A lot has happened since our April update, for all of us! We’ve tried to briefly put together what we have been doing through this difficult time, with some exciting new projects in the pipeline! 

Online Calendar Success

We suspended our physical delivery of sessions 7 months ago on the 18th March. We knew we needed to react quickly to ensure opportunities to stay physically active were easy to access for the East Herts residents, while instructors needed a platform to deliver their adapted, indoor sessions. Lounges turned into spin classes, yoga studios and HiiT arenas overnight! 

We worked hard to get an online calendar of activity up and running and at its peak, we had 140 weekly sessions on our calendar, all of which were delivered by local, East Herts instructors. We regularly engaged hundreds of participants who used the sessions to stay fit while many used it as a reintroduction to regular physical activity.

While we continue to work with the restrictions in place and embrace the new way the world works, we are committed to maintaining an online calendar for as long as it is required. In the long term we realise that for some people, online classes are the way forward so where possible we will facilitate this. The calendar also highlighted the need for a central location for the incredibly diverse range of activities available in East Herts to be available. We will therefore be adding physical, face to face sessions to our calendar in the coming weeks, ensuring we are the first port of call for anyone looking to get active! 

View online calendar here

Active Local

We are working alongside a number of partners including the Herts Sports Partnership and East Herts Council on a new project called "Active Local". Every district has an “Active Local” location which is an area of focus where partners work to improve sporting facilities and the physical activity offering within the area.

For East Hertfordshire, our Active Local location is the Sele Farm area and we have already started identifying some areas for development on the estate. We have worked on a mapping exercise to identify the current facilities and activites in the area to enable us to identify gaps in provision. With this knowledge and an extensive list of local partners the project is well underway.

We will be looking to engage with the community in a consultation in the coming months but already we have identified a new children's dance class and a post-natal class to bring to the area very soon!

If you would like to be involved as a partner or as a resident in the consultation phase, you can get in touch by emailing: adam.howard@activeinthecommunity.org.uk 

2020 GO TRI

In April we took the decision to suspend our GO TRI events with the hope of re-arranging them for later in the summer. We have now taken the tough and disappointing decision to cancel our entire summer events for 2020.

We were looking forward to building on the fantastic events we held in 2019 but will now turn our attention to looking at delivering bigger and better events in 2021.

GO TRI are also looking at delivering a new version of their races, GO TRI Local. We have now developed a very strong working relationship with British Triathlon and we are having conversations about working together to bring a GO TRI Local to East Hertfordshire. Follow our social media accounts (at the bottom of the page) for up to date information. 

Active East Hert’s New Normal

As with every company in the last few months, we have had to completely revamp how we work, where we work and how we help to tackle inactivity in East Hertfordshire. We have faced a number of challenges (which will be familiar to the majority of people) since March but have also worked hard to ensure that we have a number of future projects in the pipeline.

We took an early decision as a company to suspend our physical session's and to move our operations to “working from home”. As of Monday 9th March we began work on our pop up offices in dining rooms and spare rooms and settle into the new routine. 

An immediate focus was ensuring easily accessible home workouts for anyone wanting to get or stay active. We reached out to a plethora of local instructors and the interaction with some inspiring, creative individuals was incredible, highlighting the hard working, fitness mad instructors around the district. 

Since then we have turned our attention to plans to continue to support the community whatever the next few months may have in store for us. We are working hard to get physical sessions up and running as we recognise the importance the social element face to face sessions has as well as the clear physical and mental advantages. Whilst doing this we are identifying new partners and new groups who need support, increasing the opportunities for anyone and everyone to get physically active. We have also ensured that should any local lockdown come back into effect we can swiftly re-boot our online calendar, offering a clear path for people to adapt their exercise routines and get the support they need. 

 While unclear what the remaining months of 2020 has in store for us, we are confident that we can continue to support people in their physical activity journey!

Social Media Links:

Instagram - @activeeastherts

Facebook - @ActiveEastHerts

Twitter - @ActiveEastHerts