wow - what a year....
The end of the year is the perfect time to step back, pause and see just how far you’ve come.
More than ever I want to start by expressing my heartfelt thanks to everyone who’s supported & encouraged us, become part of our fantastic (& growing) team or come along on one of our walks and events.
I also need to thank our partners, supporters and everyone who’s made a donation – you’ve helped us to help so many people take their first steps to feeling better this year.
Where are we now?...
First it was Cumbria, then Lancashire — but now Wellness Walks is becoming a national social movement. At a scale large enough to show the whole picture, it’s impossible to see just how many walks took place in 2025. Each marker represents far more than a route on the ground: it’s a conversation, a shared experience, and a safe, welcoming space for people to take the first steps towards feeling better.
Many of the markers show a ‘+’, not because there was just one walk, but because the same routes were run time and again as communities formed and people kept coming back. From rural paths and urban green spaces to mountain tops and beautiful lakes, our volunteers showed up week after week, delivering totally free Wellness Walks in response to real local need. And we’re still growing — welcoming new leaders, adding more walks and reaching new locations — building something that’s locally rooted, nationally connected, and grounded in care, consistency and community.
In 2025 we significantly broadened the experience and scope of what Wellness Walks can offer. As more Hill & Moorland Leaders and Mountain Leaders joined the team, participants were able to access a wider range of environments and challenges — from gentle, familiar routes to more adventurous hill and mountain days. That breadth matters: it allows people to progress at their own pace, to try something new when they’re ready, and to rediscover confidence in themselves and the outdoors.
Alongside this, regions increasingly began working together. Participants were signposted to walks beyond their immediate area, encouraged to visit new landscapes, and supported to build skills and independence through varied experiences. What this created wasn’t uniformity, but choice — different walks, different leaders, different places — all underpinned by the same shared values and standards.
Across the third sector and within social prescribing, we’re also seeing a deeper recognition that recommending an activity is not a neutral act. If people are being encouraged to join a group, it needs to be a genuinely safe space — one where physical, emotional and psychological safety are taken seriously, not assumed. Wellness Walks exists precisely to meet that need: provably qualified, insured, equipped and supported walk leaders, offering consistency, care and professionalism, and acting as trusted community champions.
Perhaps most importantly, our internal community has continued to mature. Volunteers have organised their own peer-to-peer mentoring, collaborated on joint walks, and actively contributed ideas that have strengthened the charity as a whole. It’s a culture that can’t be forced or fast-tracked — and seeing it grow naturally has been one of the most meaningful parts of the year.
Data Driven...
Data sits right at the heart of Wellness Walks. For many of us it’s simply putting numbers to what we’ve long known in our bones: that time outdoors, time in nature, and time alongside other people can be central to feeling better. But good data doesn’t just confirm a hunch — it helps us understand who we’re reaching, where we’re reaching them, and how we can keep improving what we do.
We take the same approach into every partnership. If someone supports our charitable objectives, they deserve tangible proof that their support is making a real difference — not just warm words. Data helps us be transparent, accountable, and evidence-led: it strengthens our funding bids, guides where we focus our energy, and helps us spot gaps so we can serve more people, in more places.
This heatmap is one of the clearest indicators that Wellness Walks are genuinely wanted and that our approach is working. It shows both how far people are willing to travel to join a totally free Wellness Walk, and how our walks become embedded in local communities over time — as word spreads, returners come back, and new people take their first steps towards feeling better.
So lets talk numbers....
How many Wellness Walks?
We quietly had this as a goal for 2025, we weren’t sure – but, wow, more than a walk a day delivered by our fabulous team.
Amazing!
people who came on a Wellness Walk
There’s lots of ways to measure participation – but in 2025 we supported 540 unique individuals across more than 2500 participations.
Healthy Lifestyle Behaviours
A staggering 58% of people who attend a Wellness Walk return to take part in more walks – 11% of people have now completed 30 or more walks with us.
