We’re reaching out today to let you know that we have made the decision to close the organisation, Outdoors People for Climate. This decision was not taken lightly by our board of directors who took into consideration, primarily, the organisation’s capacity to continue OPC’s activities, as well as the changing context of the climate movement.
Whilst this organisation is reaching its conclusion, there are so many existing and emerging people-powered organisations that are driving important change across Australia.
Looking back over OPC’s lifetime, we are incredibly grateful for the enthusiasm, support and action generated by our community of supporters. We can be immensely proud of what we’ve achieved together to date. When Covid-19 kept us mostly indoors, we moved our bank accounts and superannuation away from fossil fuels and raised our voices in submissions and targeted campaigns. At the critical juncture before our last federal election, we wrote to our MPs and took to the streets, had important conversations with friends and family and pledged to vote for climate action.
OPC hosted powerful climate conversations and presented at outdoor workplaces and conferences. We brought together outdoor representatives for the climate change Better Futures Forum 2021 and partnered with Outdoors NSW & ACT to form a climate change subcommittee to explore pathways for action in the outdoor sectors.
During this time we’ve seen grassroots groups and everyday Australians stand up in an enormous outpouring of public sentiment in favour of climate action. This groundswell of support for greater climate action has contributed to important wins, from the strengthening of the climate safeguard mechanism to Victoria committing to end native forest logging in 2024.
There’s still a long journey ahead, and greater action is needed urgently to tackle the climate crisis and avoid the worst consequences. This includes ending the development of new coal and gas projects.
To all of our supporters who contributed to OPC’s work in a financial way, we thank you for your generosity. We have donated OPC’s remaining funds to the Australian Conservation Foundation who share OPC’s vision for ambitious climate action and thriving ecosystems in Australia.
With OPC’s activities concluding, some key organisations you may wish to connect with include The Australian Conservation Foundation, The Wilderness Society, Protect Our Winters Australia, For Wild Places and the Climate Council.
Some of you may remember that in 2013 BNSW held a Presidents Meeting to brainstorm ideas on promoting and running bushwalking clubs. I voiced an opinion that although the Confederation website had been great when it started, that it no longer met the needs of the organisation and we needed a new modern website. I was therefore gratified when the committee set aside some money and commissioned David Morrison to project manage a new website in February 2014. David called for volunteers to help write the content and since I had been so vocal about the website, I felt I should volunteer my writing skills for the project.
We began by discussing our values, which determined the form the club would take. We agreed to set up a not for profit incorporated association and to affiliate with Bushwalking NSW Inc. This provides legal protection and insurance for our volunteer and members, allowed us to open an association bank account and get an ABN (useful for grants), and to benefit from knowledge shared within the NSW peak bushwalking organisation.
Once again, our group met at the Botanic Gardens to discuss our first activity program. Talking about walks is way more fun than constitutions! The final step in the process was completing the forms for affiliation with Bushwalking NSW Inc, and paying our first insurance premium. This was done in late November, just in time for our first walk on 4th December 2021.
We like to walk, but we’re not so keen on admin. We would rather not have to nag people to pay fees, or update membership registers, or, as leaders, have to remember who signed up for a walk and who cancelled and how many are coming now and what is that new person’s name again? Fortunately, we had a committee member with website skills.
We built what techies call a “minimum viable product”. This avoids getting bogged down in committee discussion, designing an overly complex solution. We got a basic site up quickly, and learnt from that. We also tried to avoid reinventing wheels. For example, we link to Lotsafreshairs excellent videos and the Bushwalking Manual, no need to write your own.
MemberPress provided us with a login system and the ability to restrict content to members only. We set up two membership classes (Trial, Full members) with different fees. We created an online membership form with a digital acknowledgement of risk and connected it to PayPal. We also provide an option for payment by bank transfer, but hardly any people have used this.Members can update their information, if their address changes, for example. Reminders are automatically sent when membership is due for renewal. We created roles for Committee Members and Leaders, who have access to extra functionality.
We installed The Events Calendar to manage our program of walks, cycling, kayaking, meetings and social activities. A calendar overview is available to the interested public as this encourages new members to join, but only members can see details such as leaders contact information, meeting place and time. We use Registrations for The Events Calendar Pro to manage online bookings, cancellations, maximum group size and a waitlist, an attendees list, walk reminder emails and more. A pre-filled sign on sheet is emailed to the leader the night before the activity, which makes it easy to remember who is coming!
We also set up a shared Google Drive for storing documents and working collaboratively on committee meeting minutes and finance spreadsheets, for example.