1.
January
We kicked off the year in a way like no other by receiving our very own ‘PIF tick’, meaning that CoppaFeel! has been acknowledged as a trusted source of health information. A strong start, amirite?! Az Franco took to the Instagram stage, sharing how he gets to know his chest and inspiring us all to get to know our normal. Over at Boob HQ, we took our first steps towards become Bloody Good Employers, working with Bloody Good Period to ensure that no one is at a disadvantage because they menstruate.
2.
February
In February, Team Boobs received a visit from our founders Kris and Maren, to celebrate Kris’ 13th Cancerversary. Everyone in the team took a day to enjoy doing things that make us feel most alive (think wild swimming, gigs, pasta making, cute nephews and dancing with friends – Team Boobs know how to do a celebration). But despite our busy calendars, we couldn’t let Valentine’s Day pass by without making some noise. This year, we worked with Bravissimo, Scribbler and Avon who created all the goods you’d need for Valentine’s, all raising vital funds towards CoppaFeel!’s work. The love was truly in the air.
3.
March
After all the Zoom calls and ‘virtual-ness’ of the past 2 years, March was truly our reintroduction back to events for Team Boobs. Whilst our Fundraising Team attended Asda’s Tickled Pink Mother’s Day event and the Splash of Green Ball in Brighton, our Education Team fired up Belinda’s engines and took her on an outing to Birmingham to visit our first ever MegaCon show. Whilst we recruited Chewbacca as a new member of Team Boobs, our Boobettes and ambassadors started appearing on buildings around the UK. Yep, you heard that right, our pals at Open Media worked with us for International Women’s Day to highlight some exceptional women who work with CoppaFeel! on billboards up and down the country. The definition of going big.
Back at Boob HQ, we were taking big steps to becoming a more inclusive workplace. After some truly eye-opening training from Bloody Good Period, we launched a partnership with Ohne to provide period products to Team Boobs. If you ever take a visit to the Boob HQ bathrooms, you may notice our fully stocked boxes in each toilet. In the same month, CoppaFeel! was proud to be recognised as a Living Wage Employer, meaning that we have committed to paying a real Living Wage which meets everyday needs. You could say March was a busy month.
4.
April
If you’re a long-standing supporter of CoppaFeel!, you’ll know that we never let April Fools go by without playing a little joke or two. This year, we decided the world needed ‘Invisimitt’. Brought to you by our pals at Skinny Tan, we fooled our followers into thinking we’d launched a new tanning mitt that responds to movement and the heat of your skin to give you the sensation of touching your breasts with your fingertips. So, it was a joke, but we weren’t joking around when we said you should try out the CoppaFeel! Self-Checkout to guide you through a chest check. In fact, this year we have had 25,000 new visitors to our Self-Checkout! That’s a staggering amount of people getting to know what’s normal for them.
5.
May
In May, we celebrated our team, welcoming Vicky Pattison as an official CoppaFeel! Patron, as well as celebrating 10 years of our Director of Business Support, Hen. We celebrated how we know best…with cake of course!
Move over Academy Awards, the incredible Asda Tickled Pink partnership swept the stage in May winning not one, but two awards for the Better Society Award for Partnership with a Health Charity and the Third Sector Business Charity Award for Long-term Partnership. We’re so grateful for everyone who works on the Tickled Pink partnership, and proudly shared the news with Team Boobs.
But May didn’t end there. Our Health Information Manager Clare, launched our first ever CPD accredited webinars for International Nurses Day and International Midwives Day, training health professionals in how to speak confidently about breast awareness to their patients. In other healthcare news, Superdrug worked with us to update their breast health information, so that anyone attending a Superdrug Health Clinic can access information about breast awareness.
6.
June
June marked the halfway point for 2022, as well as the first of our CoppaTrek! With Gi challenges proudly sponsored by Regatta Great Outdoors. We saw Gi Fletcher, Megan Jayne Crabbe, Sophie Piper, Kiri Pritchard-Mclean, Amy Dowden and 100 trekkers take on 100km of the Pembrokeshire coast line in the name of boobs. What a phenomenal bunch of people they are.
Back at HQ, we launched one of our brand new films showcasing breast cancer stories from our community. We chatted to Gabriella and Joel about their family history with the BRCA gene mutation. Our Education team also got chatting to our community, conducting our first ever Volunteering Survey to hear all about our supporter’s views on volunteering for CoppaFeel!.
I know what you’re thinking…that’s a busy 6 months. At Boob HQ, we thought the team might be in need of some TLC, so we invited some special (fluffy) guests for a meeting at Boob Towers. No, we couldn’t keep the puppies, but yes, we did ask. Our pals at Cuddle Club are now honorary members of Team Boobs.
7.
July
In July, our founder Kris put on her best presenter voice to visit the BBC Studios and record our very own Radio 4 appeal. For a whole week, CoppaFeel! was chosen as Radio 4’s Charity Appeal helping to raise awareness about our work and encourage people to support our mission.
Our Content and Community Executive Kim also became a presenter in her own right, explaining why we decided to launch alt captions across all our channels. You can now spot alternative text on all our social media channels, to help make our information more accessible. Another first for CoppaFeel!, Team Boobs began to trial a 9-day fortnight, using ‘Flex Fridays’ to focus on life, wellbeing and fun!
8.
August
Whilst Team Boobs adjusted to the new ways of working, our Uni Boob Team class of ‘22 ‘graduated’ from boob duty in true CoppaFeel! style with ‘Vulva education’ from This is a Vulva. Our Uni Boob Team leaders work tirelessly to spread awareness on their campuses and paved the way for the class of 22-23 to continue their hard work!
