The Crawley Wellbeing Programme are trying to promote something called Healthwalks at the moment.  It is not something I had heard of before tonight, but it sounds interesting.  The whole Healthwalks thing is organised by Walking the way to Health (WHI) which is a joint initiative between Natural England and the British Heart Foundation.

The idea of the scheme is to encourage people to go for a walk, especially those who get little exercise otherwise. These are not marathon hikes, just short, regular, local walks.  The walks are group walks, led by volunteer leaders, and that is where the Crawley Wellbeing thing comes in: they are looking for volunteers to be Walk Leaders.

There is a session on October 22nd at the Tilgate huts, which (I guess) explains the scheme and trains leaders. There is a leaflet about it all here so I’m not going to repeat it all.  For participants it looks like a way to get healthier, make new friends, and see some new places.  For volunteers it is all that plus the warm glow of helping and encouraging others to do the same.

The scheme is also running in Horsham, but looks a bit more established – more details are available on the WHI site.  If nothing else it might give the opportunity and impetus to go out and see some of the green fields between Horsham and Crawley before they all get built on.

Not that walking is high on my personal agenda at the moment, given recent events, but I might look into it when the groin is better.  The motto on the leaflet is “Have fun. Get some fresh air. Help your local community.“  Who can object to that?