We’re excited to share with you the opportunity to get involved with the Greater Manchester Walking Festival held during May 2020. Next year’s festival will be the 6th walking festival held in Greater Manchester, and we want to involve as many groups, community organisations and people as possible!
Background to the GM Walking Festival
The 2020 Greater Manchester Walking Festival is all about the joy and fun of walking and we’re hoping the walks can bring this concept to life. Using the joy and fun approach, the festival aims to celebrate walking, places to walk and people to walk with, and appeal to a range of audiences. We expect that we will be able to offer walks across the whole of Greater Manchester and have a varied mix of ‘interest’ walks.
We are looking for youth groups, ‘friends of’ groups, sports clubs, faith groups, social clubs or local charities to plan a walk that will appeal to your community, and may encourage people who are not regularly active or are inactive to take part. We are also looking to encourage families to join the walks. We are hoping that the Festival can be a catalyst for more walking to take place as part of regular activities offered through community groups, and attract people new to walking to join in.
To achieve this we are:
Asking for a high proportion of the walks in the Festival to start in areas where inactivity levels are high (see attached map and ward list)
Inviting walk organisers to create themed walks or walks with a ‘point of interest’
Promoting the Festival through localised distribution of a MEN Festival supplement, targeted social media, community groups promoting their walks to their own communities as well as GM scale promotion.
Signposting people to the routes and group information on our website to encourage people to get involved with walking all year round
We are offering some small grants to community groups working in the red and orange areas on the map below to plan and promote a walk for their target community. We can offer £250 per walk, or £500 if walking is offered as a key part offered as part of a wider community event. We can offer some support around planning and leading a walk if required.
These walks can be solely promoted by you to your audiences, or you can chose to publish your walk on the Festival website so that anyone looking for a walk can find the details and come along. It’s up to you.
In return we expect you to let us know how many people took part, if they were from your target audience and how active they had been. We’d also love to know how your idea came about and your walk was delivered.
Action required
If you would like to get involved, please start planning your walk!
Talk to your committees, your community, the people involved with your organisation and find out who can help and what ideas you may have
Plan a walk using some of the tips on the GM Walking Festival – submission guidance.
Apply for some funding using the GM Walking Festival – Funding application form if it would help you deliver your walking idea. All applications for funding need to be with us by Sunday 9th February 2020.
Submit details of your walks to us using the template on the website gmwalking.co.uk/festival by Sunday 9th February 2020.
We look forward to hearing from you. If you have any queries, please contact me to chat through your ideas.
Louise Robbins – GM Moving Walking Programme Lead on 07740 883080
@lourobbins @GMWalks
If you are looking for walks to get involved with across Trafford please visit: https://gmwalking.co.uk/walking-locations/trafford/