Let's Walk and More Devon's Active Workplace Challenge

Let’s Walk and More with Devon’s Biggest Active Workplace Challenge

Don’t miss out…sign up through the BuddyBoost webpage and join in.

Are you up for a challenge? Then why not team up with work colleagues and join the many businesses, companies, organisations and schools taking part in this super fun Devon-wide workplace challenge.

Let’s Walk and More

Running from the 1-31st March 2023, this ever-popular challenge is all about encouraging you and your colleagues to be active every day, with the aim of getting to the top of the leader board and becoming Let’s Walk and More’s most active workplace!

Whether you travel to work or work from home you can sign up, plus, there’s epic prizes to be won.

Using the BuddyBoost App

This year, we have again teamed up with BuddyBoost to bring you an interactive workplace challenge that will be based on consistent daily activity. The aim will be for you to buddy-up and create a team of between 3-12 colleagues and for each of you to complete a minimum of 26 minutes of activity every day throughout March. Your workplace can also enter multiple teams, which adds to the fun!

The BuddyBoost app provides a simple way for you to create your team of buddies, log your daily activity and encourage each other to become more active by sharing your progress with the Let’s Walk and More community feed.

And there’s more…

Any kind of physical activity counts towards your 26 minutes, so you could walk, run, cycle, dance, skip, or try something completely new.  Why not mix it up and try a different activity daily?

To motivate you along the way and for a chance to win fantastic prizes, there will also be a fun weekly theme for you and your colleagues to enjoy.

NEW for 2023 – as well as completing a minimum of 26 daily minutes of daily activity, you can also add a personal goal to your page in the BuddyBoost app and share this with your buddies and the community to keep each other motivated.

Resources to Support You and Your Team 

From top tips for team leaders and ideas for moving more, to using a daily activity calendar, we’ve created a range of Let’s Walk and More Challenge Resources to support and inspire you, your team and workplace throughout March. Take a look!

Let’s Walk and More to Make a Difference

Getting motivated to be active daily is not always that easy. Plus, remote working has made it harder for us to connect with our colleagues. However, a little change really does make a big difference.

There are so many health and wellbeing benefits to moving more, and it’s now widely proven that being active boosts your mood. So, this is the perfect way to get you, your colleagues and workplace feeling healthier and happier.

Top tip: Why not consider swapping at least part of your car, bus or train journey to work, and walk, cycle or run instead? If you work from home, you could still walk, cycle or run to the shops or for other short journeys. Travelling actively in this way can be one of the easiest ways to achieve your daily goal. It’s also great for the environment and you get to enjoy being outdoors!

 For More Details Read These FAQs

FAQs

What Do I Track?
What Activities Count? Track your steps every day. Any activity which involves steps, counts, whether you’re at work or not. Make your next meeting a walking one, take the stairs instead of the lift, take a walk in your lunch break, why not walk to work? However you like to, get walking.

How Do I Track My Steps?
Using our Challenge Platform, which will be live for you to sign up to, from mid January 2020. Track your steps however you like; use your smart watch, smartphone or a pedometer. Log into the Challenge Platform, register your team and log your steps to take part. You can even log your steps based on how many minutes you have walked, it’s that simple.

How Many People In A Team?
There is no limit to the number of people per team. You can take part with just two or a 100 team members.

What If Another Team Has More People, Won’t They Get More Steps?
Your team score will be based on the average amount of steps, so it’s fair.

How Do You Win?
There will be several categories for overall competition winners, plus weekly incentives with lots of great prizes to be given away including some Fitbits, vouchers and other exciting goodies. Once you register, we’ll be in touch with all the details.

The categories for the overall competition are: 
Overall Team winners (average steps and also total steps)
Small (2-10) Medium (11-25) and Large (26+) Teams where we will calculate the average steps taken by each team.

