Dads Step Up

A casual walking group for Newcastle dads to get active, meet other dads, have a chat, and bring the kids along for the adventure.

Walk - Talk - Connect

The plan

A sub 5km walk from Eleebana carpark on Lake Macquarie to Warners Bay foreshore. Grab a coffee, head north to Warner Park Playground to let the kids have some fun and then loop back down to Eleebana carpark to finish up.

Story time

Recently on social media, I spotted a guy in Melbourne trying to get a grassroots movement of dads together to go for walks with him and his little one. I thought man, that's such a nice idea.

I had a look around in Newcastle, found a guy on R/Newcastle (reddit) looking for a very similar thing back in May (DM'd him). I reached out to some mates who also have some ankle biters and the feedback was there was whispers of a couple various play groups doing dad walks and I loved to hear it.

Why search for a solution when you could put a bit of effort in and build what you envision.

Here we are, a draft name, the basic concept of just going for a wonder around the lake, beach or nature reserve every other week with some fellow dads and their kids. Throw a coffee and a toastie in the mix and your asking for a great start to a weekend.

The first walk will no doubt highlight any flaws in the plan so far and help smooth over the finer details moving forward.

I have sent this event out to mates, their mates, my wife's really lovely mums group to hit up the dads there.

Note: this is also a new platform to me. I wanted to steer away from using social media apps and keep everything just simply available via a link or QR code.

Note: This event is for Dads (current, pending and trying to conceive), that extends to grandfathers too. If they would like to bring their grandchild to a walk I welcome it openly.

Reserve yourself a ticket just so we are aware of how many people are going to attend.

If you have feedback on any part of this, I want to hear it.

We can all be better together.

-Josh