Kinmel Bay Outdoor Pursuits Club is planning a week long expedition to climb Ben Nevis and canoe the Great Glen – a 60 mile paddle along the Caledonian Canal, from Fort William to Inverness via Loch Ness.

As part of their preparation, members have attended training sessions with qualified instructors as well as stamina and endurance sessions at the local gym and weekly hiking sessions. The expedition takes place next week from 6 to 13 September.

The club is part-sustainable and part-funded through the Sports Council for Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government under the Community Champion scheme and Communities First. The Community Champion programme targets proactive individuals within the community to get more adults off the sofa and into regular physical activity.

Andrea Faulkner, Club Secretary, has been running the Outdoor Pursuits Club on a voluntary basis, from Community House on Chester Avenue in Kinmel Bay, North Wales for three years.

She explains, "We’re very excited about this trip. We’ve done a lot of training. We climbed Crib Goch recently to build up our stamina. And we’ve been doing canoeing and rock climbing. We’re fully prepared and really looking forward to the challenge."

What makes this expedition even more remarkable is that before joining the Community Champions scheme, Andrea and her colleagues had little or no experience of outdoor pursuits. The Community Champion scheme empowers communities to take the initiative and control their own budget to pay for training and purchase equipment.

Andrea added, "It’s very positive for Kinmel Bay. We’re doing our bit and we are very hands on with what we do. We’ve learnt a lot along the way and we want to give others the opportunity we’ve had. If it wasn’t for The Sports Council for Wales and the North West Wales Outdoor Partnership we wouldn’t have been able to get as far with the outdoor pursuits club."

Chair of the Sports Council for Wales, Philip Carling, says:

"Our mission is to get more people in Wales more active, more often. The Community Champion project is designed to use the skills of unique individuals in our communities to kickstart physical opportunities for adult, sedentary groups as well as families."

Kinmel Bay Outdoor Pursuits Club delivers activities such as mountain biking, canoeing and mountaineering. The club is now looking for sponsorship opportunities to fund a mini bus.

For more information or to become a member, please contact Andrea Faulkner on: angefaulkner@hotmail.co.uk.