Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 57 total)
  • Lee Craigie – Scotlands new Active Nation Commissioner
  • matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Brilliant news. She is a proper inspiration, and I suspect (having only met her once) that she won’t take no for an answer from some of the civil servants and politicians…

    https://www.transport.gov.scot/news/a-new-active-nation-commissioner-for-scotland/

    iainc
    Full Member

    just saw this on FB – great news indeed !

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    WTF is an active nation commissioner? what will she achieve? I’m struggling not to be completely underwhelmed by this, she seems a cracking lass, best of luck to her, but the diet and worshipping of alcohol of this country is **** horrendous, and schools attitude to exercise a joke as well.

    I’ll file this with as much relevance as DMBiS or whatever the hell they’re called this week.

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    scotroutes
    Full Member

    And she’s riding the wrong way on that cycle path.

    MoreCashThanDash
    Full Member

    Nobeer – I may be reading it wrong, but I think you’ve just listed exactly why the role is needed, and why she’s the right person to start to tackle it.

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    lol!

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    MCTD, I hope you’re correct, I’d be bloody delighted to eat my hat on this subject.

    somafunk
    Full Member

    Active Nation?, Sounds like a job title dreamt by “The Department of Social affairs and Citizenship” (the thick of it), what next?….a snooper squad?

    bigjim
    Full Member

    Great news, terrible (but predictable) stw response

    hels
    Free Member

    I have met Lee loads and she is awesome, and I am sure will do a great job!

    montgomery
    Free Member

    Excellent! I’m a big fan of herding more litter droppers out into ‘The Countryside.’ More car parks should be built in rural areas, with little coloured waymarkers erected to direct them to the best places to leave their disposable BBQs and empty out their pockets.

    flapflup
    Free Member

    I wish Lee all the best. No doubt she will do some good work.

    stevenmenmuir
    Free Member

    Good luck to her. I don’t see what it’s got to do with schools Nobeer. My youngest plays basketball at break times, rugby in PE and theres lots of activities available from Active Schools. Our swimming pools are free during holidays. If parents want their kids to do activities there are plenty of opportunities. Whether you can drag them (parents) away from their sofas and phones long enough to take their kids somewhere is another matter. But we can’t expect teachers to do everything for us.

    bedmaker
    Full Member

    Chuffed for her, but feel a bit sorry for her at the same time.
    Used to getting stuff done, she’ll no doubt have some head banging meetings to contend with in this role.

    Bet when she’s mired in the minutae of government policies, she’d rather be mired along the side of Cam Loch instead 😀

    bedmaker
    Full Member

    Hopefully she’ll set up some sort of grant scheme for bikepacking gear.

    sas78
    Full Member

    My kids (Edinburgh) are constantly doing active schools stuff. their school is terrific at doing “stuff” outside. I think schools are significantly better at getting outdoors than when I were a lad.

    Showing some commitment here the Scottish Government – we have to give them that.

    Good luck Lee.

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    I don’t see what it’s got to do with schools Nobeer.

    Bigger picture mate, assuming this is a SG initiative? We have to start educating at a young age. My daughters PE was cancelled more than it was on the 7 years she was at primary school, the daily mile lasted about 3 weeks until it started raining, and the school dinner options were basically pizza, hotdogs or fish and chips. Even at high school, the healthy options include those fruit smoothies that have more sugar than Coke.

    Which is fine for us as we’re a very active family, but there’s a hell of a lot of folk who do **** all, and the opportunities at school are all they’ll get. I’m not expecting ‘everything’ from teachers FWIW.

    Do something tangible – Frinstance, why are kids allowed to roam about at lunchtime? kebab shops and chinese takeaway are open for them, canny believe the shite you see some kids eating nowadays.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Showing some commitment here the Scottish Government – we have to give them that.

    It is exactly that.

    We (like so many places) are at such a low starting point on all this.

    But at least *trying* to take a different path as a country now, in many areas. Compare that to the Westminster fuddle and political bellends.

    Yes, we face huge challenges. But a role like this at least brings health, sustainable transport and wellbeing to the table and her job is to keep reminding those whose focus is elsewhere that these things cannot be ignored.

    I know I am an optimist, but the longer I live in Scotland, the more I see a very different country and attitude starting to emerge. I may not see its full impact, but my kids may.

    sarawak
    Free Member

    There were a lot of suits in that clip. Suits and active stuff don’t mix. Nice idea but it will fail when all the committees and their working groups eat up (literally) all the budget.

    joshvegas
    Free Member

    Suits and active stuff don’t mix

    There are literally dosens of wedding photos with me proving you sooooooo wrong on this point.

    Unfortunately they tend to confirm Nobeers opinion on alcohol 😀

    But seriously you can be active with out being head to toe sports wear first step don’t make it “excercise”

    highlandman
    Free Member

    Good news indeed and I almost feel sorry for the folk who say ‘we cannot do that, because..’
    Yes, she will find it hard going at times and just like her trail life, there will be points where she wonders why she bothers. And then there will be the moments when you understand why it is worthwhile.

    highlandman
    Free Member

    “Suits”.
    The chairman of Scottish Athletics wears a suit to his day job, most of the time.
    He also walks the walk, running ultras on a regular basis. Rides a bike too, but doesn’t wear a suit for that either.
    Even I have been known to wear a suit, but only when expected of me, like in court. The politics of sport are really hard work as I know from bitter experience but they can also be incredibly rewarding, when a plan comes together and people have great days out. Yes, I’m like Matt; an optimist. I see improvement and can see more coming, albeit slowly.

