Dear Volunteer,
It's got off to a very busy start this year - the Festival of Winter Walks and a big recruitment drive for new members; campaigning to limit the extent of proposed cuts to council rights of way budgets, and to protect access to our forests, and starting to plan for General Council in Oxford, this April.
We also held a special 75th anniversary event for about 200 partners (other charities, politicians, civil servants, and so on), hosted by our President, Julia Bradbury (pictured right).
To keep you even more fully up-to-date with news, I'm now posting to my blog as things happen. You can read my latest posts at any time by clicking here, but I'll also continue to provide a monthly round-up too.
Best wishes
Postings in the past month
(click on the headlines to read the full post):
Cumbria: think again on footpath cuts (8/2/11)
I've been in Cumbria today to join local Ramblers groups to protest against county council proposals to cut the rights of way budget by one third. Members from Penrith, Carlisle, and Kendal joined the walk from Orton - along with press and radio. We were also joined by two representatives of the Institute of Public Rights of Way and Access Management (IPROW). The original proposal was to cut the rights of way budget by 2/3rds. Thanks to public pressure, this has been scaled back to 1/3rd, which is a…
March membership - don't forget (7/2/11)
Don’t forget: Throughout March, for every brand new direct debit member recruited by your Group, we’re passing on the entire first year’s membership fee back to the Group. What can you use the extra funds for? Well, we’d prefer you spent the money (unless your reserves are low). You can spend it on any of our charitable purposes: use it for helping to recruit even more members, or to publicise the Ramblers, or to buy some new promotional displays, or to train volunteers, or to improve your…
Cornwall launches Challenge Cup (5/2/11)
I was pleased to attend and speak at the Cornwall Ramblers AGM today, hosted by Kernow Boots, the 20-30s group. About 60 members came along (apparently the biggest in years). Four Cornwall Council officers were also there - including the Director: a testament to the solid relationship between the council and the Cornwall Ramblers. Particular points to note: - Graham Ronan, Cornwall Chair, launched the Cornwall Ramblers Challenge Cup. This will be awarded to the Group with the highest % increase in members…
Progress in Cornwall for Ramblers (4/2/11)
I'm in Cornwall on a return visit, six months after I was here to launch the Ramblers 'Dead End for Walkers?' campaign to highlight the risk of local authority budget cuts to our national path network. At the time, some people suggested we were exagerating the threat. Six months later, with proposed cuts of 100% to staffing in Bolton, 80% to capital spend on the Isle of Wight, 50% to staffing and budgets in Nottinghamshire, and many more to come, it's clear that in many parts of the…
75th anniversary partner event (2/2/11)
We held a special 75th anniversary event this evening for our national 'partners' - that's other charities, companies, politicians, civil servants and others who we work closely with. About 200 people attended, representing about 80 different organisations - many from the health or environment world. Both our current President, Julia Bradbury, and one of our previous Presidents, Janet Street Porter, spoke. Not far away from our office, where the event was held, MPs were debating the proposals…
Two training opportunities for volunteers (31/1/11)
Over the past few years, we ’ ve been running a project called ‘ Get Walking Keep Walking ’ , in Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and London. Paid for by the Big Lottery Fund and Ramblers Holidays Charitable Trust, the project is aimed at people new to walking. It has involved more than 700 volunteers, and there ha ve been great links between the project and Ramblers groups in places like Sheffield and Manchester. Building on this experience, we ’ re organising two volunteer training events in…
Leicestershire and Rutland Ramblers in good form (29/1/11)
I'm on my way back from the AGM of Leicestershire and Rutland Ramblers, attended by around 40 members. They'll be hosting General Council in 2012 so we had quite a discussion about what that would entail. Other issues which came up: - The popularity of our President, Julia Bradbury amongst walkers. (Several of the groups had invited her on walks, but they appreciate how busy she is.) - Cut-backs to local authority funding for footpaths (so far, Leicestershire has not been so badly affected as…
BBC You and Yours feature on effect of footpath cutbacks (28/1/11)
Today ’ s BBC Radio 4 ’ s You and Yours programme contains a lengthy feature on the potential effects of council cutbacks to their rights of way budgets. I did the interview at the end of the piece from the studio, but I thought that the case put over from the recorded part at the start, from Cumbria, was excellent in set ting out the case for why these drastic council cuts will be devastating for our footpath network . There ’ s an interview with the Leader of Cumbria County Council where he says…
Today's forestry proposals won't protect access (27/1/11)
The Ramblers remains concern ed that proposals for the sale of Forestry Commission land will lead to a reduction in public access. Today ’ s proposals will largely protect access to heritage woodland such as the New Forest and the Forest of Dean, and even large commercial woodland like Kielder Forest in Northumberland. But there is a big BUT. R oughly 50% of the Forestry Commission estate currently falls into neither ‘heritage’ nor ‘large commercial’ categories, and this half could end up for…
Flintshire Ramblers Grant Success (27/1/11)
Since my posting yesterday about the success of Isle of Wight Ramblers in obtaining a grant to carry out footpath improvements, I've heard of another great success, this time in Wales. For the past few years, Flintshire County Council has budgeted £100,000 for Footpath Maintenance and Improvement. But it had not applied for any funding for footpath improvements from the Welsh Assembly Government and European Regional Development Fund - unlike its neighbour, Denbighshire. About 12 months ago…
Isle of Wight Ramblers Success (26/1/11)
> Congratulations to the Isle of Wight Ramblers for winning a grant of > £36,000 for the improvement of footpaths at the Nature Reserves in > Alverstone, alongside Wight Nature Fund. > > The project is in two phases. > Phase 1 will involves the replacement of the boardwalk at Alverstone > Mead – this includes a new section to access a very muddy path. Sti > les will be removed and replaced with gates. Disabled access at the > bird hide will be improved. > > Phase 2 will…
Launch of the Ramblers Walk in the Park series (24/1/11)
I attended the launch of ‘ A Walk in the Park ’ yesterday (Sunday) in Hyde Park. This is a programme of ten weekly London health walks being launched by the Ramblers in partnership with the Rain Trust – with funding help from Natural England and the Royal Parks. A team of 30 Ramblers volunteers are leading the walks – some of whom have been walks leaders before, and some of whom are members who haven ’ t volunteered before. The walks will take place in Green Park, Regents Park, Kensington…
Our message to our affiliated clubs: "Help us to help You!" (20/1/11)
We've recently written to hundreds of our affiliated walking clubs with a simple message: Their club members need the Ramblers to protect the footpaths they love to walk. And we need their club members to join us too, to enable us to stand up for footpaths, and support our local volunteers. We're asking them to put out a call to their members to sign up to the Ramblers. And to encourage them to do so, we've said we'll donate £5 to their club for every application they refer before the end…
Let's tell walkers about Ramblers successes (19/1/11)
There are about six million regular walkers in Britain, and only a fraction of them are Ramblers members. But without the Ramblers work to safeguard and expand footpaths, those six million walkers wouldn't have so many wonderful places to go walking! Imagine what more we could do if more of those walkers were Ramblers members... I think we can be a bit shy about promoting our successes to walkers and asking them to join...not just to go on led walks - but simply to support our great work. I go…
New membership trial: Area membership (18th January 2011)
One of our ambition s this year is to get to the end of it and have more Ramblers members than we started. More members means more campaigning impact, more resources, and a bigger pool of potential volunteers. You may have noticed that we are trying out a range of new initiatives , to get a better understanding of what motivates people to join – and to renew their membership. For two months from 1 st February, new Ramblers members joining online via the main website will be given a clearer option of…