  • Click the Sign Up Here button at the top of this page which will take you to the BuddyBoost webpage. Complete the sign-up form and submit
  • Download the BuddyBoost app from the Android Play Store or the Apple App Store
  • Open the BuddyBoost app, select ‘Let’s Walk and More’ and then your business or employer from the dropdown menu at the end of the simple registration process. If you are asked for a code, enter: LETSWALK to join the challenge
  • Get ready for the 1st of March!
  • Open the BuddyBoost app
  • Press the ‘Buddies’ tab and then press one of the ‘Invite’ buttons to invite a colleague to join your team
  • Don’t forget, you can only be in one team at a time
  • Open the BuddyBoost app
  • Press the ‘Buddies’ tab and then press the three dots in the top right-hand corner
  • Select edit and then enter your team name
  • Log your daily activty by clicking on the ‘Home’ tab at the bottom of the app and then clicking on the date of the calendar that you wish to add your activity

This year all activity counts! Whether that’s walking, cycling, dancing or yoga, the key is to be active every day to help improve your health and wellbeing. To give you some inspiration, we’ll be suggesting a different activity theme for each week of the challenge.

Yes, you can create a team of between 3 – 12 colleagues within the app, and help your business or employer climb the leader board with your daily logged activity. Try picking buddies that will inspire, support and motivate you throughout the challenge. Each workplace can have as many teams of between 3 – 12 people as it wants.

This challenge is all about consistency. We want to see if you can manage a minimum of 26 minutes of activity every day, for the whole of March. You choose the activity that’s best for you and help support your buddies to do the same.

You can still track your total steps, times and distances separately using your favourite activity tracker apps or wearables or connect via Strava or Fitbit to the app. Why not share your progress with everyone else who’s taking part, by posting in the community feed in the BuddyBoost app.

You’re probably asking, ‘what’s so great about the number 26?’ and it’s a good question. Well, it’s all about helping you to achieve the UK’s Chief Medical Officer (CMO) recommendation of doing at least 150 minutes of moderate activity a week. If you do your minimum of 26 minutes every day, you’ll clock up 182 minutes a week and, even if you were to miss a day, you’d still be up at 156 minutes, which exceeds the CMO guidance.

It’s also less than 30 minutes. That 4-minute difference may not look much, but our research shows that 26 minutes feels psychologically easier to squeeze into a busy day and more achievable for people who aren’t used to exercising much. So, 26 it is!

To hit the overall Chief Medical Officer target, you need to do 26 days in a month. That gives you scope for a few ‘emergency days’ if it’s really not possible to do your 26 minutes. But try not to skip a day just because you don’t feel like it, as people tell us that they often get the biggest mood boost when they manage to overcome that apathy and get their 26 minutes done.

The buddyboost app will show you how you are tracking towards your 26-day target and if you manage to do more than 26 days in March, you’ll be rewarded with a score of over 100%.

And of course, we’d like to see as many of you as possible be active on all 31 days in March.

The leader board shows all the Devon-based businesses and employers that are taking part in the challenge.

The leader board tracks how many people of those taking part from each workplace, complete their daily 26 minutes. If you want your workplace to climb to the top, make sure your organisation is encouraging every employee who is taking part to be active every day throughout the challenge, with whatever activity works best for them.

The winning workplace will be the business or employer with the most consistently active members of staff. For example, if you have a workplace of 12 people and all 12 members of staff log their activity every day throughout March, you’ll likely be top of the leader board. If there is a tie for first place at the end of the challenge, the workplaces with a greater variety of logged activities will earn extra points.

So how can you be crowned Let’s Walk and More’s most active workplace? Log your individual activity every day, encourage all of your participating staff/colleagues to do the same and explore different types of activities throughout March. Remember, this is a ‘workplace’ challenge, so make sure you are encouraging all participating staff/colleagues from your business or employer to log their activities every day.

Yes. There will be lots of prizes to be won throughout the challenge. There will be individual prizes, team prizes and prizes for the winning workplaces at the end of the challenge. Keep an eye out for more information about the exciting prizes on offer in the app’s community tab.

Prizes will be awarded for both challenge interaction and for personal or team achievements.

Let’s Walk and More will be introducing a series of weekly themes to help motivate and inspire us all throughout March. The five the main themes are:

  • Week 1 – Everyday Movement
  • Week 2 – Environment
  • Week 3 – Try Something New
  • Week 4 – Nature
  • Week 5 –Wellbeing

Keep an eye on the ‘Community’ tab within the BuddyBoost app for more information.

Yes, absolutely! Everybody is welcome! This year is all about rewarding consistency, tracking your individual and team progress and celebrating the activity levels of your workplace. It really doesn’t matter how far or how fast you go, just that you do your 26 minutes and support your buddies to do theirs.