Fifty-six health conscious Whitsunday Shire Council staff are participating in the 2006 Global Corporate Challenge. The challenge encourages corporate Australia to curb the country’s growing obesity problem.
Whitsunday’s Coordination Officer for Corporate and Community Services, Carol Clifton, said that CEO, Tony Hayward, encouraged Council to participate in the program.
“Tony has always encouraged fitness among staff and saw this a great way to reinforce that,” she said. “Council offered to subsidise half of the entrance fee for each staff member who chose to participate. As a fitness instructor myself, I saw an excellent opportunity to get staff motivated.”
In its second year running, the 2006 program was launched in May, involving almost 2,000 public and private sector companies. Whitsunday Shire has eight teams, each with seven people.
“Participants wear a pedometer every day over a six month period to track their steps,” Carol Clifton said. “The challenge aims to have participants walking at least 10,000 steps a day, which converts to approximately six kilometres. Once steps are converted to kilometres, team totals are plotted cumulatively on an online world map, showing progress of their virtual journey around the world.”
Starting in Perth, Whitsunday teams have already travelled through Thailand, Cambodia, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Russia and are currently in Iceland.
Carol Clifton said the challenge has achieved excellent results.
“Staff morale has greatly improved and some staff members have lost significant amounts of weight,” she said. “Staff are really getting involved, opting to walk to places they would usually take a car and participating in weekend social challenges.”
In August, Council held a weekend inter-team challenge.
Teams competed against each other in a walk around Bicentennial Walkway – a path comprising a boardwalk that juts out over the mangroves and traces the edges of Cannonvale and Shingley Beach, finishing at the Lagoon in Airlie Beach. The eight kilometre round trip was followed by a barbecue to celebrate.
Scheduled to finish in South America, the entire journey is expected to take 154 days, covering 127 destinations in 27 countries – a total distance of 16,722km.
For further information contact Carol Clifton on (07) 4945 0208.
