The Just Checking In Podcast

In episode 299 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Andrew Hill. Andy is is the Founder of UTurnBack2Basics. Based in Norfolk, Uturn creates outdoor experiences designed for people to reconnect with the fundamentals of life - self-awareness, survival skills, and personal growth. Their mission is to support individuals from all walks of life, with a strong focus on veterans and vulner...

In episode 298 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Garry Miller. Garry is a communications professional and worked as a publicist in the BBC Sport communications team at the same time our Founder Freddie worked at the BBC.Garry’s first proper job was working for Wigan Council, where he cut his teeth across a range of areas including policy, project management and investigating benef...

In episode 297 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Jay Williams, and his mother Niru Williams. Jay is a childhood friend of our Founder Freddie, who met whilst playing at Wanstead Cricket Club together. They have now known each other for over 20 years. Jay first came on the podcast in September 2020, when he appeared as a guest on our Mind On The Game series. Since we started VENT,...

In episode 296 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Dan Foreman. Dan is the Co-Founder of ‘Chaps for Chaps’, which he started alongside five of his friends. It started when they were working out in the gym he owns, Built by Novo Fitness in Bexhill. They had put some country music on whilst working out and they wondered if it would be a good idea to do workouts in country outfits as a...

In Part 2 of our check in with journalist and author Andrew Shields, we discuss marriage, fatherhood and how his work (especially with LOCOG) impacted his family life and the sacrifices he had to make, along with his wife Elaine, who supported him hugely in being able to make them. We then discuss the death of his mum, which happened in the run-up to this podcast, the mental health impact that her...

In episode 295 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Andrew Shields. Andrew Shields is a journalist, communications and events management professional and published author who has worked in the world of sports media for over 40 years. Andrew graduated from the University of Warwick with a BA in American and English Literature and began climbing the ladder in sports journalism in the m...

In episode 294 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Natasha Moore. Natasha is communications professional, consultant and the Co-Founder of Moore Squared Communications. She started it with her sister, Charlotte Moore, who is an ex-investment analyst and is now an established and respected pensions journalist. Natasha spent the most recent decade working in corporate communications i...

In episode 293 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Elliot Bewick. Elliot is a producer, presenter and the host of The Next Generation Podcast, which bills itself as ‘a home for Gen Z to be exposed to different viewpoints, learn lessons from the past & search their way to a meaningful and fulfilled life’.Elliot got his start in media production when he was just 15 years old, thro...

In episode 292 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Kyt Lyn Walken. Kyt is a qualified man-tracker and the Founder of her own tracking business, The Way of Tracking. Kyt’s father was obsessed with western television and movies and he introduced her to man tracking skills from the age of around 5/6 years old. In 2012/2013 she got into survival skills professionally and found a school...

In episode 291 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Leigh Edwards. Leigh Edwards works as a QA Analyst for a housing association and helps lead on the community work that men's mental health charity Mandem Meet Up (MMU) carries out in Wolverhampton. Leigh was raised by a single mum in a difficult neighbourhood of Wolverhampton, but achieved the grades to study at university. He...

In episode 290 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Angela Allen. Angela is the Founder of ‘Bags for Strife’, a charity which supports people bereaved by suicide, set up by people bereaved by suicide. When Angela’s 23-year-old daughter Katrina died by suicide on 8th November 2019, she reached out to friends and loved ones and asked them what the overriding emotions they felt when the...

In episode 289 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked back in with Dean Corney. Dean Corney is a firefighter and the Co-Founder of Walk & Talk 999, a men's walk and talk organisation in the UK for any man in the emergency services to walk and talk about their mental health, if they want to, and be met with empathy, trust and understanding. We first checked in with Dean in March 2023,...

In this episode of Mind On The Game, we checked in with Rory Crawford. Rory is the current owner of Combat Fight Series and coaches out of Crawford K1 Thai Boxing Gym. Previously, Rory was a professional Thai Boxing champion, holding titles at Area, English, British and European levels respectively. Rory played sport from a young age, playing football from the ages of 5 to 16/17 and in-between try...

