Tuesday 31st December 2019 - Izzwalkz 2019 review and future

Posted 12:15pm

It has been a year of progress and success with Izzwalkz. We have to send our gratitude to our amazing partners - our Thursday Clissold Park walk with Highbury Grange Medical Practice, and our Friday walk/exercise with Better Gym Highbury Leisure Centre.

We also need to thank our local Highbury East Councillors - Osh Gantly, Sue Lukes, Caroline Russell - for their continual support and love. This includes funding from the Islington Council Local Initiatives Fund.

Our Clissold park walk celebrated its third birthday in November. We were joined by the current Islington Mayor (photo above), and Lazza led us on an interesting tree walk. It is incredible to think we have walked every Thursday since November 2016. In fact our last walk of 2019, on Thursday 26th December - we managed four of us that day - was our walk number 162.

I am eternally grateful to all our walkers who have attended over the years, and we have some brilliant regulars. I do know that many have health conditions, some of them quite serious. But we always manage to have lots of laughter and stories as we go round, and we encourage everyone to talk to each other.  It is more a mental health walk. It has exceeded all my original aims and dreams. I am so proud of what we have created.

Our Highbury Fields walk/exercise is where we joined up with the current session organised by Better Gym, which is part of their Weight Management Rebalance programme. The instructor, Simon, is very good. But the numbers were too high for their insurance. We contacted them around April, and from May we are now part of that walk. They get around 20-40 people every week. It is great fun. Lazza normally attends with Rosie, Phylis, Angela and Chris, and we have made new friends.

We sometimes stop over for coffee/tea at Clissold House, and here we are enjoying some of Roz's homemade muffins, which I have to say are some of the best muffins I have ever tasted. A real treat.  We have also had a couple of surprise extras - which included a trip to the Sky Garden at the top of the Walkie-Talkie building in Fenchurch Street in November, and a look at the only Elizabethan church left in London, which just happens to be next to Clissold Park.

We have celebrated at Highbury Grange Health Centre a few times too. Here we are following our 150th walk, with PT Dean taking our picture. The Centre have been incredibly supportive throughout the whole three years, and we are delighted to continue that into 2020.

Future:

We want to grow our walks. By the end of 2020, we would like to have four walks going in Islington, and at least be part of ones in another borough. I do know Haringey has some good weekly walks, and we are going to see if they are open to a partnership with us.

We would also like to go on a few more special outings. If it was not for our super participants we would not be walking at all, and it is nice to be able to give something back to them.

We want to wish all our walkers a fantastic new year. Some are currently having treatment for various ailments, and our thoughts are with them at this time. Life can be cruel as well as wonderful. But it is how we handle these moments that determine our mental health, as well as our physical and emotional health. Life is very short, let us all do what we can.

Hugs to all. Happy New Year/Decade. xxxxxxx