Value of bushwalking clubs

[flatfoot]

I've joined a bushwalking club - mainly to build experience and for people to walk with. There were 5 other people that joined on the same night so I suppose that's a good sign. I spent quite a bit of time researching the clubs in the Sydney area. The people at my first club meeting were certainly friendly. It will be good to go out on some walks with them but their programme is booked out for May. They seem to be a fairly active club which is good since I have the time available to do 2 - 3 walks a month.

Some members shy away from overnight walks apparently, although I understand there are some clubs that have overnight walks as a focus. I may join a second club to increase the variety (i.e. region) or type of walks that I can select from.

[WarrenH]

Here in Canberra the scene is as vibrant as ever because of the variety of different club styles. There are some great websites for these groups mentioned below. Canberra's location on the Great Divide and surrounded by 13 wilderness regions is her strength.

From the Friends of the Grasslands, their walks and field days and workshops are more academic and are based on land care and regeneration of marginal lands and the protection of endangered habitats.

The ACT NPA (the MOHAs) are as elitist and political as ever ... and appear to be still totally obsessed with their culture of fear. This also appears to suit a lot of their supporters.

The Canberra Bushwalking Club is as-solid-as-ever and just as active as when I was a member leading walks and holding photographic workshops 25 years ago. The CBC's walks programme is varied. Their activity programme for club nights, is always informative. I learnt to cook Lebanese bush walking meals with the CBC ... personally taught by the Gaitered Gourmette, John Kyatt.

The ANU Mountaineers, are more adventurous than most; cycling, kayaking, climbing, canyoning and bushwalking.

There is a need to find a group that suits one's personality, for sure ... I always walk alone.

... but I will always be forever grateful for the times I spent tagging along with the tigers of the CBC. I don't think if I had started walking and exploring the bush, by doing more casual walks, that I would have continued my love of the bush, thought of many places is being accessible or possible to walk in, or seen half the wild places and regions that I did with the tigers ... places that I still go to and explore.

There is a lot to be said about the value of being with the right bush walking group and doing your apprenticeship. I certainly recommend giving to a bush walking group a few of your good years or until you feel well set up and comfortable (as the next best option).

Warren.

[melinda]

Hey flatfoot,
What club did you join??
Melinda

[flatfoot]

Hey flatfoot,
What club did you join??
Melinda

Springwood Bushwalking Club.

I know that region reasonably well. I lived there in the early 90's whilst attending Uni and was also a member of one of the local Bushfire Brigades. I live in the Hills district now and it's convenient for me to get to their monthly meetings. Naturally most of their trips are in the Blue Mountains which is also convenient for me.

My immediate focus is getting my walking legs back for The Overland Track in December (I've lost 32 kg in the last 2 years). I'm currently averaging 100km per week on my bicycle. I'm going to mix that up with a mix of ideally strenuous daywalks and overnight walks. I've got the time available to do 2 or 3 walks per month. Joining a club is the best way for me to achieve that since I prefer to walk in a group.

[melinda]

Hi Flatfoot,
Can't say I know much about the present day Springwood Club.
From my experience I would say that most bushwalkers in clubs are a pretty friendly bunch.
Good to hear that Springwood members are too!
I do know they used to have a pretty good reputation as hard walkers so let us know how it goes.
If you can't get on any of their walks soon let me know and I may be able to get you on a walk with my club as a visitor.
We are up the Blue Mountains most weekends!
Melinda

[flatfoot]

Hi Flatfoot,
Can't say I know much about the present day Springwood Club.
From my experience I would say that most bushwalkers in clubs are a pretty friendly bunch.
Good to hear that Springwood members are too!
I do know they used to have a pretty good reputation as hard walkers so let us know how it goes.
If you can't get on any of their walks soon let me know and I may be able to get you on a walk with my club as a visitor.
We are up the Blue Mountains most weekends!
Melinda

The range of trips seems to be quite varied so I have plenty to pick from. From the trip reports and discussion of future trips I'd agree that some of the walks are hard. I'm booked in for a couple of easy and medium walks in may - june to get started.

I've also sent you a PM with some questions about your club.

