#271 - Hospitality Meets Walk For Well being - The story of the walk that kept growing

Walk for Well being began during one of the toughest periods hospitality has ever faced.Craig Prentice had an idea.Sean Wheeler said yes.Then the two of them attempted to map out a 20km walk along London’s South Bank……and somehow ended up in somebody’s garden.A reassuringly professional beginning.Seven years later, Walk for Wellbeing has grown from a small gathering into a nationwide hospitality event, with hosted walks across the UK, people taking part their own way, thousands of walkers and more than half a million pounds raised for Hospitality Action.For this special edition of Hospitality Meets, Craig and Sean join me to tell the story behind it.We CoverHow Walk for Well being began during the pandemicWhy walking became the obvious way to reconnect hospitalityGetting spectacularly lost while mapping the original London routeStarting with around 20 people on the South BankGrowing from three locations to more than a dozenWhy the event was eventually gifted to Hospitality ActionThe magic of bringing every level of hospitality togetherWalking for your physical and mental well beingWhy your dog’s name is easier to remember than its owner’sWearing a superhero cape for 20kmCharlie Hodson taking Walk It Your Own Way to another levelHospitality’s remarkable ability to pull things together at the last minuteThe moment the event passed £500,000 raisedSean destroying Craig’s carefully designed logos in PowerPointWhy they are, remarkably, still friendsAnd why connection matters just as much as fundraisingQuotables“Walking is the way forward.”“You don’t know their name, but you’ll always know their dog’s name.”“People do show up and do what they can.”“For me it’s connection, community and giving back.”Final ObservationWalk for Wellbeing started with two people deciding that, during an extraordinarily difficult moment, hospitality needed something that brought people together.Not a race.Not something to win.Just a reason to get outside, walk alongside somebody else, talk and perhaps feel slightly better than you did when you started.Seven years later, the scale has changed enormously.The principle really hasn’t.Look after yourself.Look after the person walking beside you.And when you’re able to, give something back.Which feels like a pretty good note for Hospitality Meets to head into a little break on.Although ideally without ending up in somebody’s garden.Show PartnerA big shout out to today’s show partner, RotaCloud — the people management platform built specifically for shift-based teams.RotaCloud lets managers create and share rotas, record attendance, and manage annual leave in minutes — all from one simple, web-based app.It also makes life easier for teams, allowing staff to check rotas, request holiday, and pick up extra shifts directly from their phones.To find out more, head to RotaCloudThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy