Flow
Follow the development of our ®One Million Women Walking Community.
Flow
Follow the development of our ®One Million Women Walking Community.
This is where we will share with you the seeds of growth and the evolution of my mission…
…which is to impact the lives of one million women through walking. The development happens every day through all aspects of my work. However, this is a big mission and it needs many more people in addition to me to make it happen.
One way that this evolves daily is through the amazing Facebook group ®One Million Women Walking which was set up in November 2019. This group is for anyone who loves walking. It doesn’t matter whether they walk many miles every day or only walk in good weather or the weekend. They can be women just wanting to get started in walking and we have women who are limited in their ability to walk as well as those who take on multiple walk challenges annually. You can be anywhere in the world, and you are. You can post photos daily or not at all. Hopefully, you appreciate the holistic nature of this simple activity.
At the moment, halted by COVID, what we do is online but there are plans to consider how we might take this group across other platforms and to take it offline too. A group of us were just about to take park, should be part in person, in a sponsored walk along the Thames Path in the UK supporting diabetes.co.uk but also being visible as ®One Million Women Walking through wearing sashes. There will be many walks like this happening all over the world and similar events too which enable us to be visible and spread the word about walking as the power force it is.
One thing that women wanted from the group was to belong and also to meet others local to them to walk with.
Many women feel more comfortable and safer walking with others and there is also the joy that one gets when you can share wonderful scenery with someone else. I run a walking group in and around London and the South East but that limits who I can walk with and I cannot walk with everyone. So one of the things we want to look at is setting up ®One Million Women Walking walking groups world wide and organising Walk Leader Training off or online for those women who choose to lead. In that way we can have a directory of walking groups so you can find one near to you.
There are ideas for merchandise, especially something to identify us as members of this wonderful movement.
The relevance of this came to me first when I was aware that, on one particular weekend, about 5 groups of our women were all out walking on the South Downs. Then a few weeks later my walking group were walking along the Thames in London and were stopped by a lady who asked if we were ®One Million Women Walking? She just felt we were and it was so lovely to share a few minutes chat on the path before she had to head off. So many others might have wondered and walked on past. We want to be able to come together and share the joy and the difference we are making. As a group, we all talked about the need to recognise each other and made a decision there and then to have some large badges done that could be worn on hats, tops, jackets, rucksacks etc so that people can identify us. This will be happening soon.
Later this year the Round England Coastal Path is due to be completed. At present, there are many sections that can be walked but how wonderful to be able to walk it all. This is something to be celebrated and I have an image of a relay being walked in 5 – 10-mile sections with us ®One Million Women Walking members walking together, bringing friends and spreading the word. This gives me the opportunity to get ‘out on the road’ and make contact with women all over as well as leading walks and workshops, exploring new paths, holding Walk Retreats and who knows what else. This kind of thing can be replicated worldwide.
We’ll be looking for Walk Ambassadors as well as organisations and businesses to partner with as all this develops.
I hope this has given you a flavour of our plans. This page will grow and be the hub for much of this work going forward so visit often and to ensure you don’t miss anything, sign up to become part of the Inner Circle because there, you get the news first!
