feature
Walking, talking and
improving mental health ABOVE: The Men’s Walk & Talk is a five kilometre walk every Sunday morning with a broad variety of men partaking
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his is an edited extract from a special RUOK Day podcast in which Luke Daly interviewed Mitch Rowing. Rowing, the owner of Reliable Pool Care, is a second-generation, award-winning industry member, and a dedicated advocate for mental health. His own experiences with mental health issues led him to establish the Men’s Walk & Talk group which has been extremely successful in helping bring the community together in a non-judgemental environment and improving the participant’s motivation, clarity and energy. Here
“If you just have a bit more stability, a bit of structure and good support around you – with friends, family, hobbies, that kind of thing – then I think all those things will actually improve your mental health.” he explains how he came to start the group, and the positive results it has garnered.
The beginning
I got into the industry about 18 years ago, followed on from my father, Ron, who started the company. And I’ve seen it evolve over the years. When my dad started, it 28 SPLASH! October/November 2021
was more of a pool cleaning service that people offered, a bit like a lawn mowing service. Time has sort of moved on and technologies have advanced, and you’ve got things like robotic pool cleaners, energy efficient pumps, pool heating, pool lighting, automation. It’s sort of developed into quite a big industry. And it’s more specialised now. You really need a good understanding of all the equipment to be across everything. I’ve been running the business now for more than 10 years. We’ve grown from probably 40 regulars when I began with the old boy. Now we’ve got about 200 and I’ve got four utes on the road. Just over a year ago, my brother Ashley passed away. He worked in the business as well, so that had quite a devastating effect on me personally and our family. As a result of that, I probably had a bit of a downward spiral, I lost a lot of motivation. It affected my mental health, I was drinking most days, and I just wasn’t coping very well.
The Walk & Talk
Out of that, with my best mate from school, Jeff, we started a men’s health organisation called Men’s Walk & Talk, which is a 5k walk we do every Sunday morning. Me and Jeff went on the first one, then on week two we had 11 people. I think we’ve been going 30 weeks now, and we’ve had up to 50 men coming on a Sunday morning. It’s been a really excellent turnout and well received. I think it goes to show there’s a need for this sort of thing in the community.