Active Summer Sessions

Throughout July we ran our Summer Active sessions in Brighton. These sessions were co-planned with two volunteer service users and were the result of a service-user feedback afternoon where many people said they wanted the chance to be more active and spend time out of the city.Over the four weeks we had four different activities: a dog walk at Stanmer park, crazy golf on the seafront, indoor wall climbing at Boulder Brighton and a day at Tilgate Park.There was a really good turnout for all of the sessions which was so positive as often for those in emergency accommodation things can get in the way of attending these kind of activities.There were several highlights on all the of trips, sharing picnics together at Stanmer Park, the stunning weather for our Crazy Golf, it was like being on holiday in the south of Spain! The meerkats at Tilgate Park were also definitely a favourite for lots of us.We were unsure whether people would attend the bouldering session however we had a good turnout and they all surpassed our expectations! The instructor was fantastic at creating a calm, safe and encouraging atmosphere – some service users even want to go back!Some of participants said they found the sessions particularly helpful as they often struggle to find the motivation to do exercise.Co-planning these sessions with our service users was definitely a major contributor to them being so positive and we will spend time evaluating with the volunteers. We hope to be running more Active sessions in the Autumn.