[mikethepike]

Post on this topic bring up points not just about bushwalking clubs but perhaps more fundamentally on why do people go bushwalking in the first place and we have everything from the casual stroller (presumably passive!) to the ‘passive aggressives’ (and how ‘bad’ would active ones be?) With this range of walking styles or philosophies even, it seems that clubs can either cater for one or other styles of walking (and which some do and it seems to work fine) or have a combination of styles. The latter will work if people go on the walks that suit them (the main purpose of grading walks) and everyone is tolerent of the differences. It seems to me that, if you categorise walking styles or make judgements on other types of walkers with too much vigour, you may be doing this with the view that your own position is the only ‘correct’ one but surely all are valid. Consider this.
A few years ago my family was invited to join a party of field naturalists from Victoria at a camp at the surprisingly fantastic Chambers Gorge in the Flinders Ranges and where one night around the campfire (wood trailered in from a sustainable source!), someone said “You know, there are these people called bushwalkers who just go into the bush and walk and don’t even do anything useful!” (my exclamation mark). I didn’t say anything or ask him what he thought of rogainers but I have to say that, with local amateur biologists hosting the event, I learnt more that week about the Flinders than on any of my many bushwalks there and perhaps strangely enough, we did as much walking as a lot of bushwalkers would be happy with, despite their primary objectives being different (walking to learn and enjoying the experience compared with just enjoying a walk).

[juju]

I walk with my 14 year old son usually and was interested in joining a club up this way (northern NSW) affiliated with the Confederation and then perhaps walking with another club down south. I inquired about membership and the following emails ensued...

Club -Thanks for your inquiry about bushwalking with (our club). You certainly could walk with our Club but I'm afraid your son would not be eligible as (our club) only accepts members aged 18 and over. As a Club we did not want to get into all the Child Protection policies.

Me -Hi and thanks for your reply though I don't understand about the difficulties with child protection, aren't they the responsible of the parent? Does this mean no-one under 18 walks with you?

Club -The Club constitution states that its philosophy is to do medium to hard walks quite often off track so the founders of the Club felt it was not suitable for children under 18 years. In recent years Risk Management Frameworks have been implemented in all sorts of organisations including Bushwalking Clubs. If Clubs want to involve children under 18 there are all sorts of procedures, one being all members have to sign a form even though parents have the responsibility for their children. So yes no children are able to walk with our club.


You may find other Bushwalking Clubs have similar constitutions.

Has anyone had experience with this before? The club's walks program was not all off track and included easy walks, I'm waiting to hear from another club. Here's my reply...

Me -That's a shame, there's not a lot of family friendly activities around and certainly our teens are missing out on being included, no wonder youth are so lost. Julie.

[johnw]

...there's not a lot of family friendly activities around and certainly our teens are missing out on being included, no wonder youth are so lost. Julie.

Hi Julie,
Yes it's quite sad. A side-issue is that if young people are excluded like this, then how can we we expect them to continue to value and protect the natural environment after the rest of us have gone? Although I've yet to actually walk with them I belong to NPA NSW, who seem to be a bit less draconian but it depends on the leader etc (see below):
http://www.npansw.org.au/website/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=46

"Participation by children
Children under 18 years old are welcome to attend NPA activities only:
if accompanied and supervised by their own parent/carer at all times; and
if accepted prior to the day by the activity leader, who will determine whether the activity is appropriate for them.
Activities specifically designed for young children (under 8 years) are noted with a ‘good for kids’ icon."

They are a Confederation member (the largest I think) and have branches as listed below, so might be worth checking out if any of those locations are suitable.

Far North Coast
Coffs Harbour
Clarence Valley
Mid North Coast (Port Macquarie & Laurieton/Taree)
Three Valleys (Grassy Head)

NPA Branches

[juju]

Thankyou John, I'll follow that up. Yes it's hard not to get disheartened with where we are going in this society. We seem to really undervalue our children as the future caretakers of our community and our world, when we ought to be encouraging their participation in every way possible, instead we separate them from adult life and expect good citizens when they're 'old enough'...

[vagrom]

If you're not from Tassie and you have no contacts down there but want to see more of the place, then the first place to look is at all the Tas. club websites. There are three that I know of and they link to each other. Or you might plan a trip to Tas., far enough ahead to line up the cheapest way of getting there together, with an excellent, out of the way destination that you've always wanted to visit, like the Spires. The clubs welcome visitors and you'll simply be asked your experience and your gear. You'd be mad not to take advantage of it. Some of the destinations should belong on a list called The Deadlies. They are well described in true Tasmanian understatement as "character building" walks. I did the King Williams 2 and 3, via Saxon Gully, with the Deloraine Walking Club, 4 of us.(no website) The Pandani Bushwalking Club also has an excellent little website. They are the other southern club. I've no idea re: their visitors policy.

You'll be helping out by helping to share fuel costs, getting there and back. Joining as an interstate member presents no issues, though qualifying involves training weekends.

