#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 Cover

• How Walk for Well being began during the pandemic
• Why walking became the obvious way to reconnect hospitality
• Getting spectacularly lost while mapping the original London route
• Starting with around 20 people on the South Bank
• Growing from three locations to more than a dozen
• Why the event was eventually gifted to Hospitality Action
• The magic of bringing every level of hospitality together
• Walking for your physical and mental well being
• Why your dog’s name is easier to remember than its owner’s
• Wearing a superhero cape for 20km
• Charlie Hodson taking Walk It Your Own Way to another level
• Hospitality’s remarkable ability to pull things together at the last minute
• The moment the event passed £500,000 raised
• Sean destroying Craig’s carefully designed logos in PowerPoint
• Why they are, remarkably, still friends
• And why connection matters just as much as fundraising

Quotables

“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 Observation

Walk 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 Partner

A 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 RotaCloud

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