Ways to measure growth
Part of our charitable mission states “as many people as possible, in as many places as possible”
This year we delivered walks in 19 different counties across all three home nations.
Building a Team
Across the year we said goodbye to a small number of volunteers and welcomed many more (more on that below), but this year’s walks were delivered by an incredible team of 43 volunteers.
A training partner to trust
Over the course of the year we delivered 27 training courses – all recognised qualifications giving people the skills to support others.
Some Highlights of the year....
Picking highlights for the year is a both wonderful and daunting task as the charity grows and develops. There’s so much going on, so I decided on a run through of the year and some more detailed items below.
January; Confirmation of unrestricted funding from the Foyle Foundation – the behind the scenes vital sort of funding that meant we knew the charity could continue.
February; Wonderful to have our CEO out mentoring some of the team who are looking to take higher level walking qualifications so they can access wilder places.
March; Saw us delivering training to some of the Lake District National Park’s instructors.
April; Thanks to the support of the Sir John Fisher Foundation we were able to take the Big Day Out trips back to Millom. It also saw us supporting the Thurrock Walking Festival in Essex. But the biggest event of the year was the launch of our Founders Book (see below).
May; More volunteers in West Cumbria qualified & our partnership with Byw’n Iach strengthened as a second cohort of North Wales volunteers began their journey with us.
June; one of our first ever volunteers, Sarah, quite fittingly becomes our first qualified Hill & Moorland Leader, brilliant.
July; Our 1000th ever person joins a Wellness Walk, and we record our first professional videos.
August; 8 new volunteers qualify in glorious Gwynedd!
September; Delivering training in England and Wales for the Outdoor Partnership – an organisation with values so very closely aligned to ours. Our first ever 5-day canoe expedition (we’re doing another in July ’26).
October; Our second cohort of volunteers begin their Hill & Moorland Leader training – proof of a pathway of personal development and opportunity that we hope will lead to them joining our mentoring and instruction teams.
November; Dark nights, fundraising events and festivals.
December; The Team. Wonderful to be recognised as Partnership of the Year at the Gwynedd Sports Awards – just as lovely to spend social time with lots and lots of the larger Wellness Walks team and realise we’re becoming a wonderful community of our own.
Walking out of the Dark
A huge and heartfelt thank you to everyone who bought a copy of the book — all profits go directly to supporting the work of the charity. What began as a deeply personal attempt to understand how time spent with other people in nature helped me recover from tragedy became something else entirely.
As Kelvyn reflects: “I didn’t know when I started writing that I was also telling the story of how Wellness Walks came to be.”
The response has been genuinely humbling. Reviews have been fantastic, with one reader describing it as
“simultaneously the most visceral and beautiful writing I’ve ever had the privilege to read.”
Sales exceeded all expectations, and the funds raised played a meaningful role in helping the charity keep going through a challenging year.
Available Here
As many people as possible in as many places as possible...
Our aim has always been for Wellness Walks to be a national charity helping as many people as possible wherever we can.
In 2025 we added volunteers in Cumbria, Gwynedd, Humberside, the North-East and Scotland. We trialled some hybrid learning and laid the foundations to begin really working in partnership with other organisations.
Just as importantly though we supported our existing volunteers to take higher qualifications, to undertake CPD and begin the journey towards instructional roles.
Currently we’re recruiting for volunteers in Blackpool (& Fylde) and early next year we’ll be recruiting for Sheffield and the Peak District,
Find out more here.
Partnership of the Year
Fabulous recognition for our brilliant team of volunteers in Gwynedd — and a genuine testament to the power of working together to support the communities we choose to serve. This award reflects the care, commitment and consistency our walk leaders bring, week in and week out, creating safe, welcoming spaces where people can take the first steps towards feeling better. We’re hugely proud of them — not just for the recognition itself, but for the positive, lasting impact they have within their local communities.
Training that gives back
When people chose to book a course with Wellness Walks in 2025, they helped make something bigger possible. Alongside delivering Mountain Training walking qualifications, Outdoor First Aid and First Aid for Mental Health, we ensured that our course delivery directly supported one of our core charitable objectives: increasing access for under-represented and marginalised people.
Any surplus generated through course delivery was reinvested to remove barriers to participation. As a direct result, during 2025 we were able to offer free or heavily subsidised places to 16 individuals who may not otherwise have been able to attend. Course delivery grew across the year, and that learning now shapes our plans for 2026, with training becoming an even stronger focus while keeping social impact firmly at its heart.
Why "team" matters
The biggest highlight of 2025 took a while to come into focus. It crept up on us quietly, until suddenly it was undeniable: the community our volunteers, instructors and supporters have become. What began as locally rooted walks is now something far bigger — a nationally local movement, shaped by people who care deeply about doing things well.
It’s been a real privilege to see longer-established volunteers supporting those newly qualified, to watch peer-to-peer mentoring grow organically, and to see social connections forming beyond the walks themselves — shared days out, conversations, and friendships. This is what sustainable impact looks like: good people, supporting good people, creating good times together.
Partnerships
Nearly everything we do relies on partnerships – without their support we wouldn’t have been able to deliver nearly 400 totally free walks across the UK.
And partnership takes many forms – its not just financial support, it can be promotion, encouragement or ideas – we’re immensely grateful to everyone we’ve worked with this year including;
Aberfeldy Community Council ♥ AM Trust ♥ All the Elements ♥ Alpkit Foundation ♥ BMC ♥ Byw’n Iach ♥ CCF ♥ Cumberland Council ♥ Enchanted Forest ♥ English Sports Council ♥ Foyle Foundation ♥ Frances Scott Trust ♥ Give Clarity ♥ Grays Recreational Trust ♥ Groundwork ♥ LDNP ♥ Lancs CC ♥ Mountain Training ♥ Nichol End Marina ♥ The Outdoor Partnership ♥ Outside ♥ RWM ♥ Schrier Foundation ♥ Together We ♥ Water Park ♥ Whitehaven Harbour Commissioners ♥ Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust
Some final words from our Beneficaries....
“by being proactive, positive and making good choices, and keeping up a healthy routine including attending wellness walks, i have been successful in overcoming challenges and I am looking to the future with eagerness.”
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“We’ve been walking with Wellness Walks for nearly a year and it’s been one of the best things we’ve ever done.”
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“It has given me the confidence to converse with other people, to get outside and be healthy”.”
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“So proud of ourselves for managing this easy level walk as we have not done anything like this. Great to meet others in the same position too.”
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“Being an outdoors for an extended time allowed me to reengage with the environment and feel connected to a group of people in a way that I haven’t done in ages.”
What's next?
Like all charities in the UK, 2026 will bring its challenges. In 2025, a record number of charities — all doing vital, life-changing work — were forced to close their doors for the last time. That context matters. But so does this: Wellness Walks is resilient. And in 2026 we’ll be focused firmly on developing new partnerships, growing our fundraising activity, and supporting more people and communities than ever before.
The year ahead begins quickly. In January we start training new volunteers in Cumbria. February sees us arriving in Blackpool, with Yorkshire following soon after. During 2025 we also raised funds specifically to purchase our own specialist paddling equipment, and the first order has now been placed. As a result, Wellness-on-Water is confirmed to run a minimum of 20 sessions during the year — opening up nature-based experiences to even more people.
We’re also hugely excited to be supporting the Keswick Mountain Festival in May, with further events to be added as dates go live. Bookings will open in the first week of January for both this year’s canoe expedition — the Spey Descent — and the Cross Bay Walk. In addition, booking is now live for all of our courses for the first quarter of 2026.
As I write this, there are already 16 walks on the system for the New Year. We know that Christmas isn’t a happy time for everyone, and that New Year’s resolutions can feel heavy. So why not start the year with something positive — come and join us for a walk.
Find a Walk
For now, we simply want to say thank you once again, and wish you a peaceful, hopeful and happy New Year.
Kelvyn & all the Wellness Walks Team