Norfolk furniture company Aldiss has more than tripled its fund raising target for the year and donated �16,000 to Macmillan Cancer Support.

Staff at Aldiss, which has stores in Norwich and Fakenham, voted for the cancer charity to be their charity of the year and approached them a year ago, asking how much they would like to be raised.

Macmillan Cancer Support set a target of �2,500 at each store but the Norwich store, which has 47 members of staff, raised about �4,000, and the Fakenham store, which has 108, raised �11,500.

The Aldiss family made a contribution to take the total amount up to �16,000.

Paul Clifford, Aldiss managing director, said: 'Macmillan Cancer Support is a charity that really struck a chord with all of our staff and customers and I'd like to thank them all.

'We always look to raise money for local charities and all of the money we have raised will be used locally.

'If it hadn't been for the tremendous support from our customers this would have been a non-event.'

Sara Wilson, administrator at the Norwich store, co-ordinated the fund raising there.

She said: 'We've had raffles and coffee mornings and one staff member, Keith Lebbell, performed a concert with his band. But everyone here chipped in and done their bit.'

Helen Chapman, fund raising manager for Macmillan Cancer Support, said: 'It's been a fantastic experience working with Aldiss for the last year and we are very grateful for the money they have raised.

'Aldiss has given staff time off to do some of their fund raising which is very nice to see because not many companies would do that.'