Sunday Funday puts community health and wellbeing in the spotlight

Sam Gargett, Project Manager for Primary Care Services North Cumbria said: “This event was a fantastic opportunity to bring together a range of organisations and charities to promote some of the excellent local services available to the community. We were really pleased to be working in conjunction with Better Health on this and I really hope people took a lot away from the day. Our Cancer Engagement Lead Joel Vilchez was providing information on early diagnosis of cancer signs and symptoms, and representatives from Eden Primary Care Network also attended the event to chat with people. It felt like a really positive event for a huge range of ages to help promote those vital links between community, activity and health.”

Danii Houghton, Better Health and Communities Manager for Westmorland and Furness said: “It was a great opportunity to try lots of different types of activities. I hope people take away that exercise doesn’t need to be something structured, it doesn’t need to be a sports club. It can just be any way of moving more that helps them feel better. Whether it’s getting that feel-good factor, making friends, spending time with friends learning a new skill, as well as the things we get told about how moving more is good for our bodies.”

Danii was also recently awarded the Physical Activity Hero Award at the ukactive 2024 awards, who is the UK’s trade body for the physical activity sector, bringing together more than 4,000 member organisations and partners.

Reflecting on the award she said: “I was delighted to receive the award. It’s wonderful to see our efforts in helping individuals in our local community with long term conditions be more active, more often, to manage their conditions better, acknowledged on a national scale. I sent a big thank you to everyone who supported me and our amazing Better Health Team.”

Local GP and Eden Primary Care Network Clinical Director Dr Dominic Arnold who attended the day said: “By getting to know all the various different resources and groups that are out there means we can best signpost people and really make sure people are living as fuller, heathier lives as they can.

“We know that being active and social is vital to people’s health and wellbeing and how they would rate and value their own health. So no matter what their underlying health conditions, when they’ve got many, or whether they have none, being as active as they can be and going to these groups is really important to a lot of people.

“Getting all these groups together enables people to really get to know what sort of services are out there to support them, particularly for our rural communities, some of which can be quite isolated. All of it means we can try and promote people’s health locally, as well as we can.”

Some of the taster sessions included gymnastics, pickleball, seated exercises, boccia, beats, family fun fitness sessions, and a session from Penrith Pumas, Cumbria’s only wheelchair rugby club. PUMAS standing for ‘Promoting, Unbelievable, Mental, Attitude’.

There were also displays from Mark Holding’s Mitsuru Karate, Christians Against Poverty, Get Active, Penrith Library, Cumbria Police, Active Cumbria, Healthwatch Westmorland and Furness and more. Better Health also provided an offer of free return trip transport for the event.

Ian Thompson, Better Health Assistant Manager said: “There was plenty of different activities for people and it brings them in to show what else we do in the centre. It’s not just a gym and pool, there’s so much more going on, like a community hub.

“It’s catching everyone in the family, it’s hopefully got something for everybody and it’s a good day to showcase this and get people active.”