviously it was devastating, but I thought it was important to carry on the good work that she started. And so that's when I got involved with Business Beats Cancer Dundee, just because I thought I had some skill set that I could offer, but also I wanted to carry on the good work that we started and carry on the work in her memory. That's how I became involved. There's lots of people out there going through very similar things, but I think having the personal insight into just how cruel this disease is, it spurs you on all the more to try and do your best to make sure that one day we can eradicate this and just give people the best chance they can to get on with the lives. Because like I say, one in two is an absolutely devastating figure. So it's a disease that will unfortunately affect everybody in some way in the future, whether it be yourself or your wife or your husband or your daughter or your son or just a close family member. It's important that we beat this thing because it's a cruel and devastating disease, not just for the person that you lose, but also for the people that get left behind as well. Long story short, Ruth was actively involved at the start and her background was hospitality and setting up events like this. So Ruth was a very active member and I think she kind of drove a lot of this stuff forward. Obviously because of Covid and Lockdown and what have you, that put paid to a lot of the plans for us, especially for the launch event which is coming up."

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Mark Riddell's technology podcast "Techcess" is an m3 Networks production. Mark and the team have created this podcast to help you and their clients understand how technology can help them in their industry and business, including helping them with cyber security solutions. To find out more about Mark Riddell and the rest of the m3 team, visit them here and follow them on Linkedin.

If you want to get in touch about technology or cyber security, just address an email directly at Mark here. He'll be very happy to hear from you.

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