Hobart Walking Club has the best Daywalks selection. The other two, LWC and nwwc, have the most big walks, relative to their locations. With HWC, you may organise a walk with John Cannon, who writes every week in the Sunday Tasmanian, an item in the centre section called The Bush. Excellent articles, well written, with updates on openings, closures and policy developments and often, a great photo. Or choose a walk with David Leaman, a geologist who writes great books on the island's landscape and is occasionally in the Mercury Letters.

In Melbourne, getting to know the lie of the land can be done with Geoff Durham, who leads daywalks with the VNPA, Victorian National Parks Assoc. They will post you a free book of their walks program if you email them. Their big train trip outings apparently fill up very quickly. The number of clubs in Victoria actually fill a small, annually published book.

[Charlievee]

I used to be a member of Maroondah Bushwalkers but cancelled my membership (did not renew) after they couldn't provide the very things I joined the club for. They were very keen in providing daywalks (which I have absolutely zero interest in) during the midweek but overnights were very limited. When I did my first overnight (which was listed as a easy/medium and was definitely a medium) I was not up to the speed of the group (which I readily admit) and was treated badly by the walk leader. Every time I caught up to the group (they waited, thankfully) they would move off - the person who most needed the rest never got it ! Whatever happened to pacing the speed of the group to the slowest walker ? Anyways, there seemed to be an "elitist" attitude ; you had to be able to walk hard and fast or you wouldn't get asked back. I didn't and still don't subscribe to this bull&%$#. I walk because I enjoy the bush and the camping out. I don't mind my own company if I can't find someone to walk with. Further, I enquired about training that was mentioned about entry level overnights and put my name on the list. I waited a year for the training to materialize, which it never did. All this time the club was more than happy to take my yearly subs. What a sucker I was. I finally wrote a letter of complaint and was invited to join another club. I cannot see myself joining another club at this stage, but feel they are good for those who feel they are getting something out of them. I have a small group of likeminded friends and we backpack fairly often ; although not often enough for me ! Sorry, didn't mean to start a witch hunt, but this really got under my craw. I'd like to see something for my money. Regards. CV

[flyfisher]

Charlie, good to hear that you aren't stuck with no-one to walk with. Sometimes though it's not bad by yourself in the right area.

I often wander on my own fishing and walking or just walking, and am not in a club. However I am in this forum and a group of us have reasonably regular overnight and longer walks which keeps me pretty content. They are a very caring bunch and the pace is set by consensus and although I am probably the slowest, I don't feel under too much pressure with them.

I have heard similar complaints of eletist groups in clubs, and it makes one wonder why they joined a club in the first place.
Perhaps just to show off their walking prowess.

Nice if you have a group of compatible friends or family, makes for a more enjoyable outing I feel.

Cheers ff

[ninjapuppet]

i joined a local bushwalking club and experienced the opposite.
I was fit a decade ago, but i now dont consider myself fast by any means. I can walk fast but my natural pace is an average 2-3km an hour with full pack which is fairly slow but found myself having to wait for them a fair bit. half had knee recons/replacements.

haha...I'm 30, but the next youngest person in the club was 68.
They were all very friendly and i didnt have a problem fittin in but they did tend to organise alot of bushwalks during the week because they were all retired.
I obvously coudlnt go and missed out on alot of the places.

Ended up letting my membership lapse too. might look a uni bushwalking club or something down the track.

[Cocksy_86]

I joined one in Brisbane and I got sick of all the politics in it. It was terrible. Team leaders complaining about the board and vice versa. In the end I go bushwalking to enjoy nature and relax, not use it as a social outlet, so I stopped going.

There are benefits to the clubs though. If you want to get into Federation Mountain Rescue you need to go through certain clubs and be trained by those clubs before joining. The opportunity to learn from experienced bushwalkers, photographers, historians, ecologists, botanists, naturalists, thingomagigoists... a huge plus. If you get the chance, lead a team which can help develope team management skills, people skills, good on your resume, and challenge yourself a bit.

Anyway, thats my 2 cents.

[bartshaz]

I started bush walking at 14 when I was involved with girl guides, stopped at 18 due to work, then the arrival of two children, then at 30 got the walking bug again. After going on walks with friends I wanted to go to different places so I joined a club and I've been to some amazing places with them. With having two kids I like how my club is casual and I can go on walks that fit into my diary. It's my time away from the family.

Shaz

[sailfish]

Hi JuJu

I can’t help but think that the child protection laws are not the real reason that many clubs are reluctant to include children.
Volunteers need only sign a declaration. There is no background check required for volunteers, only paid employees.
So that’s not too much of a deal is it?

