Living it up at health and wellbeing event
Lochgilphead’s MACPool hosted an open Live Better event on Sunday January 28 for people in Mid Argyll to encourage people to think more about their health and wellbeing.
Around 100 people turned out to try fitness sessions, take part in fun and fit sessions in the pool, partake in refreshments and browse the information stalls in the building - one of which included a special Shetland pony.
Lynn Johnstone, one of the co-ordinators of the Living Well Forum which organised the event, said: “We are absolutely overjoyed at the turnout to the Live Better event and the way that so many people got stuck in.
“Huge thanks to the Salty Dog Café for the tasty soup and yummy cakes, to Kirsty Young at MACPool for hosting the event, Rachel Martin from RM Fitness for the taster sessions, to the Co-op for donating the fresh fruit, to Mean Macdonald and Sadie Johnstone for the face painting, all the community groups for their exhibits and, of course, to the star of the show, Huggy.”
Huggy was brought along to the event by Caeleigh Kean of Hugs of Argyll, which offers psycho-social, emotional, and physical benefits to a variety of people by using horses and ponies.
This approach is particularly useful when working with vulnerable groups of children and adults, including those with a mental or physical disability, young or elderly people.
“Ponies are sentient beings with special emotional intelligence that can teach us a lot about ourselves. They tend to mirror humans, which can bring a variety of benefits,” said Caeleigh.
“We have ponies that are particularly good for indoor locations such as care homes and hospitals, and others that can be used to teach children, teenagers and adults basic equine skills in stable management and in-hand hacking giving them a real hands-on approach.”
Youngsters and adults alike were delighted to interact with Huggy, and even more pleased to find that they were able to groom and, of course, hug the wee pony.
Rachel Martin, who runs RMFitness from MACPool premises, added, “I think this was a real success. All my sessions were packed and I had more people wanting to join even after we were fully booked. As a result, I will be running a new course that I have been considering for some time. But most of all, I think everyone had fun.”
With soft play and face painting to keep the youngsters happy after grooming Huggy, the adults were keen to find out more about what is available in Mid Argyll when it comes to keeping fit and healthy.
There were sessions in the pool where people could try out aquafit and aquacycling.
Among the stalls holders was Barabel MacKay, chairperson of the Health Care Forum, who said: “We’ve had a lot of people signing up to get more information about what is going on in the world of health and to have their say on local services.
“We are also inviting everyone to the Health Matters Forum meeting on Saturday February 24 at the Snowdrop MS Centre. We all seem to agree that to keep on keeping well, we need changes.”
Meanwhile, Stuart McLellan and Mid Argyll Councillor Jan Brown were seeking volunteers for Lochgilphead Community Shop.
Stuart, a director, said: “Volunteers are vital to the running of The Community Shop. We aim to provide an important service to the local community, providing a way to recycle unwanted yet undamaged goods such as clothing, CDs, books and small items of furniture. The other side of the coin is that furnishing a home or helping the environment by buying pre-loved goods can be done for very little money.
But we do need the volunteers to be able to provide that service.”
The only disappointment of the day was the weather, which prevented the Snowdrop MS Centre from setting up the big bubble tent for their Camerados public living room. Karen McCurry laughed: “After nearly taking off with the wind, we took shelter in the café where we had a game of Connect 4 and got beaten in almost every game. We got to connect and chat with some people we didn’t know before and that’s what Camerados is all about.”