If you’re thinking about getting fitter and being more healthy, there’s a positive, encouraging group in Tamworth that would be happy to support you! Erni Anderson, Vicki Miller, Nicole Simshauser, Robyn Mettam, Mark Lindsay (Makepeace), Kelly Makepeace, Tod Heffernan (Toddy Train), Karen Vial and Janenne Collyer are all members of FitnessFunFriendship (FFF) … and they tell us a little bit about the activities they all get up to …

How and when did FitnessFunFriendship begin?

Erni, Robyn and Vicki were members of a walking group called the “Tamworth Happy Wanderers” from 2015 – 2017. They’d walk every Sunday at 8 am for one hour, followed by coffee. They were also members of 360 Fitness and Tamworth parkrun. This group slowly faded away over time, as most members were mature age, but Robyn, Vicki and Erni continued to do more challenging exercise, such as hiking, bike riding, gym classes, and PT, baseball and hockey for Vicki. 

As soon as we joined parkrun, we met so many amazing friends! Since then, the “group with no name” kept growing; we’d post invitations and photos very regularly online to promote free community fitness awareness.

In February 2018, during our coffee get together, we came up with the name FitnessFunFriendship … we get fit, have fun, and have become a family of friends!

Word of mouth publicity is how we keep growing! Our members now number 105 locally and 385 publically. Our youngest member is five months old, and the oldest is 83 years old and still actively walking at parkrun!

What are the aims of the group? 

To become better, stronger, healthier, happier together as a group, to stay positive, friendly and welcoming to others and new members.

We welcome new members of all ages, their families and friends, and we support, inspire and motivate each other. We promote great communication and great friendship. Our motto is that NOBODY IS LEFT BEHIND! Our fast hikers or runners will come back after they’ve finished their activity to pick up others for support. We treat everyone with respect and work together as a team. We understand everyone’s fitness level is different, which is why we organise all activities to suit everyone.

Most of our activities are free; people only need to pay if they enter events such as triathlons and running festivals, or attend a swimming or gym class, for example. 

Everyone is responsible for themselves during activities, as we are a free fitness group and we don’t carry insurance.

Do you need to be fit or play a certain type of sport to join?

We welcome everyone, regardless of where they are from, their age, gender etc. However, we like to support beginners – people who are already thinking about exercise but don’t know how to start. We’re all about having fun in our group and getting healthier at the same time. You don’t have to be fit to join our group! We will encourage and support you to become fitter than yesterday. You also don’t have to be a sports person; we will encourage you to do activities that suit you. Activities we do together can change due to what members want, and also due to weather conditions, but at the moment our activities are:

Monday: evening swimming at 360 Fitness with Vicki M. and Kelly M. 

Tuesday:

• interval training with amazing runner Kevin McCorriston, 4:45 pm, meet at Tamworth parkrun course. Time and day may change.

• Walk with Adriana Bourke and Ashley Adnett, 4 pm, from the Community Centre.

• Walk with another walking group, the Tamworth Hash House Harriers, 6:15 pm for 6:30 pm start, from random places in town.

Thursday:

• walk at 5 pm; meet at Tamworth parkrun with Erni ‍and Karen Lesley Matthews.

There may also be a 5:30 pm walk with Robyn M. 

• Run with Kevin McCorriston, meet 5:30 am, from Newcastle University campus at Johnson St. Park your car at Hunt St adjacent to Johnson St, then run to the lookout.

• We do a small fitness class with Tom at Tamworth High School, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, at 6 pm. A small fee applies.

Saturday:

• Tamworth parkrun, 7:45 am.

Sunday:

• walk/run/hike/ride, 7 am or 8 am from Tamworth parkrun / South Tamworth McDonald’s with Erni, Karen LM, Jenny Kirk, Denise P, Karly Page and Kim V.

Saturday/Sunday:

• Triathlon with Nicole Simhauser, Kirsten D, Thomas D, Vicki M.

Sunday:

• Every second Sunday of the month there is a walking group that you might like to join; it starts at 9 am, meets at the Tamworth regional playground / Hopscotch, Kable Ave.

#walkntalkforlifetamworth 

Where else do you regularly meet up? 

After Tamworth parkrun on Saturdays, we have breakfast and coffee, where we get to know our members better. 

We also organise socialise outings, celebrate members’ birthdays, have Christmas parties, farewell parties, dinners, dances, multicultural events, attend community events and enjoy meals/coffee after running festival events.

When members or family members are sick or injured, we get together and visit them, to show that we care. We wore a pink ribbon on our arms at parkrun and ran or walked for a family member who was unlucky with terrible illness on that day. 

We have travelled together in buses, cars or planes to places such as the inaugural Merriwa parkrun, Bill Rose Sport Complex, Newy parkrun and Narrabri parkrun, the City2Surf and many more. 

Why would you encourage someone to join the group?

Online, we read that in 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) found that 67.4% of Australian adults are overweight, ranking 21st in the world, and third out of the major countries in the English-speaking world, behind the United States (ranked 9th) and New Zealand (ranked 17th). If we can do just one little tiny thing in our community to reduce these numbers, that is fantastic!

However, FFF is not all about weight; we encourage each other to exercise and eat good food so that we can stay healthy and strong. If we lose some weight, that is a big bonus for us, but otherwise, we will still be stronger than yesterday. This is why we like to post photos and compare them at the beginning of our membership to recent photos. Many of our members have lost heaps of weight, just through walking and eating healthy food!

Most importantly, we always have fun at the same time. We exercise, laugh, giggle and have lots of conversation along the way! 

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our members, their family and friends for their support 

Where can we find out more info?

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/146545036186806/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/fitnessfunfriendship/

Thanks, everyone.