In a slight change from our scheduled programming on stress this month, today's blog is about an exciting event that's coming up next month - that you can join in with.

Every year in May (Well, since last year) New Dawn Counselling Centre runs a step challenge to raise funds for the Bursary.
We gather together a group of volunteers, made up of New Dawn Team members, volunteers and counsellors, their friend and family and others who are interested in giving back to support the mental health of others who are working through their difficulties and seeking to make positive changes in their lives.

As a team we are aiming to take 3 Million steps in May to raise awareness of Mental Health in our local community, and raise funds to support our clients in their own challenges through the New Dawn Bursary.
We've got our pedometers at the ready and will post regular updates on our website and social media pages.
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We did have a good think about whether we should try this, given the current corona virus restrictions we are living with. However, we reckon it might be a positive thing to take part in the challenge, to spur us on to increase our physical activity, which helps with our mental well being. It can bring a focus to our days which may have been hard to find as we live under lockdown conditions.
Encouraging us to use our daily exercise time, and get out of the house, in a responsible way, or challenging ourselves to think creatively about how to hit our step target while we stay indoors.

What do you need to join in? We hear you cry.
3 Steps To Better Mental Health
Step
1. Sign up to join in via this link, we'll ask for your email address and send you a weekly email asking you to tell us your weekly step total and fill you in on how we are doing with the challenge. https://mailchi.mp/dbdcb029c54c/3mimstepstobettermentalhealth
It would be great of you could sign up before Friday 1st May.

2. You'll need a pedometer. You might have one on your mobile phone already - it's worth having a look. If you have a fitbit, or sport tracker watch, this will also be tracking you daily steps already. Otherwise you might need to get one from the internet. There are affordable options all over the place - Ebay is our favourite place to look. The one pictured below cost approx. £10 from ebay.

3. Set your own step target. Just like the counsellors we are, we won't tell you what to do, you have to trust yourself and set your own target. Generally step challenges for a healthy adult are 10,000 steps a day. However that's not under our current circumstances - so it's up to you how many steps you want to challenge yourself with. And as we always say - be gentle with yourself, this is fun, not punishment.

Donate
If you don't fancy the actual stepping, please consider donating to the cause. You can easily donate online via our Just Giving page. Click the link below to have a look.

Share
Follow us on social media, we have pages on facebook, instagram and twitter. Spread the word encourage others to join in - the more the merrier.

What is the New Dawn Bursary Fund ?
We are raising funds for the New Dawn Counselling Centre Bursary Fund. ​ We have helped hundreds of clients to get the help and support they need already through the Bursary. But we want to do more. We want to help more people. ​ As a community interest company any profit we make is put back into our bursary to help people receive counselling when they need it most. Bursary clients receive up to £180 towards the cost of their counselling, working with the client to make the service more affordable. ​ This has been a fundamental part of New Dawn Counselling centre since the very beginning.Â
If you or someone you care about could use the bursary fund please do get in touch with us via our website.

Last year we smashed our 3 million steps target (we took 6,102,731 last May) and raised £1070. Please help us to make 2020 even better.
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