Step out

Notes of the Sheffield Health Walks Steering Group held at Voluntary Action Sheffield at 14:00 on Monday 11th July 2016 1 Attendees: Kirsty Armstrong VWL (Norfolk Park) and Drink Wise Age Well Elizabeth Birks VWL () Area link (Central) Diz Feeley VWL () Acting Treasurer Francis Feeley VWL (Pitsmoor) Area link (North) Dan Murphy VWL (Graves Park) Database Manager Richard Lee VWL (Graves Park, woods) Acting Minute Secretary Sue Lee VWL (various walks) Acting Chair and cascade trainer Tony Oxley VWL (Graves Park, Porter Valley) Area link (East) Nigel Ross VWL ( and Porter Valley) Funding Manager Area link (West)

2 Apologies: Sue Barker VWL () Sharon Cassinelli VWL (Richmond) Acting Secretary John Gosling VWL () Margaret Hibberd VWL (Handsworth) Janet Hilbert VWL (Handsworth) Jeni Smith VWL (Ecclesall woods) Area link (South) Sarah-Jane Pickering Walking for Health Lee Smith Activity Sheffield

3 Approval of Minutes of last meeting: The minutes of the last meeting (Steering Group Meeting 01 dated 13th June 2016) were accepted for accuracy and agreed as a correct record of the meeting. 4 Matters arising not covered by the agenda: Item 11 (Publicity) last paragraph, “to generate a Facebook page for the group”. Kirsty Armstrong requested confirmation that this was still required. Action agreed and page to be developed a.s.a.p. 5 Database Report: Dan Murphy gave a verbal report on the significant progress made to date and outstanding issues. In mid-June when the WfH database was transferred approximately 520 reports were outstanding. After considerable effort in the past month the number of outstanding reports has been reduced to just 4! At the present time Step out Sheffield is registering approximately 800 attendances each week. A major concern of the data transfer technicians on some walks is the large number of names on some default registers. The default registers include names of registered walkers who may have only visited that walk once or who left that walk to join another. This concern has been reported to WfH

Minutes Steering meeting 02 on 11th July 2016 who will “fix” the problem sometime in the future. As an interim measure all walkers who have not attended any walk for 6 months have been marked as inactive so they do not appear on any registers. Walk risk assessments need to be uploaded to the WfH database (see next item). Dan is to generate a routine newsletter/bulletin for data transfer technicians to share information and troubleshoot database problems. Issue No 1 will be attached to the minutes as an appendix. The Chair proposed a vote of thanks for the tremendous amount work undertaken by Dan to get the database back under control in such a short time. His efforts have been recognised and acknowledged by WfH. 6 VWL Support Systems Report: Sue Lee gave a verbal report on the progress made in this area since the last meeting. An email, dated 18th June, was circulated to a key VWL on each of the 24 walks outlining some key issues relating to registration and new walkers and inviting groups to contribute text and photographs for their web page and posters for their walk. Subsequently, packs have been created for each walk, which contain the following items.  Individual risk assessments have been generated and issued for each walk. [These can now be loaded onto the WfH database.]  A list of contacts has been generated for each walk for the register pack. Each laminated card lists the contact details for each of the VWLs on that walk, the Safety Officers in case of accident or illness, the Area Link in case support is needed and the Data Transfer Technician.  Laminated posters have been generated for all walks that have suitable photographs available.  Copies of the new walking leaflet have so far been delivered to 15 of the 24 walks. A further email was issued on the 7th July to all VWL’s with known email address (99 out of the total of 135) detailing the walks in the 5 areas covered by our area link volunteers, and their names. The message also outlined how Stocksbridge fit into the bigger picture. A spreadsheet had been generated to try and keep track of the actions for each of the 24 walks. Sue had managed to visit just 15 of the walks so far. 7 Fund Raising Report: Nigel Ross gave a verbal report on progress since the last meeting. An annual budget had been generated and circulated for comment. Target funding sources had been identified and letters issued to 15 Trusts plus Westfield Health appealing for start-up funding. It will take some months for these applications to be processed but Nigel was confident that some funding will result from this initiative. Nigel proposed holding a city-wide raffle to meet on-going funding needs. This would require an annual license (£40 for first year then £20 a year). 2000 tickets would cost £27. It was suggested that the first raffle should be targeted at the anniversary of our formation, say July 2017, if the 2nd raffle is held the following June 2018 it can be covered by the same license. It was agreed that these plans should be developed further.

