Tough Girl Podcast Phillipa Cherryson - Chief Volunteer Queen for Adventure Queens South Wales - her goal is to encourage more women of every age, size, ability and background to participate in outdoor activities.
Phillipa in her own words:
"I've been an OS GetOutside Champion since 2020, I'm the Chief Volunteer Queen for Adventure Queens South Wales and deputy chair of the Brecon Beacons National Park LAF.
I've just turned 50 and am not your stereotypical outdoor type. I've never been great at sports and I'm not a pretty sight puffing and panting up a mountain. But being outdoors makes me feel alive – it's my soul food.
My goal is to encourage more women of every age, size, ability and background to participate in outdoor activities and that's what I do for Adventure Queens South Wales.
Adventure Queens is an online UK-based community of more than 20,000 women. Its goal is to encourage, inspire and educate more women to get outside.
Over the past four years I've organised weekends away (camping, surfing, scrambling, climbing, hiking, climbing, kayaking and wild swimming), day walks, social evenings and walked the 99-mile Beacons Way. On top of that I've given live online talks, organised virtual meet ups and mentored new members.
AQ has transformed my own life. I was a cautious day walker before I joined, but since then I've become a seasoned camper, I've completed multi-day hikes, learned scrambling, climbing, surfing and paddle-boarded – I keep pinching myself as I can't believe this is really me!"
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Show Notes
- Who is Phillipa?
- Being the Chief Queen for Adventure Queens, South Wales
- Working as a journalist
- Spending all her free time in the mountains
- How life has changed over the past 4 years
- Growing up in Hampshire
- Her passion for the outdoors
- Wanting to do more stuff outside - but not knowing how to go about it
- The start of her journalism career
- Meeting her partner who was outdoorsy at 28
- Her gateway to the outdoors
- Developing new skills and building confidence in navigation and map reading
- Staying in her comfort zone
- The Beacons Way - 99 mile thru-hike
- First hearing about the Adventure Queens
- Being inspired to say yes and take on new challenges
- Deciding to run the Adventure Queens South Wales Group
- Finding people to walk the Beacons Way with
- Connecting with like minded people
- The first weekend of the challenge
- You have to start somewhere
- The sense of achievement at the end
- Learning to camp and wild camp
- Advice for women who do want to start spending time in the outdoors
- The benefits of social media and how it can be used to connect with others with similar interests
- Dealing with her fears before her first meet up
- Being inspired by Kate Adie
- Her role as the Chief Queen for the South Wales Group
- Her dreams for 2023
- Cycling in Bosnia
- Documenting the journey and speaking with ITV
- Advice for planning events and challenges
- Fitness regime and doing what she loves
- Getting into running during lockdown
- Reframing running to trotting
- Final words of advice - "think about what you want to do and if you don't know what you want to do, try lots of different things"
- The support from women in all women groups
- Think about what you want to do and give it ago
Social Media
Instagram @phillipacherryson
Adventure Queens - Non-profit women's adventure community
Website: adventurequeens.co.uk
Instagram: @adventurequeensuk
Facebook: @AdventureQueens
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyTRW_ulgP09i7EhU1vdAAw