Cancer diagnosis inspired Wiltshire event that led to award nomination

Mo Squires and the Wiltshire County Netball Association put on the women's health event in Swindon last year

A netball group that has been raising awareness of female health following a member's cancer diagnosis has been shortlisted for a national award.

Mo Squires, who was diagnosed with endometrial cancer in 2022, set up the Women's Health and Wellbeing Netball Festival, raising £18,000.

She said the event "started from a bad position and turned into a positive".

Wiltshire County Netball Association has now been entered into the Community and Sport Recreation Alliance Awards.

Mo Squires (centre) was diagnosed with endometrial cancer in September 2022

Ms Squires, whose cancer has now returned, said she tries to "live as normally as I can for as long as I can", which includes her love of netball and music.

"They've diagnosed that I have bowel cancer and that the gynae cancer has returned. This time round, it's not curable," she said.

"According to the oncologist, I'm very unlucky that it's happened again. Being a mathematician, I've studied statistics, someone needs to be in that three to five percent - unfortunately, it's me."

Ms Squires set up the event, which was held in May last year, to help others identify irregularities early.

About 400 players aged 10 to 80 came to the event in May last year

The event welcomed hundreds of netball players of all ages to take to court and combined multi-generational netball tournaments with information from health professionals.

The day was filled with personal stories around women's health, with Ms Squires known for telling people "if it's not normal for you, get it checked".

Ms Squires said: "I know of at least two people who [were checked] since that event.

"One person thought her skin looked unusual and decided to get it checked. They diagnosed breast cancer. Within two weeks, she'd had two surgeries and radiotherapy.

"Somebody else felt a lump and got onto that. They said if it hadn't been for the project, they wouldn't have done something as quickly."

Money raised through the event went to Prospect Hospice, Macmillan and Brighter Futures.

Now England Netball has nominated the netball association into the awards resilience and adversity category.

The winners of the awards will be announced by the Duke of Edinburgh at an award ceremony in Leeds in March.