The Walk!

As you'll probably remember, we held a Red Spot Walk on 27th May as a get-together for the Red Spots.  We had a great response to our invitation to walkers and almost 100 people took part in the walk.

The walk was a leisurely stroll through Jesmond Dene conducted by Mark Pearce and staff from the Children's Foundation.  The walk started from Coleman's Field at our registration desk; carried on through Pet's Corner and up through the Dene via road and path.

We were very fortunate to gain sponsorship for the event to the tune of £500 from SAGE Plc via the Community Fund serving Tyne and Wear and Northumberland.  With the money we paid Jesmond Dene a donation of £75.00 to use the Dene for the event.  We bought tables, a megaphone [which we later donated to the Children's Foundation], fruit and juice.  The Children's Foundation kindly donated bottles of water.  We were also very fortunate to be given 200 sausage rolls and 200 doughnuts by Greggs so that we could incorporate a picnic into the event.

The idea behind the walk was that as many Thousand Families study members as possible could meet up and get reacquainted with friends and acquaintances that they'd lost touch with.  Quite a few Red Spots who took part, were from the same secondary school or junior school so they had a bit of catching up to do. 

The walk proved to be a great success with some Red Spots meeting up with after many years; reminiscing about jelly patches, examinations at school and health visitors coming to see them at home.

The walk was also featured in the media with Mark doing an interview with Radio Newcastle at 7.00am on the morning of the walk.  The article below also featured in the "Evening Chronicle".  It just shows how fascinating the Thousand Families Study still is as a medical and social history of Newcastle.
Susan Lee