Catherine Goodfellow, the volunteer Chair of Scottish Disability Sport, has been praised for her contribution to walking after being nominated by her team mates for the coveted award.
The 53-year-old led her team, ‘One Step Two Far’, in the spring Step Count Challenge – our eight week-long walking challenge which encourages workplaces from all over Scotland to partake in active travel.
Catherine said: “For a number of years, Scottish Disability Sport has had various teams entering the Step Count Challenge as a fun internal competition to get active whilst competing for steps.
It is an excellent way to encourage staff and volunteer board members to participate in an activity which brings people together who would not normally interact as closely in person or virtually.
“The Challenge gave structure to my eight weeks – instead of starting the day with breakfast at my laptop and starting work, it made me go out for a morning walk, made me leave the screen during the day at various intervals, and made me go out for at least one evening walk. I have to say it became a little addictive.”
Catherine’s team were one of 878 groups which took part in the last challenge, walking a combined 2.5 billion steps across the 8 weeks.
However, it was Catherine’s motivation and dedication to her teammates which led to her becoming the captain and being nominated for the award.
She added:
To keep motivation high, I wanted to emphasise that the challenge was much more about setting our own targets. We had one member who was expecting a baby in the autumn, one who travels a lot with work, two office-based staff with busy family lives, and me. We were not all based together and so we set up a WhatsApp group to maintain contact.
“I did not want to overwhelm anyone, but we sent fun motivational messages and anecdotes and shared photos of walks so that we were all contributing no matter where we were, or how far we walked.
“My team felt that I encouraged them all with their busy lifestyles to not worry about how many steps, but that every step mattered no matter how many or how little.
“The whole experience was fun and brought us together. We are all from various areas, but we arranged to come together for dog walks, walks around local parks and this would be followed by dinner into the evening. We wouldn't have done that, but the challenge gave us the purpose that then went beyond the steps.”
View our full list of winners from the 2023 Volunteer Awards by clicking here.