Step into the New Year with Walkie Talkies

If you’re looking for a new way to get active and connect in the New Year, look no further than Walkie Talkies walking sessions led by women, for the women of Great Yarmouth. Andy Oakley from Active Norfolk explains more

I’m Andy Oakley, and I work as an Active Communities Officer for Great Yarmouth. My role is focussed on promoting the benefit and use of being physically active in supporting people to maintain physical, mental and social wellbeing. Ultimately encouraging people to move a bit more.

I work closely with local partners, community groups, and activity providers to develop and support initiatives that encourage physical activity. My aim is to make being active something that feels achievable and enjoyable for everyone, regardless of age, ability, or background.

Active Norfolk is an organisation dedicated to increasing physical activity across the county. We work with communities, health services, social care and local authorities to create opportunities for people to move more, improve their health, and connect socially. It’s about tackling inactivity and supporting people to lead healthier, happier lives.

The Walkie Talkies launched in November as part of the Sport England Place Partnership project that we have been working on this year. It came out of a dedicated piece of work where through a data review with partners, we identified a need and energy to focus on physical activity opportunities for women. This led us to focus on areas of inequality within some of the most deprived areas of the Borough of Great Yarmouth and gather the voice of local women to hear what they want and what they need. Through the course of our work, we developed opportunities to engage with various groups through direct consultation by ourselves, online surveys via school partners and through the use of ‘Community Voices’, an approach led by NHS Norfolk & Waveney ICB. The community voices approach is to use locally trusted organisations to reach the target audiences whose voices we wanted to hear from. Through these approaches we were inquisitive about the opportunities that local women had to be active, their interests, local knowledge, ideas, experiences and the barriers that prevented them from participating. Through this process we developed an insight bank on common themes.

Using over 140 conversations so far, we found key findings around:

Current activities – including walking (most common), gardening, dog walking, swimming/aquafit, gym, yoga/Pilates, dance.

Desired activities – including swimming/aquafit, dance/Zumba, yoga/Pilates, strength training, longer walks.

The women we spoke to wanted fun, affordable, supportive physical activity that was flexible around their current commitments in both time and location. Regularly perceived barriers to participation included provisions being too expensive and held at times that were inconvenient due to work and childcare. A common theme was highlighted around low confidence and fear of judgement, which also acted as a deterrent to women in maintaining physical activity or trying something new. Through these conversations we were able to hear how they would like to overcome some of these barriers and how we might work with them to do so. This included the creation of women-only sessions, and a supportive (buddy) system to encourage participation. In addition, improved timetabling of sessions, targeting free time such as after school drop-offs, and offering taster sessions without being locked into membership or made to feel guilty for missing sessions were also suggested. While other ideas are being considered and worked on, an initial drive to create a new walking group aimed at giving women the time and space following the school drop off was decided upon. The offer is open to any and all women and just so happens to begin each of the sessions from a locally engaged school.

It is still early days, but we have had several participants and many enquiries. Promotion and awareness of this opportunity is key to engagement, so the more we can talk about it and share the details, the greater the reach becomes and the more women we can provide this opportunity to. Through the launch of our new Active GY Facebook page, the Walkie-Talkies social pages have seen 5,600 Facebook views with a reach of 2,800 people. I appreciate that this time of year to launch an outdoor offer isn’t the best, but we will persevere and show commitment to those that want to take part. In doing so, we will have established a regular walking group right in time for the New Year, which could help people hit those resolutions to be more active. The sustainability plan for this is to encourage participants to sign up to become walk leaders themselves through free training, so that they can continue to enable the weekly walks and even increase the frequency. Meanwhile I can look to create new starting locations linked to other Primary schools in the Borough.

You can find out about the Walkie-Talkies: days, times and locations via the new Active GY Facebook page along with a raft of other physical activity opportunities for all. Local partners also sharing the promotional posters include Great Yarmouth family hubs, Great Yarmouth Sport & Leisure Trust, Feathers Futures and Great Yarmouth Borough Council, to name a few.

Other initiatives in the pipeline include early conversations with the Marina and Phoenix Leisure Centre teams around focussed women’s groups/sessions based on the insight we have gathered. Nothing I can commit to sharing just yet. However, as part of my work through the Sport England Place Partnership project, I do have some ideas developing around making better use of some of our open green spaces in the Borough and I am optimistic that in the New Year I should have some exciting new opportunities to share with you, specifically for primary aged children and their families across multiple locations of the Borough! Whether you’re looking to boost your wellbeing, meet new people, or simply enjoy a refreshing walk, Walkie Talkies is the perfect place to start.

Walkie Talkies – Great Yarmouth is a collaboration between Great Yarmouth Borough Council, Active Norfolk & Sport England. Email info@activenorfolk.org for more information.