Frank is our Volunteer Fitness Instructor who has been busy keeping lots of us happy over the last year! This is Frank’s volunteering story and how you can join in on his future “Frank’s Walk a Mile Club” sessions…

“I popped into a Carers Week 2019 event and asked if you could help and offered to volunteer my time as a fitness instructor. I’m a full-time Carer myself so I knew they would also be able to help me care for my partner and I wanted to be able to support and connect with other Carers too. I have always exercised from the age of 7 and it’s the subject I know most about and I know how good it is for mental and physical health so decided I wanted to use my knowledge and skills. 

I found the recruitment and training process very easy and felt comfortable doing it. I was about to start doing face to face classes with Carers and then the pandemic started. After a short while Natalie contacted me about offering the classes online. I was slightly nervous at first but I wanted to give it a go and have grown lots in confidence since starting them and feel I am a better person, it has lifted my self-esteem and helped me to understand by partners needs too. I do it with the main hope that some people get enjoyment out of it and improve their lives and therefore help the person they care for too. The exercises are transferable too for all ages and abilities and I always show sitting down as well as standing exercises. 

I then had the idea to develop the sessions into “Franks Walk a Mile Club” where we could all get together and walk a mile (or thereabouts!) in the comfort of our own homes. I throw lots of exercises into it for those who want to do it and we have music playing too. We have a few regulars on there and you can catch up with it on Facebook (the last video had more than 250 views!) but we would love to see more people on the live sessions. I really hope I can start to offer face to face sessions too!”