As part of a collaboration with the Office of Sport NSW, the Man Walk is set to arrive in Yass and they are looking for Manbassadors to help them make it happen.
President and Founder Mark Burns explained how the project came about and how it’s arrived at where it is today, with 55 walks nationwide.
“It started here in Kiama two years ago when I started doing a walk around the harbour just as a good way to start the day off well and wake up with the sunrise and then a few mates came along and joined me.”
“We had a social media post two years ago that went viral to 1.3 million people overnight and 8000 shares or something and we went from 3-55 walks in the space of about three or four months,” said Mark.
Their simple slogan of “walk, talk, support” embodies everything the Man Walk is about and the service they hope to set up here in Yass.
“That’s the thing that we’ve found somewhat inadvertently, my goal wasn’t to have 55 Man Walk’s around the country. My goal was just to create some good habits and reconnect with some friends, and make some new ones,” said Mark.
The selection of towns such as Yass, Crookwell, Cooma and Batemans Bay has come from statistics associated with high levels of isolation and loneliness. The Man Walk aims to provide a way to approach these issues with a tried and tested method that most men feel comfortable enough to engage in.
“This grant we’ve received is the first time we’re targeting towns that we want to start a Man Walk in. Before now it’s been people reaching out and saying hey Mark I’m in Mudgee can I start a Man Walk here? It’s now us going out to Yass, Crookwell, Cooma and Batemans Bay and so on, and it’s the first time we’ve done that. We’ve targeted that around stats on isolation and loneliness.”
“Blokes need avenues like this. I often say us men, we’re pretty simple, and we’re not real bright, so we need to make things easy for us. The fact that the Man Walk is regular, because it’s every week, it’s free and you don’t need to sign up, we’re taking away all those barriers.”
“We’re not psychologists, we’re not trained in that capacity. We’re just a bunch of blokes going for a walk. The side by side thing is always really key for blokes. A lot of blokes aren’t comfortable sitting across from someone face to face and saying how they feel, but just a side by side walk where you talk about the footy and how the Penrith Panthers went, and how your week’s been going. There’s a lot of power in that,” said Mark.
As for what characteristics make for a good Manbassador, Mark says there’s no set formula apart from good communication. He also wanted to encourage those men within the community who might not usually take on leadership responsibilities to give it a try.
“The key is being a good communicator. We’ve found that the Manbassadors that are good communicators back with head office in terms of keeping on track with what our goals are, any sort of risk assessment and future things coming up.”
“Also, blokes that communicate quite well in their towns and are happy to bang a post on their local Facebook community page. Each Man Walk group has it’s own internal Facebook page, so the Manbassador for Yass would put some things in there about what’s going on and when the next Man Walk is,” he said.
If this sounds like you, Mark encourages interested parties to contact him at 0402 837 177 or president@themanwalk.com.au.
Max O’Driscoll
