National Themed Events
The purposes of the National Themed Events are:
- to do something of value to local communities
- to give a platform to raise the profile of Walkers are Welcome, both locally and nationally
- to build cohesion between Walkers are Welcome groups
- to have fun and get a sense of well-being through doing something worthwhile
Towns/villages joining in any the events below are asked to send details, with a photo, by email to naomi@wellingtonwalkersarewelcome.org.uk
Future Events:
- Celebrate your local waymarked path during National Walking Month – May 2024
- Many WaW have either developed, or have, a local waymarked and named path near them. For example the Telford T50 50 Mile Trail or The Welcome Way. These are valued locally and can attract walkers to WaW towns, which is one of the WaW aims. So, at some point in May 2024, towns will be walking on their local path and talking about its merits. More details later
Past Events:
- Heritage Open Days, September 2023
- The theme for the 2023 event was based around the history of creativity and the arts encompassing topics such as literature, art, music, and drama. More general heritage themed events are welcome too. Many of our towns took part. See also the Autumn 2023 edition of Way this Way
Holmfirth Sept 8th-17th
Sept 28th – Oct 1st
Kirkby Stephen Sept 8th. 14th Dereham Sept 9th Wellington Sept 12th Stocksbridge Sept 14th, 16th
- The theme for the 2023 event was based around the history of creativity and the arts encompassing topics such as literature, art, music, and drama. More general heritage themed events are welcome too. Many of our towns took part. See also the Autumn 2023 edition of Way this Way
- Great Slow Ways Summer Waycheck, June 16th to 25th
- See here for full details and a link to sign up as a group. To inspire WaW towns, Dan Raven-Ellison, the founder of SlowWays, hosted an on-line session for WaW on April 18th. See the May Member’s Newsletter for a report.
- Keep Britain Tidy’s Great British Spring Clean, 7th March to 2nd April 2023
- Not formally one of our events, but some towns took part in The Great British Spring Clean 2023. See here.
- Countryfile Ramble / Children in Need, October 2022
- Their preferred dates were ” the first week in October”, but events could be on any date to suit you. We believe a least 3 towns (2 of those below plus Market Weighton) took part in the Countryfile Ramble with another supporting their local radio station .
Henley-on-Thames Bingley Wellington October 2nd October 9th November 12th 
A choice of 4 walks from 2.3 to 8.6 miles, including one suitable for mobility scooters. 3 mile walk as above,
They were very pleased with how it went and raised £333. Photos here .
Wellington Welly Walk
A short 45-minute walk, for Children in Need’ in conjunction with Paul Shuttleworth of BBC Radio Shropshire. It was a circular walk from outside Dothill Primary School, with both a short cut option and the chance to do a longer walk too.
They raised £217.59 on the day with more online.
Pudsey Bear was there. Photos here
- Their preferred dates were ” the first week in October”, but events could be on any date to suit you. We believe a least 3 towns (2 of those below plus Market Weighton) took part in the Countryfile Ramble with another supporting their local radio station .
- Heritage Open Days, September 2022
- The theme for the 2022 event, running from September 9th to 18th , was Astounding Inventions. The full list of events can be seen here.
- We have been told about 7 events being organised by WaW towns:
St Ives Heritage Walk
Display of Motorbikes and a walk
Celebrating Michael Faraday
Bingley Snaith Kirkby Stephen September 11, 2022 September 11, 2022
September 15, 2022 
Bingley are celebrating a place that is rich in heritage, rather than a specific invention. On their walk in the Bingley St Ives Estate. Visitors will have a glimpse of an area that English Heritage entered into the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in 2009. The highlight of the annual Heritage Open Day celebrations will be in Market Place, where there will be a display of cherished motorbikes. In nearby Cowick, there will be a guided walk along Cowick Royal Way, where you will hear stories about visits to Cowick by Kings and Queens and many other important people with royal connections. Kirkby Stephen are celebrating Michael Faraday’s association with the town in a 1-hour family walk Celebrating Thomas Parker
Georgian Town Walk
Hunshelf Bank circular from Stocksbridge
Wellington
Dereham
Stocksbridge
September 15, 2022 September 17th, 2022 September 18th, 2022 
Wellington are organising a 7.5 mile walk in celebration of Thomas Parker. The walk will visit places in Madeley and Coalbrookdale that are associated with the man who invented the world’s first electric car. See for example https://historycollection.com/thomas-parker-invented-first-electric-car-1884/ Dereham are celebrating a place that is rich in heritage, rather than a specific invention. Working with Dereham Heritage Trust, they offer a walk round the Georgian buildings and sites within the town. (Where buildings have disappeared, their locations will be visited.) Ascend to the Pea Royd Lane Viewpoint and Hunshelf Bank. Extensive views across the Upper Don Valley follow as we traverse Hunshelf Bank before reaching the Green Moor Viewpoint. We then descend to the stepping stones at the Wortley Leppings before returning via Tin Mill, the River Don and the Deepcar bridleway to Fox Valley Shopping Centre. Coleford’s Hidden Heritage
Coleford Throughout 
Coleford is actively taking part in Heritage Open Days with The Coleford Area Partnership providing events to celebrate the towns marked long history. These events can be found by visiting HOD Heritage Apps/Forest of Dean On visiting this site, you will see the Coleford Heritage App, being free to download, this app is a brilliant way to see the old town through the magic of technology.
- Celebrating our heritage – Autumn 2021 All our towns and villages have something to celebrate. for England, the dates for Heritage Open Days were 10th to 19th September and the theme was Edible England , see https://www.heritageopendays.org.uk/organising/edible-england but towns or villages were free to choose another aspect.
- Some of our members’ events:
Bus Walk and Vineyard Visit
September 14, 2021
Historical Pub Crawl
September 16, 2021
St Ives Heritage Walk
September 19, 2021
- National tree week 2020 The Tree Council’s National Tree Week ran from 28th November to 6th December. We encouraged those of our member towns and villages, who were currently holding small group walks for the benefit of their local community, to hold a woodland walk during National Tree Walk to celebrate the work of The Tree Council. These walks were listed on our events page Other activities were welcome too, e.g. publicising self-guided walks in woodland or just publishing a news item about a special local tree.
Kirkby Stephen 3rd December
Middleton-in-Teesdale
Bingley
- The lock down lifting event 2020 as towns gradually restart their activities in line with government guidelines we encouraged towns to publish a news item about their first event on our news page. By the second week of July 2020 there were 6 events there, including one committee meeting.
- The first event was to be held in March 2020 would have been the Walkers are Welcome National Litter-Pick Unfortunately this event had to be cancelled due to the Coronavirus advice.