We all know walking is great for you and most of us know we don’t do enough. Did you also know that volunteering has loads of health and wellbeing benefits too?
By volunteering with Walking for Health there are lots of different roles that you can do. You could discover how to be a great leader. Or find out more about marketing and promotion. Or you could enhance your database or communication skills.
As a volunteer, you’ll get support and advice from your local scheme and the national Walking for Health team.
Tim has recently trained to be a walk leader
Tim explains:
“Part of my job is to support walking groups across Devon, so I jumped at the chance to undertake my walk leader training with the Ramblers, who alongside Macmillan Cancer support, run the Walking for Health scheme nationally. This was also a necessary step towards me being able to deliver the training myself to walk leaders in Devon.
“Throughout the day we got to know each other and explored topics like what makes a good leader, how to complete the paperwork, tackling difficult scenarios and what makes a health walk. For example, how do you ensure that your walk is safe and inclusive and encourage people to join? All in all the day was really fun and interesting.
“About six weeks later I got the chance to lead a short walk in Dawlish, so having recce’d the route, done a risk assessment and contacted all the walkers, we met up at Dawlish leisure centre on a day of sunshine and showers for a 30 minute walk.
“We walked at a steady pace, ensuring that everyone stayed roughly together and soon enough all you could hear was the chatter as people got to know each other along the way. Its proven that walking makes you more creative and you could definitely hear the animation in people’s voices as they are walking and talking.
“A fantastic experience that I can’t recommend enough and I can’t wait to lead my next walk!”
