A new Walking and Cycling Officer and an Active Travel Coordinator have started their new roles at Forth Valley College – thanks to funding from Paths For All.
Paths For All’s Active Nation Fund has helped FVC to secure the services of Larissa Purves (Walking and Cycling Officer) and Aileen Webster (Active Travel Coordinator) until March 2024, through the College’s ‘Power your journey to FVC, by Walk Cycle Wheel’ project.
The money is part of the Active Nation Fund’s distribution of £1.2 million to eight projects to get Scots walking, wheeling and cycling and one of the first things they plan to do is a series of Health and Wellbeing Walk and Talks in the run up to Christmas.
They also hope to develop and deliver activities to promote and encourage active travel among staff and students across all campuses. They aim to encourage behaviour change for short journeys to and from campus and will be offering health walks, learn to cycle sessions, led cycle rides, bike maintenance, Dr. Bike and events partnering up with Active Campus Coordinator from SportScotland Dean McKirdy and other College Departments.
The first events we are planning to deliver are Christmas themed health walks on the w/c Monday 11 December for staff and students across all campuses. Please contact larissa.purves@forthvalley.ac.uk or aileen.webster@forthvalley.ac.uk for more information.
Larissa, a former Midlothian Council Teaching Assistant at a school in Bonnyrigg who specialised in teaching ‘Bikeability’ sessions, as well as volunteering to help out at cycling events such as the Commonwealth Games and the recent world Championships, can’t wait to get started at FVC.
Larissa, said: “I am really excited to be doing something different, but promoting a healthy lifestyle among Forth Valley College staff across all three campuses. I’ll be promoting walking and cycling for staff and students and also offering bike maintenance sessions to help people look after their bike. I can also offer tailored advice for anyone, so please get in touch with me for a chat.”
Aileen, who used to work as the Women and non-binary project coordinator in the Active Travel team at the Bike for Good charity, is a keen walker as well as a volunteer with a local walking group, is also eager to make her mark at the College.
Aileen, said: “I am here to help get more people thinking about an active travel plan to enable them to travel to work through public transport, walking and cycling, which will benefit everyone in the community and I can’t wait to get started in meeting as many people as possible and work out their new route to work.”