December 2010
newsletter from
Change4Life
Dear Change4Life supporter,
Welcome to a very special Change4Life newsletter – exclusively for our local authority
supporters.
With your support, 2010 has been a busy year for Change4Life and 2011 looks set to be even busier.
We’ll be kicking off the new year with an exciting Change4Life activity – the Great Swapathon!
And because our supporters who work within local authorities play such an important role in
Change4Life, we’ve dedicated a whole newsletter to helping you make the most of it. Whether you
work in Leisure Services, Parks & Recreation, Libraries or HR, you’ll find information specifically for
you. So read on!
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Introducin
To get 2011 off to the best possible start, we’ve decided
to make the most of people’s willingness to make
lifestyle changes in January. But rather than making the
usual resolutions, we’re calling on people to pledge to
make small, manageable swaps instead. The campaign is
called the Great Swapathon and we’re challenging the
public to join together to make healthy swaps!
The Great Swapathon will be launched with high
profile activity, supported by Your Great Swapathon,
an online tool, which will give users handy tips, let
them set their own goals, record achievements and
let friends and family follow their progress. The Your
Great Swapathon tool will be available for people to
use on both the Change4Life site and our Facebook
page and is available for you to put on your own
website to encourage everyone to get involved. If you
wish to place this tool on your website, please contact:
c4lpartnerships@dh.gsi.gov.uk
Get in contact
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The Great Swapathon will hopefully really focus your
local residents’ minds on making swaps for a healthier
lifestyle. Here are some ideas for swaps you could
make within your area of work.
If you work in leisure services, you could:
• encourage people to swap vegging out on the sofa
for swimming at your local pool.
• suggest people swap watching TV for learning to
dance themselves at a local dance class
If you work in promoting parks and
recreation facilities, why not:
• suggest families with young children swap sitting
around for racing around their local playground on
weekend mornings
• encourage adults to swap indoors for outdoors by
joining a local walking group or taking up walking in
a local park
If you work in libraries, perhaps you could:
• encourage families to complete the ‘How are the
kids?’ survey online, so they get an idea of which
swaps they could start with www.howarethekids.
com
• display some of the recipes and healthy eating tips
from the Change4Life website in your libraries to
motivate visitors to make swaps
If you work in HR, the
Great Swapathon is
as relevant to your
workforce as it is to your
local residents. Why not:
• challenge your workforce to make a specific swap,
such as cutting back on sugar or taking the stairs
rather than lifts (you’ll find some great challenge
ideas and posters in the Change4Life Employers
toolkit on our website
• encourage your workforce to swap four wheels for
two feet and walk some or all of the way to work
And everybody can put up the Great Swapathon
posters, handout leaflets and give the recipe cards,
wall charts and snack swappers to families – don’t
forget, they’re all free!
You’ll find lots of useful resources and toolkits,
all available to download - as well as information
on where to order them - from the ’Partners &
supporters’ section of our website.
And don’t forget it’s easy to put the “Your Great
Swapathon” tool on your website so that your web
visitors get their very own personalised swaps. Just
email us on c4lpartnerships@dh.gsi.gov.uk to find out.
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We aim to share the success stories of some of our
local authority supporters. We hope you find this
one as inspiring as we do. Don’t forget, if you’ve run a
successful event or activity in support of Change4Life
we’d love to hear about it – see Healthy bites, below,
for more details.
London Borough of Merton
Staff at this local authority worked with local schools
to run an innovative Change4Life competition. Children
in out-of-school settings, such as breakfast and after
school clubs, were challenged to write a story on
how they could change a life, taking inspiration from
Change4Life’s ’eat well, move more, live longer’ ethos.
And they had to do it in
just six words!
Over 90 different
six-word stories were
entered. Three finalists
had their stories made
into posters and those
of the runners up
were made into screen
savers, to promote their
Change4Life message
in schools, children’s
centres and council
buildings.
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Healthy b
Change4Life is a nationwide movement which aims to help us eat
well, move more and live longer. Here’s a round-up of other news
and useful info, in bite-size chunks:
Please keep signing up!
Share your stories
If you’ve been forwarded this email or think any
of your colleagues might want to receive it, you
can register on the Change4Life website and it
will be sent straight to your inbox. As a registered
local supporter you can use all of our resources
free of charge and create your own materials
using the brand assets.
Sharing your stories of Change4Life events or
activities you’ve run helps us to recruit and
inspire more campaign supporters. Please send
your photos, a summary of what you did on the
day, how many people you think came along, who
in your local area you’ve worked with and any
other information you think we will find helpful or
interesting to c4lpartnerships@dh.gsi.gov.uk
Register now
Follow Change4Life on Facebook
and Twitter
You can keep up to date and find
out about activities taking place
around England by joining our 16,000
Change4Life Facebook fans (by
clicking ‘like’) or following
Change4Life on Twitter.
Start sharing
Finally, thank you again for your ongoing support
for Change4Life. We’ll be back soon with the next
newsletter – look out for it in your inbox later this month.
Your Change4Life team