Dave Millener - Active Dorset CIO Chair

The fact that the team at Active Dorset are such great advocates of physical activity won't come as a great surprise to anyone. That's our job, after all. But as we all know from the ongoing shannanigans at Westminster, it doesn't always follow that everyone who 'talks the talk' necessarily 'walks the walk' with equal amounts of commitment and sincerity!

So why are we all so passionate about encouraging others to stay active and healthy, and how does that fit in with Active Dorset's work at Slades Park, a large open space in the Ensbury Park district of Bournemouth? I'm sure that we've all heard about how the latest scientific evidence has proven (the words 'conclusively' and 'yet again' are often inserted here!) how physical activity can benefit an individual's physical and mental wellbeing. How so? The honest answer to that is that no-one really knows. It just does.

I've seen that in action on a number of occasions in recent years, the most poignant of which involved a lady (who we shall call Nicola) who was diagnosed with a malignant Grade 4 brain tumour. Now I must admit that Nicola was not the sort of person to sit on her laurels and wallow in a puddle of self-pity, but it's fair to say that a diagnosis of 'twelve months maximum' was not the sort of thing she wanted to hear, what with her oldest daughter mid-way through a university degree and her profoundly deaf younger sibling struggling to make her way in a world not always understanding of such conditions.

Nicola decided, with the support of family and friends, to live what time she had left to the full and beyond. As well as committing to a daily blog capturing the travails to which she would become accustomed in the weeks and months that followed, she undertook a programme of daily physical activity which culminated, much to the astonishment of her consultant surgeon, in her completing several charity walks, partaking in a number of triathlons as a member of a local running club and, to beat it all, a swim around Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour accompanied, at her side throughtout, by my swimmer wife and also a kayak manned by a voluntary member of Poole Lifeguards. A truly astonishing feat of endurance for someone who saw physical activity as a means of bolstering not only her physical conditioning but also her mental wellbeing at a time of extreme hardship. It was truly a privilege to witness such courage and commitment. Nicola passed away in March of this year, more than two years after the initial diagnosis of her condition. Her funeral was a joyous occasion, planned to the nearest minute by Nicola herself and a wonderful testament to the power of both the mind and body at a time of such adversity. 'Walking the walk' was never so brazenly on show as during those last two years of Nicola's life.

At Active Dorset we strongly believe in the power of physical activity to improve people's everyday lives, whether, like Nicola, they are having to cope with long term conditions, or whether, like millions of people right across the UK, they are starting to understand the strong link between staying active and their own physical and mental wellbeing.

Our work at Slades Park is what we call 'in the community, for the community', a long term agreement with the local council to invest in the provision of physical activity in the Park; from outdoor yoga for beginners and walking/dog walking groups to the provision of youth cricket and rugby for girls and boys and the introduction of a Junior parkrun in the near future. Future investment will follow in a 3G artificial football pitch and improvments to the children's playground to provide an interractive experience for all children, irrespective of their age or background. We're proud to be a part of the launch of #weareundefeatable. As Nicola would surely have testified, the power of physical activity is as much in the mind as it is in the body.

Dave Millener - Active Dorset CIO Chair