Movement

The Active Alpine Group (AAG) aims to increase and promote opportunities to be active in the Alpine Shire and in turn promote health and wellbeing, social connection and a healthy, thriving community. 

The AAG was formed in 2019 after Gateway Health and Alpine Health conducted an Alpine Active Living Mapping Project looking at barriers and enablers for the community to be active and what could be done to support them to be active. We create an annual action plan keeping these recommendations in mind trying to address them where possible.

Alpine Active Living Project Findings Summary Final Oct 2018

In 2019, the Active Alpine Group started its journey with installing and promoting outdoor fitness equipment across the Alpine Shire. The Active Alpine Group coordinated the installation of equipment in Myrtleford and Porepunkah, and supported community groups to install and/or promote equipment in Tawonga, Mount Beauty, Harrietville and Bright. The equipment is free for community to use at any time and provides more accessible movement opportunities for the community. To understand more about why Outdoor Fitness Equipment became a focus, you can access the Scoping report here. You can find the equipment at the below locations:

• Mount Beauty - Rotary Park, Embankment Drive
• Tawonga - Pioneer Memorial Park, Kiewa Valley Highway
• Myrtleford - Apex Park, 9 Apex Lane
• Harrietville - Pioneer Park,169 Great Alpine Road
• Porepunkah - Riverside Park, Nicholson Street and Martley Street
• Bright - behind the Community Centre, adjacent to Railway Avenue

Since the development of the above video, the Bright equipment was installed in May 2026. Across most of the fitness equipment sites, we have run a range of successful free classes delivered by local Exercise Physiologist Leeah Cooper. These classes show correct and safe use of the equipment. Participants have also benefitted from the social and fun aspects of the classes. While most classes were suitable for all community members, there were also tailored classes offered to peri-menopausal/menopausal women, first time parents groups and dad groups. It has been great to see the community support the use of the equipment and many people who attended the classes still meet on their own today to use the equipment. Leeah talks about her experience of undertaking the classes here. You can also read more about the classes in this case study.

You can hear from some of the participants about how they have found the classes and using the equipment in the below short videos:

• Graham’s experience - Click here
• Harry’s experience - Click here
• Karuna’s experience - Click here
• Leigh’s experience - Click here
• Linda’s experience - Click here
• Mary’s experience - Click here and Click here
• Val’s experience - Click here
• Robin’s experience - Click here
• Trish’s experience - Click here
• Nancy’s experience - Click here

Train the trainer resources have been developed to support other community groups/organisations to start up their own volunteer peer-led exercise groups that aren’t reliant on funding for an exercise physiologist to run classes. This is a more sustainable option for classes to be delivered on an ongoing basis. You can access the resources here

The Active Alpine Group has recently been scoping a new project which looks at connecting community with nature. The Myrtleford Mosaic Trail and Mt Beauty Pebble Beach Trail provide exceptional opportunities for a project such as this. The Active Alpine Group’s focus is now to secure funding to enable small scale infrastructure on these trails to encourage community to stop and do a ‘wellness activity’ whilst using the trail.

A generic Nature-based Wellness Activities Guide is also being developed which will be a resource that can be used anywhere across the Alpine Shire and beyond. Keep an eye out here for when this will be available!

This project enables opportunities for nature-based social prescribing, which has been shown to have positive health and wellbeing benefits for clients and community. You can find out more about other wellbeing work happening here - Wellbeing | Alpine Health