About Get Walking Keep Walking
Get Walking Keep Walking is the Ramblers flagship grant funded project which is gaining growing recognition from bodies such as the World Health Organisation and the Department of Health. It’s been designed especially to help inactive people improve their physical and mental health through everyday, independent walking and has been particularly targeted at people in deprived areas of inner cities. At the heart of Get Walking is a 12-week walking plan aimed at moving inactive people towards the Chief Medical Officer’s target of 30 minutes of moderate physical activity five times a week. Staff and volunteers run walking programmes based around the plan, usually based with community groups.The programmes are time limited: participants are encouraged to move on to other walking opportunities or walk independently once they’re complete.
Get Walking was originally funded by Ramblers Holiday Charitable Trust and the Big Lottery Fund to run programmes in Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and five London boroughs. But the word is spreading and new funders, for example NHS County Durham, are helping to spread the Get Walking message into new areas.
Where funding isn’t currently available we’re finding other ways to spread the spirit of Get Walking, including providing opportunities for links with Ramblers Areas and Groups. One example is Get Walking Day in May, when Ramblers volunteers are invited to organise short (no more than 8km/5-mile) easy walks for the public alongside major promotional events put on by the Get Walking projects.
The initial Get Walking project is being independently evaluated by CLES Consulting (The Centre for Local Economic Strategies). Their research with the 12,000 people who have participated local programmes over the first three years of the project has found good evidence that walking has increased significantly alongside a wide range of other benefits. The CLES reports are available at www.ramblers.org.uk/Walking/Projects/England/getwalking.
This case study focuses on one outcome of the project that was not one of the original targets but that helps to demonstrate the way funded projects like Get Walking and the more traditional activities of Ramblers Areas and Groups can complement each other. There are other examples of this from across the original locations, but Manchester is a particular case in point as Get Walking helped to establish a brand new Ramblers Group with a fresh approach to walking in the city.
About Manchester and Salford
The two local authority areas of Manchester and Salford fall within the Ramblers’ Greater Manchester and High Peak Area. Historically, while Ramblers Local Groups had been set up in the more suburban districts of Greater Manchester, there were no Groups covering the central districts of Manchester, Trafford and Salford. Instead the Area ran a programme which mainly consisted of coach trips out of the city to the surrounding countryside,
Manchester and Salford are post-industrial inner city areas with significant social and environmental problems. Salford is one of the more deprived areas in Greater Manchester, with high levels of unemployment, social housing and deprivation, but half of the city is made up of green space with extensive rivers and canals, with numerous opportunities for urban green walking.
Salle Dare and the Ramblers
Salle had always been involved in walking socially with family and friends and had been a ‘sleeping member’ of the Ramblers for around 15 years, only really getting involved when she retired. Salle was attracted to the campaigning aspect of the organisation, but originally joined to support the cause rather than to be actively engaged at a local level. Salle came into contact with Get Walking Keep Walking in Manchester through her role as Chair of the Local Involvement Network, which supports local people to get involved with health and social care issues. She volunteered for Get Walking as a route checker, checking the routes developed by other volunteers for local programmes, which then evolved into a role as a Community Champion. Having spent many years working in the NHS and the mental health sector, she had a wealth of experience and contacts which she used to help Get Walking become established and recognised locally.
Salle’s first involvement with the Ramblers at Area level was as Greater Manchester and High Peak Area Secretary, and she found the initial experience quite challenging as a newcomer when many of the existing committee members had held their roles for decades. Over time her involvement has contributed to the Area developing new ways of working that are arguably more effective and proactive than before. There is a now a real commitment to Group development which is strongly supported by the Area Chair.
Setting up Manchester and Salford Group
One of Salle’s first suggestions was to start to address the lack of Groups in the inner city by setting up a Group for the City of Manchester. While she was researching and publicising the idea, she met another Get Walking volunteer from Salford, and the decision was made to form a joint Manchester and Salford Group. Following an announcement in the Area newsletter, three people responded with interest and as a result a steering group was formed. This group circulated posters, wrote to potential members and advertised the new Group through a press release.
Initially the Area would only provide half the required £400 budget for the inaugural meeting at a local hotel so Salle obtained the balance from Get Walking. Salle was aware of the potential benefits of working together with Get Walking from the beginning and invited the Get Walking project officers to present at the launch event. The result was effectively a joint launch and, more widely, the beginning of successful working partnership. The launch event, which began with a successful walk, was attended by 40 people and enabled Salle to quickly put a committee together and get the Group off to a flying start.
How the Group works
The committee meets as and when is necessary to plan the walks programme, which is mainly made up of 4 – 5 mile walks and provides a natural follow-on for those who have been through the Get Walking programme and wish to continue walking. The Group also organises weekend trips away with some longer walks as well, which helps to provide variety and challenge for more able walkers.
The volunteers for the Group are made up of people who were already Ramblers members but were inactive, and people who first got involved with the Ramblers through Get Walking Keep Walking. Participants are generally not already Ramblers members; many are ex-Get Walking participants who appreciate shorter, more local walks. A core group of walk leaders has been recruited.They are mostly either experienced walkers or were involved with Get Walking Keep Walking, and they support the current programme of around 2-3 walks a month. Get Walking officers are accredited trainers for Walking for Health walks and the Group expects to take them up shortly on a longstanding offer to train its walk leaders. The Group hasn’t been promoted a great deal but there are currently 461 members with healthy attendances on walkls. 11 of these members are people who have been tracked through Get Walking and have gone on to join the Group.
The establishment of the Group has also bolstered the Ramblers’ traditional walking environment campaigning work, with volunteer footpath officers now at work in Manchester and Salford for the first time. A new Group has also been created covering neighbouring Trafford, with the support of Salle and the Area.
One of the most important lessons Salle learnt through the process of setting the Manchester and Salford group up has been that it’s essential to be welcoming and friendly to everyone expressing an interest in getting involved, and to find ways to involve them actively. The initial success factors are strongly linked to the enthusiasm of key volunteers, and through lots of people’s hard work and commitment. The programme is now established and the Group provides the important and supportive ‘next step’ for those moving on from Get Walking Keep Walking.
Bringing projects and Groups closer together
In Manchester and Salford and elsewhere, the collaboration between the Ramblers’ established Areas and Groups and Get Walking staff and volunteers is creating new opportunities to make walking accessible to more people. Increasing Ramblers membership was not a direct objective of the original Get Walking funding, but there are numerous ways in which it’s helped equip the Ramblers to recruit more effectively especially from audiences that are relatively new to walking. With the original funding due to end in December 2011, many of the tools developed through Get Walking will be made available across the organisation, and a number of them will be useful to Groups seeking to recruit new members.
If you’re interested in finding out more, look out for news of two volunteer workshops that are taking place in early May in Newcastle and London.
