Walk to #KeepWell

While we are unable to open our gates and engage members at the moment, there is a still a great opportunity to keep members engaged and to connect with the local communities to shine some positivity in what are very difficult times.

Walk to #KeepWell is an initiative that we are involved with Sport Ireland as part of the Keep Well Campaign, and we would love you and your members to get involved. We hope that this initiative will build some momentum towards Ireland Lights Up as well as encouraging members to mind their physical and mental health.

 

We are asking you to challenge your members to challenge themselves by:

• Step 1: complete the Operation Transformation a 12 minute walking challenge (details below)
• Step 2: complete the Get Ireland Walking 21 days of walking
• Step 3: complete the 12 minute walking challenge again on day 22
• Step 4: Use a results tool on the Sport Ireland website to see your improvement.  

 

12 Minute Walking Challenge:

Prof Niall Moyna of DCU, in collaboration with RTE’s Operation Transformation, have developed this 12 minute challenge to demonstrate the minimum fitness standard for your age group. The challenge will be promoted and aired on the show on Wednesday 3rd of February. This is a great opportunity to build some momentum around the challenge within your club & community.

The challenge will show you where you sit within the minimum standards of physical fitness and give you a target to aim for within your age bracket and gender.

It is worth noting that while we are primarily promoting this as a walking challenge, members can of course run if they wish to.

To gauge the update we would encourage everyone involved to use the #stepitup #keepwell as well as tagging us and Sport Ireland in any social posts.

 

How does the challenge work?

What do participants need?

• Stopwatch
• Fitness tracker (a smartwatch or app that records distance in km or miles)
•  

What do participants need to do?

• Time yourself as you walk or run for 12 minutes, aiming to cover as much distance as possible.
• Measure the distance you’ve traveled over the 12 minutes using a fitness tracker or an app that records distance.

We are suggesting a start date of Thursday 4th Feb for the first 12 minute challenge, and finish date of Friday 26th Feb for the second 12 minute challenge. 

 

So what do you as a club need to do?

• Promote the Walk to #KeepWell initiative to your club members.
• Encourage club members to download the Get Ireland Walking app to track their 21 days of walking, as well as prompts and reminders to get out walking.
• Aim to involve the local community by asking your members to do this challenge with a ‘buddy’ who is a non club member.
• Share the initiative on your social channels and website using #stepitup #keepwell.
• Tag us *INSERT NGB HANDLE* and @sportireland in your posts.

 

“Can we run an in house competition?”

Yes! This is a decision that should be made in house by you club. Sport Ireland and *INSERT NGB NAME* will not be holding a national competition.
If you do want to run an in house competition, we have attached to this email a data collection tool which already has a prefilled formula you can use to see by percentage peoples increase in fitness over the duration of the challenge.

 

What are we, doing to help?

We will promote this from a national level through our social channels and website, as well as linking in with Sport Ireland and Get Ireland Walking.

• Providing a sample social media plan. Download HERE.
• Providing social media vignettes. Download HERE.
• Providing a poster on the 12 min challenge. Download HERE.
• Providing a data collection tool that displays participant’s improvement by %. Download HERE.

The Get Ireland Walking app is a useful tool also to track walking days, and it will also come in handy when we are able to initiative Ireland Lights Up.

 

Programme Evaluation (COMPELETELY OPTIONAL)

In order for us to gauge the potential impact of this programme, we would appreciate if you could confirm your clubs intention to partake. At the end of the initiative it would be useful to get an approximate number of club members and local community personnel who took part. To gauge the uptake we would encourage everyone involved to use the #stepitup #keepwell as well as tagging us and Sport Ireland in any social posts.