75th Anniversary

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The Ramblers celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2010. The year will provide a wonderful opportunity to raise our profile; highlight the important work of volunteers and generate income for the organisation.

Events will be organised throughout the year - both centrally and by Areas and Groups - to showcase the important work of the organisation from walking events to specially targeted media initiatives and a special edition of ‘walk’ magazine.

Index

Themes
How you can get involved
How will the baton walk work?
When
Do you need to put on a special baton walk?
What extra work is involved?
Baton Walk next steps
Get Walking Day 2010
Get Walking Day Next Steps
Festival of Winter Walks
Merchandise

Themes

Each quarter throughout 2010, the 75th Anniversary year, has a theme. We invite you to take part in as many themes as you would like by organising activities. Centrally, Ramblers will be highlighting existing and new projects to contribute to the coverage for each theme.

We hope that Areas and Groups will select a number of themes to support throughout the year.

The themes are:

• History
• Getting people walking
• Places to walk
• Volunteering

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There are lots of ways you can get involved. The 75th Anniversary is a fantastic opportunity to highlight the important work that Ramblers volunteers do for their community, and we would welcome anecdotes, memorabilia and photos to show this. The press office needs case studies to generate press coverage as well as walks to help the general public engage in the Anniversary. There will be a special edition of walk magazine so if you or a volunteer you know has done sterling work for the organisation, or if you want to tell us your story, please send details to: 75anniversary@ramblers.org.uk.

Likewise, if you know of a walk that highlights disabled access, coastal access, a footpath problem or is a short healthy walk please let us have the walk details: 75anniversary@ramblers.org.uk. The press office plans to ‘sell’ 12 ‘special’ walks to the media and is currently working on a supplement with a major national newspaper.

If you were to choose three activities to get behind we’d ask you to focus on the flagship events – the Baton Relay, Get Walking Day and Festival of Winter Walks.

It’s more important than ever that we recruit members so we are offering a special prize to the group that recruits the most new members.

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The baton walk will start with a walk in South West England in early January and end with a walk in the South East of England in December. In between we hope that as many Groups as possible will take part in the Baton Walk as the baton goes on a passage from south west England, through Wales, looping through Scotland and back to the south east of England - passing through the nine English regions on the way. The baton won’t directly be passed from group to group – the emphasis is on its passage through Britain.

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To facilitate the passage we ask that you organise your baton walk on any day of the month which relates to you.

If you are unsure which English region you fall into visit: www.gos.gov.uk

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Do you need to put on a special baton walk?

Not unless you want to. Your baton walk could be a walk that you already have in mind for your particular month. We just ask that your walk includes somewhere photogenic. This could be rural or urban – with a backdrop of a great view or a landmark for example. It would be ideal if your walk highlights a local campaign issue, to help the press office publicise the campaigning aspect of our work and get good coverage. We ask that the photo of the group with the baton (we will send you a baton) is sent to central office by email so that we can chart the baton’s progress on the website. You may choose to link your baton walk to the theme but it’s not essential.

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Ramblers centrally will look to generate media coverage from month to month to coincide with the passage of the baton. Your Group’s Baton Walk is likely to be of interest to local media.

We will provide you with a press template to send to local media ahead of the walk, and one to send with the photo, immediately after the walk.

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1. If your Group would like to take part in the Baton Relay please email 75anniversary@ramblers.org.uk with your name, your Group’s name, your country/region, and any other details about your Baton Walk that you may have agreed. Please title your email ‘Baton Walk’.
2. Please start planning your walk with a nominated Leader and ideally a backmarker. The walk may be as long or short as you like, as easy or as hard.
3. Once the walk is agreed publicise it in your programme and/or on your website.
4. Ensure that your Area or Group puts it on the Group Walks Finder and tags it as a Baton Walk by adding the code R75 in the "Themed Walk" field (if you don't know how to do this, please contact our Walks Finder support volunteers at volunteer@ramblers.org.uk). The advance notice of walks is vital to enable the Media Team to ensure good media coverage. The Group Walks Finder will act as the central database logging Baton Walks so it is essential that your Group enters your Baton Walk on the system. The majority of Groups now use the Group Walks Finder, and so unlike the Festival of Winter Walks 09-10, paper submission forms are not being provided. For support, including start-up help, email volunteer@ramblers.org.uk.
5. We will reply to your email nearer the time of your walk to arrange delivery of the Baton and provide template press releases.

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Get Walking Day 2009 was supported by over 100 Groups and attracted 1500 new walkers out of a total of 3000 participants. Look at your autumn edition of Walk for a full report.

We’d like to build on this success and hope that more than half of Ramblers Groups will take part in 2010, giving the day greater coverage. Based on feedback, Get Walking Day 2010 will avoid the bank holiday weekend and take place on Sunday May 23, with the option of holding walks on Saturday May 22.

The focus of Get Walking Day will remain on shorter walks. Year-round feedback from Groups shows that short walks are particularly popular in attracting new people. Get Walking Day walks should be less than 5 miles in length, and can be as short as you like, but it should be as welcoming and as accessible to as many people as possible. Please consider starting from a town centre or transport hub.

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1. Start planning your walk with a nominated Leader and ideally a backmarker. The walk must be less than 5 miles and offer as many people as possible the opportunity to take part.
2. If you would like to take part in Get Walking Day please email 75anniversary@ramblers.org.uk with your name and your Group’s name and brief details about your Get Walking Day walk. Please title your email ‘Get Walking Day’.
3. Once the walk is agreed publicise it in your programme and/or on your website.
4. Ensure that your Area or Group puts it on the Group Walks Finder and tags it as a Get Walking Day walk by adding the code GWD10 in the "Themed Walk" field (if you don't know how to do this, please contact our Walks Finder support volunteers at volunteer@ramblers.org.uk). The advance notice of walks is vital to enable the central Media Team to get good media coverage. The Group Walks Finder will act as the central database logging Baton Walks so it is essential that your Group enters your walks on the system. The majority of Groups now use the Group Walks Finder, and so unlike the Festival of Winter Walks 09-10, paper submission forms are not being provided. For support, including start-up help, email volunteer@ramblers.org.uk.
5. We will reply to your email with occasional updates and in March will provide you with template press releases and media briefs, promotional leaflets and poster blanks.

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The Festival of Winter Walks is now well established and will effectively top and tail our 75th anniversary celebrations.

The 09-10 festival will run from Dec 26th to January 3rd. Please enter your own walks onto WalksFinder as far as possible. Entering your own Group walks ensures that you have the ability to update details if they change before the walk.

Details of the Festival of Winter Walks 09-10 has been included in Group News Spring 2009. You can order 20% off joining forms and other festival publicity materials from mariusz.wilczynski@ramblers.org.uk

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We are looking into selling merchandise for the 75th anniversary and would like to know what you think. Would you be interested in buying a Ramblers t-shirt, hat, mug or walking stick? Please e-mail your request and comments to lucy.courtney@ramblers.org.uk We would also like to know if your Area/group would be interesting in selling merchandise.

Keep an eye on the website for further information on Anniversary events. And please let us know of your plans for the 75th anniversary. Again send your information to 75anniversary@ramblers.org.uk.

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