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The benefits of being registered as a charity was raised, and it was felt generally that it would not offer any benefits in the short term but the pros and cons of charitable status should be investigated further. Potential funding from “Sport ” was raised. Nigel offered to explore this funding opportunity. The Chair tabled two Cash donations she had collected from recent activity: £44.55 from a demonstration Health Walk at the Dore Walking Festival on the 8th July. £26.00 from a collection at her monthly Saturday walk on the 9th July. Further collections in August and September from these walks will be donated to Step out Sheffield. 8 Constitution and Job Description Report: A draft constitution had been generated based on the Lowedges Health Walk constitution and discussions with Keith Levy (VAS). This document has been previously circulated for comment. Francis Feeley presented the paper and answered questions about membership (walkers, VWLs or possibly even individual walks) and about corporate membership within the document. Due to time pressures it was agreed to progress these discussions off-line and report back to the next meeting. The draft Job Description document previously circulated for comment was also discussed. Again due to time pressures it was agreed to progress these discussions off-line and report back to the next meeting. 9 Next VWL Workshop meeting: The Chair reported that the previous Workshop venue at the English Institute for Sport is not available in August. She had been offered ‘free’ use of the JG Graves Discovery Centre in Ecclesall Woods and tabled the idea of offering a range of round walks for VWLs from the Centre followed by refreshments and a Q&A session. Everyone felt that it was important to keep the quarterly meeting on schedule and it was agreed that a Monday afternoon at the Discovery Centre should be booked. 10 VWL Outing to Cromford: Kirsty Armstrong reported that two coaches are to be booked for the trip on Saturday the 15th October. 102 seats are available and 10 need to be reserved for DWAW (5 VWL’s and 5 staff). This leaves 92 seats for Step out Sheffield VWL’s. Sue reported a high level of interest from amongst the VWLs. 11 Web Site Update: Richard Lee reported that the site has had 360 hits in the past month.  A meetings tab had been added and pdf’s for the workshop and 1st Steering Group meeting added.  The final version of the walks leaflet has been added as a pdf and as an electronic book version.  An emergency contact tab has been added, but not populated.  The website reflects the five areas within the city that make up the scheme and the names (but not the contact details) of the Area Link Volunteers have been added. Enquiries will be filtered through the Web Manager.

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 6 walks now have populated their pages, a further 4 have photographs but no text and one has text but no photographs. VWLs are being encouraged to take “ownership” of the web page relating to their walk to best reflect the nature and make-up of their walk. They will hopefully also submit routine updates.

12 Training Update: The Chair asked for her apologies to Lee Smith be formally recorded for an email copied to him in error.

The Step out Sheffield Cascade Trainers (Sue, Tina Moores and Steve Baker) have been under some pressure to provide WfH VWL training for other organisations. They are all in agreement that, as volunteers, this is not part of their role and requested that the Steering Group formally support the following statement.

“That as a matter of principle, Step out Sheffield Cascade Trainers will only train individuals who are committed to directly supporting Step out Sheffield Health Walks.”

Statement acceptance proposed by Nigel Ross, supported by Francis Feeley and unanimously approved by the Committee.

13 Walking for Health Update: The chair reported on the liaison meeting held in Barnsley on the 23rd June. The minutes had been previously circulated.

Sarah Jane Pickering is due to start maternity leave on 2nd September. If possible she would like to bring her replacement to the August Steering Group meeting to meet us and formally hand over to him or her. If possible they would like the visit to include a walk. To be arranged.

14 A.O.B: Dan Murphy raised the question of disposal of registration forms. Once the information has been entered onto the database registration forms should be passed to the Chair (via the Area Links) to facilitate the recording of any relevant health issues for the VWL leader pack, and then shredded.

Elizabeth Birks raised the question of notifying Outdoor Sheffield of the change to the Group’s management. The cascading of this information is to be the responsibility of the publicity team. This was not on the agenda of this meeting as the people concerned are not present.

15 Next Meeting: It was agreed that the next meeting would be at 13:30 on Monday 15th August. Venue: Drink Wise Age Well (Sheffield) offices Royal Voluntary Service Suite B, 4th Floor, Furnival House, 48 Furnival Gate, Sheffield S1 4QP Telephone: 07442 505727

The meeting closed at 15:15. 4