A WEYMOUTH fitness fanatic is encouraging her customers to get fit and help raise money for a charity close to her heart.

Charmaine Bates, founder of TWC Fitness, has pledged to donate her week’s earnings from the classes she hosts this week to Weldmar Hospicecare Trust which looked after her late grandmother in her final days 10 years ago.

This is with the exception of pilates classes which are pre-booked weeks in advance.

Charmaine, 37, has been regularly donating to the hospice which offers palliative care in north, west and south Dorset.

She added that when her grandmother was in the Joseph Weld Hospice in Dorchester, staff made her extremely comfortable and provided the family with a lot of support, talking them through treatments and procedures.

In the past she has hosted and taken part in a range of fitness orientated events which she believes has raised up to £1,500 for the trust. The charity which relies on public funding for 75 per cent of its funds, the rest is donated by the NHS.

Charmaine said: “I will always donate and raise money for them through my work.

“I think people are quite used to the fact that we do this every year, I will always get involved in some way.”

Charmaine is encouraging everyone to get involved and try a class throughout this week that will not only benefit the person in terms of fitness but will also benefit the charity.

You can sign up to a class on at trainwithcharmaine.com/twc-fitness-classes/