Somerset Health Walks wouldn't exist without our fantastic volunteer walk leaders, who lead health walks taking place around the country. As a volunteer walk leader, you would be helping people in your community to get active and healthy, providing vital support that they otherwise might not get.

Our walk leaders love their roles and tell us fantastic stories about how much they enjoy helping others to get active and get walking. But in case that doesn't convince you, here are some of the other great benefits:

• Full training with a nationally recognised and well respected scheme.
• Ongoing support and guidance from your scheme coordinator and Walking for Health.
• Access to Walking for Health resources and equipment to help you fulfil your role.
• Opportunity to meet new people including like-minded volunteers.
• Opportunity to discover more of your local area and spend time in the outdoors.
• Opportunity to be more physically active yourself.

As a walk leader, your responsibilities will include:

• Walking health walk routes beforehand (advance preparation) to make sure you know them.
• Making sure paperwork like registration forms and registers are completed (and in some cases added to the database).
• Leading and managing walks, usually jointly with other walk leaders.
• Trouble shooting and dealing with problems on walks, with the support of your scheme coordinator.
• Attending occasional walk leaders' meetings and refresher training.
• You could also be asked to help your scheme coordinator develop and risk assess new walking routes.

Most walks are short (around an hour or less) so including travelling, preparation and paperwork leading a single walk close to home typically takes around 2.5-3 hours, plus recces and occasional meetings and refresher training. Typical schemes expect their leaders to attend at least one walk a month, depending on the programme and the numbers of leaders they have.

To register for the next Walk Leader Training please complete the expression of interest form here. We will contact you when the next date is arranged to let you know that the training is now available.