Health
Health
Over the last two years the Foundation has been promoting health and well-being throughout Much Wenlock and its neighbouring areas. This has included our Ambassadors Programme, the Living Well in Wenlock Project involving elderly citizens and the publication of a research document identifying potential needs of the people of our local and wider community.
The Ambassadors Programme
The Foundation has established an 'Ambassadors'
programme and our volunteer health and well-being Ambassador is Sian Thomas.
Sian has been closely working actively with a large number of statutory and voluntary organisations to facilitate action through the Broseley, Much Wenlock and Cressage Well-being Forum. The actions and benefits of this collaborative work are described more fully in the Wellbeing and Events sections of this website.
In January 2017 the Foundation published a research report 'Much Wenlock Activity Mapping'. This was compliled by Energize on our behalf and aimed to look into the current supply of physical activity and sports activities in the Much Wenlock area. Mapping these activities will be a source of information for the Ambassadors. It will also identify potential gaps in and barriers to provision. As such it helps us and our partners, such as Shropshire Council, to link the health and wellbeing of our community to the provision of local infrastructure and services such as public transport.
The report can be found here:
William
Penny Brookes and Health
William Penny Brookes lived all his life in Much Wenlock, Shropshire where he was the doctor of the town for over sixty years.
Brookes is now best remembered as the founder of the Wenlock Olympian Society, as a founding member of the National Olympian Association and inspiring Baron Pierre de Coubertin to form the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Alongside striving to revive the Olympic movement Brookes was a tireless campaigner for the introduction of physical education in schools and the benefits of exercise throughout life.
The Wenlock Olympian Games were for “every grade of man” and included events for all ages and abilities. They were designed to encourage participation in sport and promoted a healthy life style and community involvement.
William Penny Brookes was a man of Olympian vision and energy who recognised the benefits of exercise to the physical and mental well being of individuals. Throughout his life he strived to make the inactive active stating “sustaining good health is better than attempting to recover it once lost.”
Here are some of WPB's quotes.
“Health is the poor man's only possession.”
Sustaining good health is better than attempting to recover it once lost.
Included in the 1868 WOS BANNER:
“May Wenlock ever encourage those outdoor exercises and recreations which improve the health, increase the stature, mature the courage and fire the pluck of our youth.”
1852 Brookes;
“considered that exercise of an athletic character were conducive, if not indispensible to the growth, health and activity of the body, as well as to cheerfulness and strength of mind.”
1854 Brookes
“If... recreation tends to promote, as I hold it does, the public health, it becomes alike the duty and the interest of all classes to countenance and support occasional out-door games.”
1855 Brookes
“exercise... so essential for the healthy development of the body.”
1862 Brookes
“no one, surely, can be insensible to the fact that a healthy development of the bodily powers by exercise, combined with temperance, has a most important influence on the power and energy of the mind.”
1864 Brookes
“that direst of all calamities, a national decay, the sure penalty for the indulgence in enervating luxuries and the neglect of physical training.”
1865 Brookes
“Depend upon it, the minds and bodies of men would be far healthier, and their lives longer and happier, if the same attention and honour were paid now-a-days to strength and skill in athletic exercises as in the time of the ancient Greeks.”
Brookes speaking about using the Wenlock Olympian Games to spread his Olympian dream.
" Drop a stone in the middle of a lake,
and the little ring formed will go on
gradually increasing in circumference
till, at length the distant shore are
reached. Sow a single seed of a rare
plant in the most secluded spot and
if the soil and other conditions are
favourable to its germination, it will
grow up and bear another seed
and in time, produce plants sufficient
to cover the length and breadth
of the land."
His legacy is to be found in the goal of the National Olympian Association, of which Brookes was a founding member, 1874; “To promote physical education generally, but especially by gymnastic exercises in our National and Elementary schools.”
The Principle Aim of the Wenlock Olympian Society; “To provide access to sport and the arts to people of every grade.”
A quote from Pindar’s Olympic Ode inscribed on the ‘first class’ silver Pentathlon medal made by Queen Victoria’s silversmith, Hunt and Roskell: “There are rewards for glorious deeds.”
Living
Well in Wenlock
During 2016-17, the Foundation delivered an activity programme we called 'Living Well in Wenlock'. This was supported by specialist guidance from Energize, the County Sports Partnership. We are especially grateful for the help we received from Jessica Lightwood and Chris Child. We also gratefully acknowledge the financial support we received from our two local sister charities, the Lady Forest Trust and the Much Wenlock Forester Trust. The three key outputs were:
Output A
The project has successfully recruited two volunteers from the local community. A training programme was put together meeting the needs of the project relevant to each ambassadors skills and experience.
Output B
An extensive mapping exercise took place (See document ‘Much Wenlock Activity Mapping’), looking into the Local Strategies, Market Segmentation, Transport links and Activities within Much Wenlock and surrounding areas.
Output C
The project has developed much insight that can be replicated within other areas of a similar demographic, along with this it also highlights development opportunities within the project focus area.
The project has successfully recruited two volunteers from the local community. A training programme was put together meeting the needs of the project relevant to each ambassadors skills and experience.
Output B
An extensive mapping exercise took place (See document ‘Much Wenlock Activity Mapping’), looking into the Local Strategies, Market Segmentation, Transport links and Activities within Much Wenlock and surrounding areas.
Output C
The project has developed much insight that can be replicated within other areas of a similar demographic, along with this it also highlights development opportunities within the project focus area.
The Living Well in Wenlock initiative has directly led to our current initiative we call the Ambassadors programme and provides a platform and guidance for future action in health and wellbeing, sport and education.
The full report can be found here:
Doctor
William Penny Brookes 1876
Click on the box below to read William Penny Brookes quotations on the value of health and exercise.
These inspirational messages are on display in the Much Wenlock and Cressage G.P. Surgery.