news&views Winter 2019 | Page 41

2019 Wellness Challenge Jennifer Hope | Business Development & Marketing Coordinator Get Moving ARTA As usual, ARTA members showed up and stood up for the annual wellness challenge. This year we called the challenge Get Moving ARTA to promote that being active doesn’t just mean walking or running. You can get active with a variety of activities — not every member has the same interests or mobility. Once again we asked members to track their time, in minutes, spent moving and being active. We provided our branch members with a resistance band to promote strength training as an optional wellness activity that could also be tracked as active minutes. Here are the results of our Get Moving challenge. Roger Mestinsek from Central East Retired Teachers’ Association won the Individual Winner Award for the most time tracked. Roger tracked 21,000 minutes, which is fantastic. Congratulations, Roger, and keep moving! The Calgary Retired Teachers’ Association remains the champion for the Branch Winner Award with 214,343 total active minutes tracked. Way to go, CRTA! You are an inspiration to our members. The Okanagan Alberta Retired Teachers’ Association won the Branch Participation Award for the branch that had the highest percentage of participants involved, with forty-seven per cent of OKARTA members. Perhaps the beautiful sunshine that OKARTA members get helps with getting members active. Great work, OKARTA. With so many ways you can keep active, we were pleased to see some new activities listed, such as tai chi, weight training, and canoeing. Of course, the most popular activities were walking and swimming. Keeping active is an important part of mental and physical wellness. Find an activity you enjoy that keeps your heart pumping. If you are consistent at being active, you will see the benefi ts that being active can bring to not only your physical body but your mental state as well. Keep moving, ARTA, and watch for the 2020 wellness challenge announcement. ● news&views WINTER 2019 | 41