Whilst Boobette Mary hosted her one-of-a-kind ‘Tractor Run’ for CoppaFeel!, 31 new Boobettes were recruited to join the team. We love welcoming new friends to the CoppaFeel! family, and are so appreciative of the impact of the Boobettes. This year is their 10th anniversary, and in 2022 alone they have delivered over 200 talks, educating people up and down the UK about the importance of getting to know their chest. What a bunch of superstars.
August was rounded off with a special guest visit at Boob HQ from the wonderful Avon team, where we celebrated their continuing efforts in championing our chest checking message within their community (whilst also raising £85K in the first half of 2022 alone!). We’re always fans of tea and cake, and epic content creation with our guests!
9.
September
September was the new October this year with lots of fun activities beginning in anticipation of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Whilst our Education team attended Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place festival and the Royal College of Midwives conference, and Phoebe, our EDI manager, represented CoppaFeel! at the One Young World Summit, we were busy planning our own events back at Boob HQ. That’s right, after 3 long years of waiting, we were ecstatic to be able to welcome people back to Festifeel. With our very special headliners McFly, we filled every inch of Omeara, London with all the boob love, all thanks to our generous sponsors Metro.co.uk.
But the fun didn’t stop there. Whilst some brave supporters took on the Great North Run, 150 eager recruits also embraced the rolling hills of Yorkshire to take on the Three Peaks Challenge to raise funds for the Tickled Pink Partnership. We remain blown away by the generous support (and incredible courage!) of all our supporters.
Team Boobs continued to have some incredible training this month, with our lovely friends at WhizzKidz visiting HQ to start some open discussions with the team about accessibility. With the build up to Breast Cancer Awareness Month approaching, we recognised that this time of year can be an emotional time for many people, which is why we were delighted to partner with Self Space to create some useful resources for our community.
10.
October
For those who are new to CoppaFeel!, you may not know that October is a big deal in the breast cancer world. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM), a time when the whole nation gets talking about breast health and the importance of knowing your body. Kinda a big deal. In fact, so much happened in BCAM, that it may take a whole month to explain. So we’ve turned it into bullet points…
This BCAM we:
- Launched first-of-their-kind resources for people with learning difficulties
- Won the Third Sector award for Best Service Delivery Innovation for our Self-Checkout
- Attended the ‘Lets talk about Black Women and Breast Cancer’ annual conference
- Worked with Paralympic Champion Erin Kennedy to launch the ‘Changing Room Challenge’, encourage sports clubs and gyms to pop our shower stickers in their changing rooms! (In fact, 6000 shower stickers were ordered in October alone!)
- Asda launched the ‘Real Self-Checkout’ campaign featuring our own real self-checker
- Celebrated 30 Years of Avon’s ‘Breast Cancer Promise’ with amazing products that donated towards our cause, a boob census and their Know Your Normal campaign and much more to raise vital funds and awareness.
- Worked with our amazing partners Asda, Avon, Bravissimo, Desenio, Fabletics, Eylure, Graham and Brown, Lounge, Mama Mio, Olivia’s and Skinny Tan on some incredible campaigns raising funds and awareness towards our work.
- Cheered on our supporters took on the London Marathon in the name of boobs!
To top off the month, we were over the moon to have a special visit at Boob HQ by none other than Ella Vaday and Donna, who openly talked about their experience with Donna’s breast cancer diagnosis and what breast awareness means to them.
We know…that’s a lot for one month, but it is CoppaFeel!’s birthday month after all. To celebrate 13 years of CoppaFeel! (yep, we’re a teenager now), we set about decorating some pretty epic boob biscuits. I mean, how else would you celebrate?!
11.
November
You may think that we would spend the beginning of November recovering from the MOMENT that was BCAM, but no…our very own Polly, Eleanor and Jenna joined Giovanna Fletcher, Vicky Pattison, Pete Wicks, Kelsey Parker, Candice Brown and Dr Emeka in the Sahara Desert for our SECOND CoppaTrek! of the year. And my oh my did they all smash it. Not only did our trekkers make it through 100km of challenging terrain, but they also hit the £1 million mark for this year’s CoppaTreks! We know…they’re all legends.
Back in London, Asda Tickled Pink hosted the fantastic Tickled Pink ball, which casually raised over £700K towards the Tickled Pink charities. Team Boobs had a constant fuzzy feeling inside throughout all of the month, in awe of all the people who support our cause.
We’re always grateful for the vital funds raised by our supporters, to help us develop new ways to reach young people with our life-saving message. In fact, this month we launched a brand new Pregnancy Booklet with Tommy’s, with information about your breasts during and after pregnancy.
Over in our marketing team, we were conjuring new ways of getting our message out to the world. And we mean on a BIG scale. That’s why we worked with Tyla and Lawless Studios to take over an entire wall in London with our Know Yourself campaign. No, we never do things in halves.
12.
December
And that brings us to the end of 2022. At Boob HQ we rounded off the year with a refurb of our office (including some pretty exceptional wallpaper – see below). Our friends at Scribbler and Barry M helped us with some last minute Christmas essentials, whilst Team Boobs’ very own Christmas elves decked out Boob Towers with our very own tree (boob-themed decorations of course a given).
And what better way to round off the year than to work with Black Ballad UK. Our research into health inequities has highlighted the need for authentic representation and tailored work to ensure that our breast health message is relevant to all young people. We are over the moon to be working with Black Ballad to help ensure our message is reaching more Black communities.
