Cowal’s Green Gym

Green Gyms are swinging through the country, and, in Argyll,  Cowal is next on the list.

The new Cowal Green Gym will offer people of all ages and backgrounds the opportunity to improve their fitness by involvement in practical conservation activities such as tree and hedge planting, creating and maintaining community gardens or improving footpaths.

The initiative, aiming simultaneoulsy to boost health and well being while improving the natural environment available to communities, will start a 10 week trial in green spaces around Dunoon and the wider Cowal area from 10th May.

Local people are invited to go and try out the short programme and to suggest more spaces in the community which would benefit from Green Gym activity – a comments box will be in the  Dunoon Library from Monday 26th April.

An initial programme of practical conservation work for May and June will see work going on in areas like Bishop’s Glen, Morag’s Fairy Glen, Cowal Hospice Garden, Dunoon Rose Garden and the woodland behind Cowal Place.

The first Green Gym session will begin on Monday 10th May in the afternoon. Local volunteers who are interested in joining are asked to drop in for a coffee and a chat to the Argyll Voluntary Action office in Dunoon on Thursday 29th April between 1.00 – 3.00pm.

Funded by the Dunoon Community Development Group, the Local Community Health Partnership and Lower Clyde Greenspace (a partnership between Argyll and Bute and Inverclyde Councils), the Green Gym programme is managed by the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV), the UK’s leading environmental volunteering charity, in partnership with a number of local organisations including Argyll and Bute Council, CLANN, Help Ltd and Argyll Voluntary Action.

Anyone interested in taking part, or in finding out more, should get in touch with Heidi Quinn, Green Gym Co-ordinator at BTCV on 0141 552 5294 or Michaela Goan at Argyll Voluntary Action on 01369 700100.

Full details of Scotland’s Green Gyms are at BTCV Scotland Green Gyms.