To promote the Health, Fitness and Wellbeing of the Citizens of the Greater Portsmouth Area through Healthy Eating, Walking, Exercise, Music and Friendship.

People of all ages, backgrounds and abilities from the Greater Portsmouth Area.

GROUP PHILOSOPHY

WFP was formed as a not-for-profit group to provide a total ‘holistic’ approach to health and healthy walks.

Physical inactivity is one of the leading causes of illness and death in the UK and costs the NHS in excess of £8 billion a year. About 70% of the population do not take the minimum amount of moderate exercise recommended by the UK Chief Medical Officer of Health, which is 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week.

As a result conditions such as Coronary Heart Disease, Diabetes, Certain Cancers, Obesity and Mental Health Problems are on the increase. Moderate exercise such as walking is beneficial for these and many other conditions.

Statistics show that Portsmouth is one of the more unhealthy cities in the UK and we aim to address this problem by providing ‘preventive medicine’ through our programme.

The official definition of health provided by the World Health Organisation is as follows.

“Health is a state of Physical, Mental and Social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.

With this definition in mind we have provided the unique, comprehensive programme which is outlined below and detailed in this website.

ACTIVITIES

The activities provided fall into two main categories, Walking and Social. All our walks are led and risk assessed by qualified Walk Leaders. Our social activities such as Skittles and Tai Chi are usually run in co-operation with Buckland Community Centre. All our activities will be published on this Website.

WALKING

Walking Friends Portsmouth will provide regularly weekly walks from the locations listed below. As an accredited Walking for Health (WfH) organisation we are required to provide short walks for beginners to encourage inactive people to exercise. All our locations therefore promote two walks, a short walk for beginners (40 mins) and a slightly longer walk (45 to 55 mins) for those people who have already started regular walks.  All walks start at the times shown below:-

The physical, mental and social benefits of country walks are well documented and publicised so we will continue to provide regular monthly ‘Country’ walks outside the City to cater for those people who would like more challenging walks as they get fitter. Most of these will be up to 6 miles long in a variety of locations such as the New Forest and the Hampshire and Sussex Downs. Other longer walks can be provided if there is a demand. Until now we have been able to support one of the monthly country walks with coaches thanks to successful grant funding bids. See later sections on Finance and Transport.

Julia Revill, our Nordic Walking Co-ordinator, leads a regular Nordic Walk from Staunton Country Park on Thursday afternoons and a regular monthly Nordic Walk in Queen Elizabeth Country Park. We actively encourage our members to use their poles, especially on our country walks.

We will promote Charity Walks such as Langstone, (organised by Portsmouth and Hayling Lions), the Isle of Wight Hospice and Rowans Hospice. Because we are a completely inclusive group we have several visually impaired members who are encouraged to attend our country walks. We were also recently invited to join some Disabled Ramblers for a walk in the New Forest; they use buggies to explore the countryside and eighteen of our members attended for a very enjoyable day.

SOCIAL

Chairman, Stan Spooner, is a Trustee and member of the Management and Social Committee of Buckland Community Centre. Because of this connection most of our social activities are centred around Buckland C. C. These events include Skittles Evenings, Barn Dances, Senior Citizens Parties, Charity Concerts and New Age Kurling (provided by Portsmouth Football Club Study Centre).

Other events from Buckland include coach trips to venues such as the Glastonbury Festival, Camden Market and the Ice Show at Brighton. Vice Chairman Les also organizes an annual walking holiday at Shanklin on the Isle of Wight which has become very popular with members.

Stan is also a Trustee and member of the Management Committee of Southsea Community Centre and compiles annual reports on our activities for each Community Centre and the Great Salterns Society.

Walking Friends Portsmouth is managed by a committee which is governed by a written constitution. Following the 2011 AGM, the committee members are :-

The Management Committee is supported by a Programme Sub-Committee and a
Finance Sub-Committee.

Detailed and more precise Terms of Reference are being prepared for Committee Officers for inclusion in an updated Constitution.

Walk Leaders who are not members of the Management Committee are encouraged to attend meetings to provide input because they are at the forefront of delivering all our activities. In particular, they are encouraged to suggest walks and other activities for inclusion in the programme.

It would seem that some financial institutions, such as Banks, prefer to provide grants to Charities so active consideration is being given to WFP becoming a charity.

LEADERS

We now have 17 active Walk Leaders trained to Walking for Health standards and we are very grateful for their commitment and dedication. Their experience and individual skills are vital to our success, without their support we would not be able to sustain our programme.

Both Les Parkhurst and Eileen Phyall are Cascade Trainers which enables us to train Walk Leaders in the shortest possible time from interest to appointment.