I’ve been involved in clubs from several different activities and though it is obvious that these things only grow through a youth program with parental participation, people are generally reluctant to get involved in that. That attitude seems to predate the above legal requirements. I think it comes from a combination of things, mainly that people love and are passionate about their pastimes and would like to share that passion. Problem is that when you have people along who make it hard for the volunteer leaders, it takes all the joy out of the thing for them. In short their passion becomes a living hell and no one wants to do that anymore. Modern individualism does not sustain the joy for volunteers. People come expecting to be served and give the organisers a hard time when their unexpressed and unrealistic expectations are not met. Many kids these days can be really difficult, do not accept authority, and will sling tirades of abuse at adults who dare to make reasonable requests of them, like staying with the group. I’m usually really easy going but this can be extremely unpleasant in my experience.

There are still many really good and pleasant kids around but this sort of thing has become very common. Once this has happened a few times, nobody wants to lead anything anymore. The NSW Laser II sailing association was destroyed 20 years ago by just such a thing and it still does not exist. Sometimes clubs have these policies to protect themselves, at least people can still enjoy walking together until they are all too old and it just dies out.

It is such a shame that some clubs go this way but understandable in the light of such experiences.
I don’t know what the answer is unless people can learn to once again live in community.


Regards,
Ken

[michael_p]

...Has anyone had experience with this before?...

Yes. There are other clubs that will not take under 18s. Which is a great pity as bushwalking is a great family activity.

The Confederation's document can be found here: http://www.bushwalking.org.au/RiskChild.doc. The Child Protection section is on page 7. Then read Appendix 7 on page 16. To be honest I would be reluctant when faced with the prospect of a $10,000 fine.

Cheers,
Michael.

[juju]

Thanks Michael, interesting to see just how much office work a seemingly innocent activity like bushwalking can make. Whatever did we do in the old days (not that long ago) when we didn't sign on the dotted line before taking a risk? What changed?
Yes the feeling I got from the club I approached was that it was just too hard to organize all the regulatory paperwork, not because kids are hard to get on with. We are regulating ourselves into madness. Another brick in the wall?
25 years ago I worked with a Polish fellow in Sydney who told me 'This is a great country, so much freedom. Do you know that in Poland you have to have a license to go swimming?'
I don't know what the laws are there now, but I really thought something like that couldn't happen here...

[davidmorr]

The Confederation's document can be found here: http://www.bushwalking.org.au/RiskChild.doc. The Child Protection section is on page 7. Then read Appendix 7 on page 16. To be honest I would be reluctant when faced with the prospect of a $10,000 fine.

Confederation's advice about child protection is actually wrong. For most (perhaps all) clubs, child protection procedures are not necessary. I rang up the government department responsible for child protection when Confederation first issued this document. Their advice then was that it only applied to organisations whose activities were "primarily child related". A few children on a trip did not qualify.

This is the current requirement:

https://check.kids.nsw.gov.au/employer- ... uideline-1

This lists three questions that must all be answered "yes" before an organisation has to worry about child protection.

Question 1 is Yes for any volunteer organisation. (volunteer leaders=workers in this)

Question 2 is No for any club without significant child membership.

Question 3 is another four questions which all have to be answered yes. Again, for most clubs, the answers are going to be no.

So unfortunately Confederation has misled everyone about this. They do say that they will revisit the issue when they review the risk management document some time after the Adventure Activity Standards are finalised. That is going to be a very long time judging by the progress on AAS so far.

[michael_p]

Thanks for the link David, very enlightening.

I hope Confed can get this reviewed. But as you pointed out this could a while if we have to wait for the AAS to be finalised first.

Regards,
Michael.

[davidmorr]

I should add that the AAS also had a section on child protection which was equally wrong. The people who had written it had obviously never looked at the legislation and requirements but had written it from their own (wrong) knowledge. If this approach is characteristic of the rest of the AAS, heaven help us if it is ever implemented. Fortunately, Confederation is waging a very effective campaign to have it made more realistic.

[vagrom]

Anyway, don't miss the opportunity to come along to any club as a visitor. The VMTC requires that you join by or after the third walk but by then you should have a feel for things. YES! The politics in some of them can be terrible. But the greatest advantage is the "look see" that enables you to case the place.
Particularly in Tasmania, heading into off-track places calls for a minimum number of walkers to change places at the front of the line; an excellent way to wind up on a contact list for coming walks to out of the way places. That is, you don't have to join a club at all and you'll be on the ring around for walks that may be 10 months away. No better way to learn about gear and what bauera is.

[Bush Walker]

Hi! Those who followed the previous topic "Is off track walking dying?" will recognise that it evolved into discussion on the changing demographics of bushwalking club membership and I thought that this was a subject worth following up.

