05/09/2026
๐And just like that we are now 4 years old!๐
The time seems to have flown by. It started back in the summer of 2022 with Raoul's idea to form a men's walking group to support mental health and look how we've grown since then! The ladies asked why they couldn't join in and the Walks 4 Wellbeing Mixed group was quickly created.
The following year Erewash Borough Council asked if we could run the Accessible Walk we'd been talking about. It was so successful that although it was initially a one off walk for Erewash Walking Month, the monthly Accessible Walk & Talk was formed at West Park.
Now we help Active Erewash train new Walk Leaders and support many other walking groups, helping them to get set up, write their first risk assessments and advertise their walks if they don't have a website or public social media presence. We've trained up and supported walk leaders from the Monday Strollers, Nutbrook Walking For Health, Long Eaton Town Walk, Cotmanhay Women's Walk, Maggieโs Meet Up - Kirk Hallam , Erewash Voluntary Action, Derbyshire Adult Community Education Service, Sofa2Stroll+, Sole Mates & many more.
We've collaborated on walks with Derbyshire Recovery and Peer Support Service, Walk Derbyshire, Active Erewash, the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust, Bennerley Viaduct: The Iron Giant, Parkside High, Amber Valley Ambles Monday Strollers, Run Walk Jog with Jog Derbyshire, British Nordic Walking, Sofa2Stroll, Our Crafty Place, Men Walking and Talking - Long Eaton, Nordic stride 2 thrive, Nordic Walks4Wellbeing, the Baton of Hope, DACE's, Amber Valley Walking Together and a litter pick in Kirk Hallam with emh homes.
This year we helped Walk Coordinator Rachel Scott & Erewash Ramblers recce the Packhorse Trail and create a video to promote the newly relaunched walking leaflet for Erewash Walking Month. The first of 10 routes to be updated.
We walked the 10km route for Ben charity walk to raise funds for Ben's Den and learnt how to use a metal detector with the Elka Project. We were interviewed by Erewash Sound to discuss the new Nordic Walking group we helped Corinna set up in Cotmanhay. We're helping Public Health, Cotmanhay Community Network and Cotmanhay Pride In Place discover what is important to the residents of Cotmanhay so the funding can be well spent. We are working with Kirk Hallam Connect , Kirk Hallam Green Squeeze, CPRE Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire and Kirk Hallam Community Action Group to run a Centenary walk for CPRE.
We've worked on the project with Walk Derbyshire and Parkside High CIC for the last few years, encouraging people to get outside in nature and be more active. The police SNT helped us roll out Disability and ASB workshops to Cotmanhay Junior School which were a huge success.
Thank you to everyone who has walked with us, trained with us and worked alongside us. We've enjoyed every minute with you. Special thanks have to go to our walk leaders, Raoul Arthur Susie Lambert Cheryl, Jill, Jerry, Alex, Keir, Allan, Richard, Maggie, Aija, Becci, Louise, Hadley, Paul, Leanne, Kira, Dee & Ange. We couldn't do this without your help. We look forward to working with Dionne and Don on a new project this year.
Thanks to Ilkeston News Ilkeston Life and Erewash Sound for advertising our walks for us.
If you'd like to be trained up as a walk leader or get involved in some of the community work we are doing, please get in touch.