We are affiliated to The Ramblers and we use guidelines provided by them as an addition to Walking for Health information.

FINANCE AND INSURANCE

TRANSPORT

We appreciate that many of our members do not own a car and we therefore try to arrange some country walks utilising public transport. We have also encouraged car sharing when we are not able to provide transport for our country walks.

The funding provided by the grants listed in the Finance Section above has been extremely important in allowing us to provide transport for country walks. Because funding is not available to provide one coach supported country walk a month we have reduced these to one every two months and will have to rely more on car sharing. However car-sharing walks usually attract 20 or less members rather than the 40 or so on coach supported walks mentioned earlier, so fewer of our members will enjoy the benefits of country walks. This will be kept under review in the hope that our financial situation will improve.

Our links to the Portsmouth Climate Change Group and our transport policy reflect our concern for the environment. We are very aware of the effects of road traffic pollution and will always try to seek the maximum benefit for our members whilst minimising pollution.

MARKETING

Marketing is an extremely important core activity of any organisation and we have actively pursued various marketing ploys since our formation in 2008. Using the extensive community experience of Chairman many useful links have been established with organisations such as the NHS, Community First and Walking World and we have been interviewed on Express FM, Radio Solent and Portsmouth TV.

We are trying to market ourselves to Health Trainers and Health Pharmacies and Stan has been in touch with local politicians and spoken to the PCC Councillor responsible for Health and Wellbeing. We have also attended Breakfast Briefings at Lakeside 1000 to expand our networks and appeal to the social conscience of Companies.

We continue to use Flyers and our Website as main marketing tools and committee member Stella Roberts is in regular contact with the NEWS to publicise our walks in the weekend guide. We are very grateful to our Web Master John Cozens for producing an eye-catching Website.

The quarterly Walking Friends Notes (Dates for the Diary) is still a very useful medium for communicating with our members, which is important because we do not see all our members at the same time. To ensure that all members receive this information we send the Notes out by post which has increased our administration costs.

We have attended various ‘Day’ events such as Carers, Bones, Volunteering and the Dockyard Health Fair where we have been able to set up our display stand which has always attracted a great deal of interest. So successful has this been that we have bought a larger stand which allows us to expand our advertising.

The group has sought advice from a marketing professional and has been advised to produce a Marketing Plan using the guidance provided. This will be followed up in the near future

DEVELOPMENT

Natural England are losing some 800 staff over a 2 year period and from 2011 will no longer be responsible for the Walking for Health (WfH) movement. Assurances have been given to walking groups that there will still be support for WfH by another organization, especially in crucial areas such as Accreditation, Walk Leader Training and general administration support. It is hoped that completely voluntary groups such as ours will still be able to function as we did under Natural England.

We continue to have strong links with Tai Chi and Falls Prevention (through Debbie Pentland), Portsmouth Voices (Janet Ayers) and the Victory Singers who regularly entertain Community Groups; there is growing evidence that singing is beneficial for Alzheimer sufferers. We are also actively supporting the campaign for Bowel Cancer and we are still committed to encouraging more males into the group and developing our links with groups such as disabled people and the visually impaired.

The Finance Sub-Committee has met several times, a major aim being the use of a computer for accounting purposes. This is still under development but the plan is to go live late June or early July 2011.

SUMMARY

1. Our vision for the future includes actively supporting the NHS with our programme of ‘preventive medicine’. In this era of budget constraints we want to help the service meet its objectives in areas where moderate exercise can be beneficial, such as Coronary Heart Disease, Bowel Cancer, Rheumatology, Diabetes, Strokes, COPD, Obesity and Psychology (Mental Health). Stan is in communication with Solent Healthcare and is a member of the Older Persons Panel at Community First. He is also a member of LINK which is shortly to become Health Watch.

Written and verbal testimonials from our members show that we are making a major contribution to the health and wellbeing of citizens of the Greater Portsmouth Area at the very modest cost of about £7000.00 a year. As a group run entirely by unpaid volunteers we think that we are an example of the Big Society in action. We hope that Central and Local Government Departments and Funding Organisations will recognise our contribution to ‘Health’ and help us to sustain our comprehensive programme.

2. To continue developing our programme we now need to focus on key points such as:-

a.   Covering our Core Costs.

b.   Fund Raising and Applications for Grant Funding.

c.   Charity Status

d.   Revision of Constitution.

e.  Marketing Plan.

f.   Computerisation of our Accounts.

g.   Review of Insurance Cover.

h.   Re-accreditation By Walking for Health.