Announcements
The Board noted with sadness the death of Maurice Johns. Maurice was the former Chairman of the West Wiltshire Group. Also the death of Les Hodgetts, a long standing member and volunteer who was a Vice-President of the North Wales Area.
New Chief Executive
From the 110 candidates who had applied for the post, The Board appointed Benedict Southworth as the new Ramblers chief executive. He is due to start on 1st February 2012. Benedict is a keen walker and has more than 20 years’ experience in the charity sector, including holding senior positions in Greenpeace International, Friends of the Earth ,The World Development Movement Trust, Amnesty International and pro bono work for campaigning force, 38 Degrees. For the past two years Benedict has worked as a consultant to a long list of high profile charities, providing top level support on strategy development, mentoring and campaign planning processes. Among others his clients have included ActionAid UK, ActionAid International, Christian Aid, European Climate Foundation, Friends of the Earth, and UNICEF UK. (Ramblers press release)
Benedict Southworth takes over from Tom Franklin, who after four years as CEO will be leaving the Ramblers at Christmas to become chief executive of Think Global, a charity that aims to help people in the UK learn about such issues as poverty and climate change and find out how they can play a part in creating a more just and sustainable world.
President, Chair, and Honorary Treasurer
The Board agreed its nominations for key posts, which are due to come up for election at General Council in the spring of 2012, as follows:
• President: Kate Ashbrook. Kate will be stepping down from the Board of Trustees after more than 30 years.
• Chair: Jonathan Kipling. Jonathan is currently Honorary Treasurer. (Rodney Whittaker will be stepping down after three years as Chair at the next General Council.)
• Honorary Treasurer: Robert Peel. Robert is currently a member of the Board and is chair of its Strategy and Governance Sub-Committee.
Walking for Health
After considering very carefully the risks and benefits of doing so, the Board of Trustees approved the submission of our tender to take on the running of the England-wide Walking for Health (WfH) scheme. This scheme focuses on the delivery of short local walks.
The government is divesting the assets of the ‘national centre’ of the WfH project from its current home at Natural England to a non-government body. Many Ramblers volunteers in England will be familiar with WfH, which is currently largely funded by the Department of Health. Nearly 70,000 regular walkers take part in over 600 health walk schemes across England, led by 12,000 active volunteers – some of whom also lead Ramblers walks. There are separate schemes in Scotland and Wales.
Although WfH will utilise the skills we have built up running Get Walking, Keep Walking, it attracts a substantially different type of walker and in the long run we see WfH both complementing our existing walking programmes and nurturing new walkers.
Macmillan Cancer Support is offering to fund much of the WfH programme for at least three years, to the tune of £1.9m. Although the Ramblers would contribute resources too, we will proceed only if satisfied that the benefits to our other activities, such as development of a training model that can in due course be adapted for our traditional led walks along with enhanced reputation and influence, are sufficient to justify the investment. We believe that a partnership with Macmillan, another highly respected charity doing immensely valuable work, will bring benefits to both parties.
It is anticipated there will be several bidders, possibly with alternative sources of funding. Should the Ramblers be accepted as preferred bidder, negotiations will begin on the funding conditions. They should be completed by March and the BoT would then make the final decision on taking on WfH. Should we ultimately become the new host, we will deliver Walking for Health as an externally funded discrete project – similar to Get Walking Keep Walking.
Over time, we believe there will be benefits for the Ramblers as a whole, including for example:
- Making it easier for people new to walking to find the group that’s right for them – whether that’s a WfH or a Ramblers Group
- Greatly increasing our campaigning influence, by representing a broader range of walkers. We would be able to say we speak “for ¼ million walkers, in over 1000 groups, putting on more than 100,000 led walks a year” and use this to support our role as guardians of the footpath networks, the right to roam and the countryside;
- Providing greater co-ordination for volunteer walk leader training, expanding the model which is already well established by WfH;
- Encouraging those taking part in WfH to get give something back as volunteers, hopefully, to cancer support and walking.
Many Ramblers Groups report that there are local walking groups, separate from the Ramblers, springing up all the time. As Britain’s premier walking charity, we believe it is far better for the Ramblers to take on the running of WfH and in so doing to provide better co-ordination of volunteering, promotion and progression for all walkers. (for previous volunteer news items about Walking for Health, please click here (October 2011) and here (November 2011)
Chief Executive’s Report
The Chief Executive reported that the interim report of the Independent Forestry Panel, on which he sits, would be published on Thursday 8th December. (Please click here for the interim report, and here for the Ramblers response.) He also reported on the lobbying work which is on-going over the Government’s ‘Red Tape Challenge’, and on coastal access in England. This was the Chief Executive’s last Board meeting, and he thanked the Board for its support and guidance over the past four years, and wished the charity success for the future. The Board presented him with a picture featuring the hand-illustrated covers of historic Ordnance Survey maps for well-known walking areas of England, Scotland and Wales.
Partnerships
The Board of Trustees discussed at length a motion passed by the Inner London Area calling for the Ramblers to terminate our new partnership with BUPA. The Board decided to continue with the partnership, as part of our work to diversify our funding and recruit and retain members. It appreciated that whilst some people had very strong views against the partnership, other members had sent messages strongly in favour. The Board believes that the charity needs to keep separate the private viewpoints of individual members from its consideration of what is in the best interests of the charity.
The Board appreciates the sensitivity of partnership/sponsorship/member benefit activity, and in accordance with best practice, it will be reviewing the principles that we use in determining such activity during 2012. It will keep this and other partnerships under review to ensure that they work effectively for the Ramblers.
Management Accounts and Performance
The Board received and discussed information on our finances and our performance for the end of 2010/11 (to the end of September) and for October, the first month in the new financial year.
On the finance front, we made a surplus in the year 2010/11 of around £600k (mostly because of unbudgeted legacies and better than expected membership income), bringing reserves up to around £3m. The budget for the coming year sets out to spend this surplus on investment in areas including a new website, the Ramblers Routes database (see below), and membership recruitment. It is also likely to be a tougher year financially.
On performance, the Board reviewed our dashboard of key performance indicators, most of which are on track. It was particularly pleasing that in October alone, 69 footpaths had been reported as unblocked or opened thanks to Ramblers work. The main focus of concern remains membership numbers, which during 2010/11 slipped by 6,000. The Director of Marketing and Communications reported that during November, overall membership had slightly increased, partly thanks to our new partnership with HF Holidays.
Ramblers Routes
The Board received an update on the development of Ramblers Routes. This is a database of walking routes, developed through the Get Walking Keep Walking project, which Ramblers volunteers from across the country will be able to upload routes into from Spring next year. Our aim is to create a national repository of thousands of the best walking routes, available for Ramblers members to use. A number of Ramblers volunteers have been testing the database for ease of use, and feedback has been very good. The aim is to combine the database into the new Ramblers website, when that is launched next summer. It is intended that the routes (apart from the shortest ones which will be available free of charge to all) will be available only to members, with non-members able to access them for a fee.
