The Parish Council joined with others across the Borough in sowing poppy seeds  earlier this year to commemorate the centenary of WW1 and this is the result! Blooming Lovely! We chose 4 sites to do this in our Parish, Lawley Village Green, Dawley Bank Village Green, open space on Overdale and at Old Park. We hope you agree they look delightful.

The drop in session on Friday 4^th July at 10.30 – 11.30 will have to be cancelled due to staff holidays – apologies for any inconvenience this may cause

The next PACT/SNT meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 8^th July at 5-6pm.

The next drop in session on a Friday is on 1^st August at 10.30-11.30.

All take place at the Parish Offices on West Centre Way, Lawley

Walk about Wrekin.

AIM: to provide Walking for Health walks in Telford and Wrekin.

The current  Walkabout Wrekin group was formed in September 2013 . This group arose because the funding was cut for the previous, very successful, scheme. The committee consists of walk leaders, a walker and representatives from Age UK  and  the Senior Citizens’ Forum ,

We are grateful to the previous organisation (the now disbanded health improvement team of the PCT) for the leaders, the walkers, the programme, the name and the logo.  Most of the walks have continued as walking for health walks, thanks to short-term support from a combination of the Senior Citizens Forum and Age UK. We remain open to all age groups.

We had some temporary limited funding from Telford and Wrekin, which, together with the support from AgeUK and the Senior Citizens’ forum, kept us afloat while we looked for other sources of funding.  We have been very grateful for support from parish councils, including Lawley and Overdale. We are an accredited scheme under the existing Walking for Health criteria and will be working towards meeting revised accreditation criteria in due course.

We need funding for our normal running costs, i.e. postage and printing, room hire for walk leader training and for six monthly walk leader meetings and  web site hosting.   We have no staff costs as all training , leading , work of the officers and administration is done entirely on a voluntary basis. In addition we are building up a stock of “marketing” materials. We recently purchased a pop-up banner and some leaflet holders which we will use at local events.

We run 19 walks each week. One of these is run from Horsehay Golf Centre which is just outside your boundary but draws walkers from your parish.  We also run walks from Meeting Point House which is, I believe,  just inside your boundary. We are hoping to start a walk from Alreston in the near future, which again is just outside your boundary.   Some of our groups run “hops”  where we drive  a short distance to somewhere else in the vicinity to walk, your proposed history trail will be of great interest to these groups.

We believe that we are providing a service to those who would like to walk but lack the confidence to do so alone. We also help prevent loneliness for some of  our walkers.

Information from the national Walking for Health scheme:

“Walking can ….

•  Make you feel good
• Give you more energy
• Reduce stress and help you sleep better
• Keep your heart ‘healthy’
• Reduce blood pressure
• Help you manage your weight

How much walking do I need to do? The current weekly recommendation for physical activity is at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity (such as brisk walking) in bouts of 10 minutes or more – one way to achieve this is to do 30 minutes on at least 5 days a week. ‘Brisk’ Walking means walking at a pace where you breathe a little faster, feel warmer and have a slightly faster heart beat. You should still be able to talk – but not sing. If you can’t carry on a conversation then you’re going too fast. “

Please see the lovely thank you card from the Puddleducks Nursery Group for the Grant money they received.

Puddleducks thank you