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Matt, I do agree, we are definitely improving, I just get frustrated at the rate of change. There was an article on a national commercial radio news a few weeks back about 2/3 of people being overweight.

    The first advert afterwards was for a Domino (or some other god awful shitehole place) cheesburger stuffed Pizza.

    Holy lumping ****.

    FOG
    Full Member

    My big worry about this is ‘Tokenism’ . Where the politicians think creating a job description is the same as solving the problem without any actual resources. However, you do have to start somewhere so good luck to Lee

    joshvegas
    Free Member

    I’d eat it Nobeer

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    Cheeseburger pizza?

    I’m up for that!

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    At least you’d exercise it aff Josh, there’s kids in my daughters year that look like they’d nail 2 or 3 of them!.

    tjagain
    Full Member

    Active stuff can be as simple as walking to work. Or going for a walk in your lunchbreak. That can be done in a suit. For what it is worth I have ridden my bike in a suit many times.

    whitestone
    Free Member

    Good news.

    You have to start somewhere: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step”. The problem is that everyone wants quick fixes whereas the obesity problem has built up over decades and will take a similar length of time to fix.

    Years ago there was a programme about obesity in America, one of the case studies was a life insurance firm who’d noticed that there was a big increase in uptake of their medicaid programme. Looking at the data they noticed that a common factor in the referrals was obesity so they got some consultants in to help.

    Their headquarters was one of those huge American campus style affairs covering about a square mile. The consultants did three things:

    1. They looked at where everyone worked and reassigned their allotted parking spot to the furthest available point from their desk.
    2. They turned off the lifts, everyone had to use the stairs.
    3. They took the chairs out of all the meeting rooms.

    All low to zero cost but it was effective, within a year the referrals had dropped.

    It’s that kind of lifestyle changes that are needed and for politicians to acknowledge that the results might not be apparent for several election cycles.

    squirrelking
    Free Member

    Reporting to Michael Matheson. FML.

    Active transport in schools is a joke, prime example being the brand new combined campus (red) built next door with xhundred parking spaces and absolutely no modification of the surrounding road infrastructure. The cycle paths in the town are shown in blue with the remainder of the route being narrow streets. No routes made one way to optimise traffic flow and no through roads broken to create quiet routes for cyclists.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Matt, I do agree, we are definitely improving, I just get frustrated at the rate of change. There was an article on a national commercial radio news a few weeks back about 2/3 of people being overweight.

    I know. I was reading a thing about data from an activity app. Turns out 52% of UK folk with that app walked less than 850m a day.

    A. Day.

    Incredible.

    That said, I’ll say it again. A job like this brings the basics and positivity, as well as accountability to the table at every government meeting.

    I was chatting to someone in Estonia about changing driving Vs walking or cycling to school – apparently since the revolution they have increased the number of kids walking to school, and a driving culture that gives lots of space and consideration to children on the street. I saw drivers pause on corners to allow children to cross.

    It can be done. We have to keep going.

    And I need to ride my bike to work more.

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    850m.

    **** mental.

    epicyclo
    Full Member

    I’ve known Lee for over 10 years. Very determined lass.

    She’ll do well in that role. If any of the bureaucrats underestimate her, they’ll get a surprise.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    “It will never work, stuff like this never works, it’s pointless”

    “They Should be doing something about this”

    and repeat, it’s depressing that any attempt to work at social change is seen as pointless interfering and that unless 10 other things (that will change and be opposed by the same people) are done this isn’t worth thinking about.

    Small changes can make big differences.

    You can only learn what works by trying things and finding out what doesn’t.

    jimmy
    Full Member

    850m.

    **** mental.

    I get off my bike at work after a 10 mile commute, lock my bike amongst the cars. Out of those cars step generally obese people, into the lift lobby, take the lift anywhere from 1-6 floors, walk max 50m to their desk. It’s all I can do not to say “do you like being obese?”.

    poah
    Free Member

    Either kids don’t want to exercise or the parents don’t (or both in our house lol). I really can’t see having an “active nation commissioner” doing anything.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    I really can’t see having an “active nation commissioner” doing anything.

    Perhaps try and work out and deliver strategies to help when

    Either kids don’t want to exercise or the parents don’t

    Activity isn’t just exercise its a change in behaviour. The other option is to completely give up on people, like we did with smoking.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Exactly.
    Look at what happened when we got on top of drink driving – it was a real culture change.
    Smoking, look at how being in the pub has changed and how normal that’s become.

    poah
    Free Member

    Activity isn’t just exercise its a change in behaviour

    being unhealthy is cheaper than healthy. Poverty needs sorted.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    Right so we have a start, can we multi task here or are we only allowed to tackle getting people more active after we have fixed poverty?

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 57 total)

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