I've thought about this topic for several years and believe that one possible solution is to change the way that communication occurs within Clubs.

Most Clubs are aging and falling in membership and desperately need new and younger members. Most people want to feel involved in their Club but often feel discouraged by the older members and perceived cliques. They want to interact and feel that their views are valued, but there are often few forums for this to happen. Some of the more progressive clubs have set up blogs and forums within their websites which are an ideal way to start. Web 2.0 technologies (interactive) are the way top go as they are very familiar to younger members

I have expanded on my thoughts in three articles

Tackling an Aging and Falling Club Membership Part 1 http://www.bushwalkingskills.com/2010/08/tackling-aging-and-falling-club.html
Pt 2 http://www.bushwalkingskills.com/2010/08/tackling-aging-and-falling-club_30.html
Pt 3 http://www.bushwalkingskills.com/2010/08/using-some-web-20-technologies-to.html

[davidmorr]

You have some interesting thoughts there. But I would really like to see some evidence that this sort of activity does actually attract new, younger members. Can you name some bushwalking clubs that have used this technique and gained new, younger members?

It seems to me that once you have members interested in these activities, it will help to keep them as members. But in itself, I'm not sure that it would encourage people to join a bunch of oldie social networking people any more than they join when they come to a meeting and see the average age is about 55.

Let's look at this forum as an example. It provides lots of the interactivity features you are suggesting, yet its total membership is 2096 people. While there are a few young people here, the majority seem to be a bit past the flush of youth as revealed by comments about things not working as well as they once used to.

There are over 9000 people in clubs in NSW alone, and probably thousands more that bushwalk outside clubs. So lets say maybe 30000 people in Australia in total. That is about 6% of bushwalkers use this forum. If the same proportion used a club forum system, it could be 3-10 people, which is hardly a critical mass.

Cheers

David

PS I'll let you into a secret about the women aged 55+ who are joining Facebook. They tell me it is the only way they can keep in touch with their grown-up kids and find out what they are doing.

[Bush Walker]

Evidence is hard to find especially due to the difficulty in proving a cause-and-effect relationship and I admit I have no hard evidence. Of the walking clubs I belong to, one has just started a Facebook page, but has no active forum for exchange of ideas built into its website, and the other started a noticeboard last year which is available only to members and another for Committee. The "noticeboard " is slowly increasing in use but it has taken months. It is a slow process getting people to add posts to a blog as most people don't want to expose their views especially if they are a little controversial or are perceived to run againtst the views of the "elders" in the club. Posting however is not the only measure of the value of a forum etc as those who are there just to view and read are equally valuable and vastly exceed those posting.

I believe there is often the perception held by new members that all the decisions are made by the "elders" of the Club and that the views of the younger or newer members are not valued or even sought. Even worse is when the "elders" start to believe that they are the source of all bushwalking wisdom and that the way it was done for the last 40 years is still the best without even considering the other options. One way to overcome this perception is improve communication between new and "old" members and one way that this is achieved is by using the interactivity provided by web 2.0 technologies such as forums, blogs and wiki. For this to work of course requires the club's "elders" to take part and interact and show that they value the ideas of their new members. Why have a separate forum for Committee, why not share the discussion with all members?

[juju]

There are just a lot of baby boomers in the world and a lot less of any other generation. But I would bet this forum is frequented by more under 40's than over. Can we do a poll?

[Son of a Beach]

I've had people from a few clubs about adding club forums here (only accessible by their members and moderated by club people). I'd be keen to do this for them but have not had any official discussions with any clubs as yet.

It seems that the members like the idea, but it hasn't progressed yet.

[Bush Walker]

Research has shown that the greatest growth in the use of web 2.0 technologies is women 55 years and over and as David said they are joining Facebook to communicate with their children and look at photos of their grandchildren.

I suspect that more than half of this forums members are over 40. Perhaps a poll????

[Bush Walker]

I've had people from a few clubs about adding club forums here (only accessible by their members and moderated by club people). I'd be keen to do this for them but have not had any official discussions with any clubs as yet.
It seems that the members like the idea, but it hasn't progressed yet.

I think that could be a good solution for some clubs with limited skills or finances, but hopefully their first priority will be to get a web presence eg free Google site or blog. Quite a respectable site can be set up with only a few hours and no cost.

While I agree that a closed (members only forum) is better than none, I believe the best way to attract new members is to make it public, so that "potentials" can see what goes on behind the scenes and perhaps even ask a few questions about the club. A quick personal response could be all that is needed to encourage someone to join.

I realise that there will still be a need for a members only section for privacy reasons.