In episode 288 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked back in, for the fourth time, with Gar Lock. Gar Lock is an Irish farmer and one of the biggest characters we've had on the podcast. In our chats over the last two years, we have discussed a whole range of interesting subjects, as well as his fascinating life journey. In our first check-in, in JCIP #196 we discussed his chequered famil...

In episode 287 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Sam Gravestock. Sam is the Founder of The Forest Path, which bills itself as a therapeutic wilderness guide. Through The Forest Path, Sam offers programmes to help his clients reengage with nature and improve their mental health as a result. This includes things like Intuitive Coaching and Campfire Counsel, a Men’s Guided Therapeuti...

In episode 286 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Matthew Ayres. Matt works in recruitment and is the current partner of great friend of the pod and Just Checking In Live (JCIL) #6 headliner Jade Morgan Kelly. We met Matt at JCIL #6, and he told us he wanted to share his story on the podcast. Matt grew up in Exeter, in Devon, and when he was around 16/17 years old, he was told by h...

In episode 285 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked back in with Brady Frost and Tom Bradshaw. Brady Frost and Tom Bradshaw are both Huddersfield Town fans and previously co-hosted a series on the Huddersfield Town podcast ‘And He Takes That Chance’ called The Warm Up, where they previewed upcoming games. After doing that for a few years, they wanted to try something new and different but st...

In episode 284 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked back in with Daniel John. Daniel is the Founder of the mental health platform ‘You, Me & Anxiety’, which he founded in February 2018 to try and tackle the stigma around anxiety, provide him with a channel to voice his own experiences of anxiety and amplify the voices of others. We first checked in with him in JCIP #60, where we discusse...

In episode 283 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Jason Reeves. Jason is the Founder of Embers Woodcraft, a charity which offers bushcraft experiences, workshops and a range of other activities that bring people together and focus on the natural environment’s power to improve their mental health. Jason began his career in the military, joining the Parachute Regiment at the age of 1...

In episode 282 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Holly Brencher. Holly is a journalist and currently works as an AI Expansion Reporter at Newsquest. We came across Holly through a very personal article she wrote on Newsquest about the death of her brother Billy, who tragically took his own life 6th November 2024.The article was called a ‘Tribute to Welling's Billy Payne - lov...

In this episode of Mind On The Game we checked back in with Aaron Bowes. Aaron plays as the First XV fly-half in the Ashford Rugby Club's Men's team. He is also an old friend of VENT Founder Freddie Cocker. We first checked back in with Aaron way back when in December 2020, where we discussed how he got into rugby, the life skills it gave him including self-confidence and his friendship...

In episode 281 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Tom Toolan. Tom Toolan is a father and the Founder of the 'Find Rhian' campaign, a campaign he started to find his daughter Rhian who was abducted by her mother in 2018, taken out of the UK and to her home country of Poland against a court order. Rhian was just six years old at the time. Rhian's abduction is a Crimina...

In episode 280 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Luke Loughlin, and his sister Lindsay Loughlin. We first checked in with Luke in JCIP #244 where we discussed the story of men's mental health platform Men United, whom he was previously a co-founder of. We also discussed his own personal story of being diagnosed with ADHD and a learning difficulty, sexual abuse by a female per...

In episode 279 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Leah Morris. Leah currently works as a Centre Manager at the Liverpool branch of James’ Place UK, a charity who are doing lifesaving work for men's mental health. Leah was diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) in her early 20s after experiencing some workplace bullying in a previous role prior to joining James’ Plac...

In episode 278 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Evan Grant. Evan Grant is a mental health campaigner and the Co-Founder, alongside his wife Carol and son Alastair of the Cameron Grant Memorial Trust. The Trust was set up in memory of his son Cameron, who tragically took his own life in 2014, when he was just 21 years old. Cameron’s death devastated Evan’s family and they set up t...