On Monday 18th September, Historyworks were invited to share the learning from the 'Active Abbey Adventures' project with a variety of stakeholders who work with wellbeing agencies and community cohesion volunteering groups, including Abbey People.  Helen Weinstein and Mario Satchwell were very pleased to present the findings from devising a new geocaching trail for members of the public to actively explore their area.

SUMMARY OF THE LEARNING FROM THE 'WALKING AND CYCLING PROMOTION' GRANT We learnt that having lots of partners to join in with events was a great way of bringing the community together for the walking and cycling events for getting active in the area.  Historyworks found out you can tempt people to explore their neighbourhood on foot and by bike if there is a quest and some fun involved, and it was very helpful that the geocaching logging process gives the producer of the trails lots of feedback.  For example, people often stated that they had never found the Abbey Community Orchard before and realized it was a hidden gem, or had been tempted away from their normal cycle route across Coldham's Common to explore the wildlife area.  The large caches of small toys were appreciated by families because it kept their younger children walking longer distances without complaints, and adults enjoyed the fun of some of the caches that were disguised - one as a fake snail, one as a fake rock, one as a fake bolt on the back of the Garlic RoW signpost, and the fake hedgehog in the Orchard. As there is an Abbey Environment Day next April 2018 we'll be able to keep refreshing the project and reminding families and adults in the community to use the geocache circuit.  We definitely had some converts, and even if very elderly and wheel chair bound couple could only reach the ones that were on flat ground, they said that they loved the trail leaflet with all the history stories and it made them appreciate Abbey ward's features more than they had before.  Further, some of the families who were introduced to geocaching for the first time in the Spring events, came back to tell us at the summer events that they had become more active on their bikes to visit other areas in Cambridge like Grantchester and Wimpole Park to use their geocaching sites for family leisure entertainment, now that they realize that geocaching is a great way to get active and have a free activity which all the family enjoy to get them out of the house and away from their screens for a few hours!   We shared the leaflets with the wellbeing professionals and talked to others about how they will link to the geocache leaflet on their websites and promote it over the next year so that we reach as wide an audience as possible.  

Find our FREE trail map & introduction to geocaching here to help you get started: 

To find our more about geocaching please go to the resources area on our Creating My Cambridge website here: http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/songs-creative/resources/geocaching-on-coldhams-common/

If you would like to learn more about the 'Active Abbey Adventures' project please find the report on our reports page at Historyworks here: http://historyworks.tv/projects/reports-on-projects-directed-by-helen-weinstein/geocaching-walking-and-cycling-grant/

If you missed the presentation at the Wellbeing Workshop and would like to review the slideshow, you can review the highlights via the slides HERE