Hike Leaders Needed
by Mariken Van Nimwegen, mid-week hike planner/coordinator
The best way to attract club members is to fill the schedule with interesting and varied hikes at all ability levels. To do this, we need more hike leaders. If we all agreed to lead just one hike per year, we’d have a lively program full of choices in no time.
Most of us don’t just hike with our club, but also with other groups and personal friends. We invite you to share some of the hikes you’ve learned about and enjoyed, by proposing them on the schedule and leading them. We really need more B and C hikes.
And that’s the beauty of joining a hiking club: you learn new routes, and meet new, compatible people to hike with. Don’t worry about leading a hike: if you’re already comfortable with whatever level of hiking you normally do, you know what it takes in terms of fitness and stamina.
Here are the steps
- Decide which hike you would like to lead and when
- Categorize it as per our system here
- Create a trip announcement with details about location, category, date, time, pace, car-pool spot etc.
- Email this information to the club trip planner depending on category - they will post it to the schedule. Or if you are a pro, post it to the schedule directly using the add event function on the website and the planner will approve it.
Pace information
The best thing about being a trip leader is: you get to call the shots. Indicate the speed you’d prefer to take - easy, moderate or fast. This is perhaps the most important info for many people. Will you be taking breaks? Some people see hiking as a form of exercise and go straight to the summit; some like to take photos, groove on the landscape, take a snack and break from time to time. Discrepancies regarding pace may make a hiking group incompatible, leading to unnecessary frustration.
Take a look at the A, B, C, D and mid-week categories on the website to judge where your trip fits in best. The mid-week hikes tend to be a bit more relaxed, aren’t too far away and don’t need to take all day, but there’s nothing keeping you from scheduling a C or D-hike on a weekday – fewer people on the trails, that’s for sure.
Carpooling and Cancelling
Consider reducing our carbon footprint and increasing access for members without vehicles, by encouraging shared-cost carpooling from a central point. Take Covid-19 precautions into account. If the weather is truly ghastly that day, the trip can be postponed or cancelled, no worries, just send an email to the planner, or make the announcement yourself using an update.
Changes can be made up to one week ahead of time and sometimes even within a few days. We welcome your trip proposals anytime and thank you for helping to build our club.
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