Starting this April we are happy to be expanding our Telephone Befriending service to include Walk and Talk Befriending to enjoy the benefits of the beautiful green spaces in Bristol. This will offer existing befriendees an opportunity to connect safely with someone else whilst enjoying the outdoors.
From mid-April we will be hosting walks in different parts of Bristol each week, starting with locations where we know there are open public facilities, nearby parking and that are accessible by public transport such as St George Park, Brandon Hill Park, Snuff Mills and The Downs.
Changes Staff members will facilitate these walks and be on hand if there are any problems, and each befriendee will be assigned a volunteer to talk to.
Who can join the befriending walks
Our walks are open to our Changes members who receive befriending telephone calls. As the service develops we hope to open it out to other members.
Details of the dates/times of walks will be shared in advance via the Weekly Links email or be told to you by your telephone befriender.
If you are part of our befriending service and would like to join a walk, your befriender will let you know when you can sign up, or you can register your interest in advance now by phoning 0117 941 1123 or emailing befriending@changesbristol.org.uk.
Due to the Covid-19 restrictions we will begin with small group sizes of no more than 6 people for each walk and hope to increase numbers as the restrictions ease according to Government guidance.
The Walks
The Changes Bristol Befriending team have been mapping out some walks so that we know roughly how long they will take and what accessibility is like for each walk, for example if there are any steps on the walk and if there are benches on the route to sit and take a rest or enjoy the view.
The Walk route maps and directions will be hosted on the Go Jauntly App which is available to download for free on i-Phone App store and for Android on Google Play. More details can be found on the Go Jauntly website here: https://www.gojauntly.com/
The benefit of downloading the app is that you can see what the walk will look like before you join, and an image of what the meeting place looks like. You don’t need to have the app to get involved though.
We will be running a mixture of short walks and longer walks each week. These will be around 30 minute walks or longer 45 minute walks.
We hope that some of our befriending volunteers can join our walks but it might not be your regular befriender that comes along on the walk that you are doing and you might meet someone new!
If you are not already a Changes member or part of the befriending service yet you can register for befriending here.
To talk to us about Walk and Talk befriending, contact us on befriending@changesbristol.org.uk or telephone 0117 941 1123 and ask for Alessandra, Jack or Sophie.