Blog
March 2017
Children and young people could be getting outdoors a lot more in 2017 with Get Out More. Our project is one of five groups competing in the Yorkshire region for up to £50,000 of National Lottery funding in ITV’s People’s Projects competition. Get Out More is calling for your vote to run The Outdoor Adventure Club, a year-long programme of outdoor activities making use of Keighley’s woodlands and parks.
The Big Lottery Fund, ITV and The National Lottery have announced the shortlist of 5 projects for Yorkshire, which includes Get Out More’s Outdoor Adventure Club. The groups with the most public votes will secure a grant of up to £50,000.
Our friends and supporters are urged to visit www.thepeoplesprojects.org.uk and vote for the Outdoor Adventure Club*. Voting opens at 9am on 20 March and closes on 3 April, with the winner announced on Thursday 6 April.
The proposed project is the Outdoor Adventure Club; a programme of outdoor activities for children, young people and families in Keighley, bringing people and communities together to take part in positive activities which promote health and wellbeing. The Club was piloted in Keighley East in 2016 when over 150 children and young people took part in after school, weekend and holiday sessions.
Get Out More Director Annie Berrington says “We are very lucky to have a wonderful range of green and wild spaces around Keighley which have the potential to offer fantastic opportunities for activity, play and socialising. This programme would work with children and young people across Keighley, helping children to be more active and adventurous and make friends with others from different communities.
When I was a child we played out all the time, but these days children spend a lot more time indoors playing with computer technology – contributing to some worrying statistics about rising obesity and mental health problems. The Outdoor Adventure Club gets children active outdoors, safely supervised by qualified outdoor leaders. ”
The Outdoor Adventure Club will consist of after school, weekend and holiday programmes for children, young people and families and includes plans to work with local people to develop more skilled workers and volunteers to help with projects. It also aims to work with local groups who are improving the beautiful but underused woods and green spaces in Keighley, such as Park Wood, Hainworth Wood, North Beck, Guard House Allotments & Damems Nature Reserve so they are easier to access and safer places to visit.
Get Out More is calling on everyone’s support, with the public voting online at www.thepeoplesprojects.org.uk to decide who wins the prize. On Thursday 23 March Get Out More will showcase the Outdoor Adventure Club on Calendar News at 6pm.
*People without email addresses can vote by post by sending a postcard to ‘Freepost THE PEOPLE’S PROJECTS’. To be counted, the following details must be written on the postcard: name, address, telephone number and the name of the project voted for. Please send your postal vote by last post Wednesday 29 March 2017. Postal votes must be received by noon on Monday 3rd April 2017.
Get Out More has been helping parents in Bowling and Barkerend areas of Bradford get fit and feel good, thanks to funding received from the Go:Walking programme which aims to encourage more people to walk more often. In partnership with Better Start Bradford, a community-led programme who work with families with young children, and interpretation service Enable 2, the 10 week programmes have helped women from Asian communities discover local walks and meet others mums and grandmothers.
“I am more active and its stress relief from depression. I didn’t know any of these ladies before but I’ve made new friends”
Evaluation of the programme showed that not only had the walks significantly increased the amount of exercise each week, but the women had improved their English and made new friends, helping them feel happier and more relaxed.
“Walking keeps us fit and healthy. Walking in a group encourages us to be more active and takes us out of depression. Staying indoors is very depressing. My baby is a handful so it’s good to have an excuse to get out of the house!”
As well as getting to know local green spaces like Peel Park and Myra Shay, Annie from Get Out More led walks in local beauty spots like Saltaire and St Ives estate. All the women agreed they would like to walk more often and get to know more of the Bradford area.
“We would like to do more walks, it’s better for our health. People would be sat at home but they are out in the fresh air. Very nice – bodies working, brain is happy, everybody friends”
Get Out More has worked alongside other volunteers to unearth the hidden history of local woodlands. The initiative is part of the ‘Celebrating Our Woodland Heritage’ project from Pennine Prospects, a mass archaeological survey of woodlands across the South Pennines region, which stretches from Blackburn to Ilkley.
This February Ruth McBain, Get Out More’s Forest School Manager, volunteered on the first of a 4 day survey of Middleton Woods in Ilkley. These woods, which were mentioned in the Domesday Book and were historically over 20 times their present size, would hopefully reveal some stories…
Chris Atkinson, archaeologist and Woodland Heritage Officer for Pennine Prospects, led the survey and introduced the group to the field survey techniques being used and the data to be collated. Armed with tape measures, GPS devices, cameras & survey sheets, the volunteers spent the day covering the north-eastern section of the woodland with interesting results.
Ruth, who regularly runs our holiday forest school sessions in Middleton Woods, in addition to walking her dog there, commented “I really enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about my local woodlands. It was fascinating to discover two charcoal platforms, used historically for the local production of charcoal and to know that they were using small (probably coppiced) oak and hazel trees for this. It’ll be interesting to share some of this knowledge at future forest school sessions, perhaps when we make charcoal in a tin.”
Volunteering on this community archaeology project forms part of Get Out More’s commitment to invest its profits into communities and woodlands in which the social enterprise works. Chris Atkinson thanked the volunteers, saying, “The information produced will go a great way towards identifying patterns in woodland development and their uses over time.” To volunteer at future surveys, please contact Chris Atkinson on 07582 101691 or [email protected] or for information about the project visit: http://www.celebrate-our-woodland.co.uk/.