GOGA is about fun and friendship for Rosy Bevis
For Rosy Bevis, Get Out Get Active (GOGA) means more than being active, it’s means fun and friendship. She started going to a local GOGA session in Amesbury, and quickly spread the word to encourage her friends to join her. She is now part of 30 people who attend the session regularly.
Watch Rosy talk about her experience of GOGA with May King below:
“It’s not hard exercise, it’s fun exercise and it suits all abilities.”
“I find it’s not only good for your body, it’s good mentally because it stimulates your brain. You’re out talking to people, and you become a proper little group and make new friends. And I just love doing it.”
On Thursday 19 October Activity Alliance and partners will celebrate all things Get Out Get Active (GOGA). We are bringing people together from across the UK to recognise the importance of their work. The event will give everyone present an opportunity to reflect on the impact of GOGA. We will celebrate how the programme has changed the lives of those involved. How the GOGA approach brings people together. And the people of GOGA, who continue to embed the GOGA way into their lives.
As part of the event, we’re releasing a series of videos featuring those who have helped to shape, influence, and benefit from the programme. FOMO creator May King Tsang hosts each one, hearing from people on why GOGA is so special.
In the latest release, Rosy, a participant, describes how her friends were originally apprehensive about an exercise session.
“They thought that because they were disabled, or not fit they’d have to be doing all this jumping about really quick and it would be competitive. I said ‘no it’s not like that, it’s fun’. You do what you are able to do. You don’t push yourself beyond your limits. The GOGA instructors let you know that, they’re brilliant, absolutely brilliant. You are encouraged to push yourself a bit, but not beyond what you can cope with.”
This approach is vital to the success of GOGA. The programme has itself become an approach. A place where disabled and non-disabled people can come together to be active. GOGA has influenced and encouraged organisations across the UK to do things differently when it comes to physical activity.
As Adam Blaze put in the first video of the series, GOGA encourages people to “embrace the power of being active.” Watch Adam Blaze’s interview on the GOGA website here.
In just a few weeks we will look back at how the programme has changed the lives of those involved. Whether that is one of the 31,000 individual participants, or 3,500 volunteers there is cause to celebrate.
About Get Out Get Active
Get Out Get Active (GOGA) is a programme that supports disabled and non-disabled people to enjoy being active together. Activity Alliance is the creator and lead partner. The programme is funded by Spirit of 2012, Sport England and London Marathon Foundation.
