Tag Archives | club ideas

Have park closures or extreme weather conditions cancelled your plans?

Here are oodles of awesome alternate activity ideas.

No need to do them alone! Meet the group you were planning to head outdoors with at a cafe or library instead. Have fun and feel good about these ‘indoor adventures’ together!

1. Find and schedule the walks and activities you want to lead in the new year
2. Not a leader yet? Call a current club leader and ask if you can buddy up to learn to lead – they are friendly folk!
3. Read the Bushwalking Manual – a great read for everyone doing all kinds of outdoor adventure 🙂
4. Get started on a first aid course – you can do the pre-reading online for free! https://pfa.stjohn.org.au/
5. Meet up with a club buddy to plan a club activity together in the new year
6. Read our Risk Management Guidelines – it is truly worthwhile
7. Learn all about our insurance – consider becoming an insurance officer – ask us how
8. Start planning and coordinating a risk management training session for your club. You don’t have to know it all – ask club members with each special expertise to talk on their bit.
9. Run a navigation theory session for your club and friends
10. Learn how you can help our suffering wildlife: WIRES & NWC
11. Write to members of parliament to ask for a climate action leadership:
    1. Federal Ministers.
    2. NSW Members.
    3. ACT Members.
    4. Tell them you’d rather be bushwalking or hiking, healthy and active, than sitting indoors because of extreme weather events!
12. Brainstorm how to engage more youth in your club
13. Organise your photos and send in some great ones to us so we can share them through our newsletter and website – email to admin@bushwalkingnsw.org.au.
14. Contribute your photos and descriptions of the great walks of NSW & the ACT to manual@bushwalkingvictoria.org.au
15. Check out all the resources available for you on the Bushwalking NSW website
16. Ask your club management committee if they need any help
17. Sign up for a Bushwalking NSW working group
18. Help Bushwalking NSW develop a Hot/Extreme Weather Policy that can help all our clubs – contact us now!
19. Schedule club social events for the new year
20. Look for great speakers for next year’s club meetings
21. Call friends affected by extreme weather and learn how they are doing
22. Prepare you home for fire as a group – going to each member’s home to clip and clear.
23. Learn how to plan and prepare for fire
24. Help out others affected by natural disasters
25. If you haven’t done it yet – put your Bush fire survival plan at the top of your list!

And once you’re done. Pat yourself on the back and thank your team 🙂

The topic at the recent Bushwalking NSW AGM was ‘How to grow your club’, providing an insight into how one club substantially grew from 50 members to over 300 over a period of a few years. Some of their ideas are paraphrased below. For more information and suggestions on club management see http://www.bushwalkingnsw.org.au/club-management/

You can listen to the audio which inspired this post. (Works on Chrome and Firefox. Apologies for the rough recording – with patience you will hear the gems buried within!).

Soft management

Allow the committee to handle the running of the club, rather than having boring and contentious general meetings where members wrestle over every last detail of its operation. Reserve member’s meetings for socializing, educating, talks and slide nights etc. Give the committee the authority under the club’s constitution to handle the day to day affairs of the club, including making decisions, finances, policies and procedures.

Focus on activities- not committee meetings. The committee should meet the absolute minimum times per year that is needed to organise the club program and fulfill its legal requirements. Under new Incorporated Associations law it is permissible to hold electronic meetings e.g. Skype, conference calls and committee voting by email.

Design the committee structure around roles. Don’t have inactive ‘ordinary’ committee members. Each committee member should have a defined purpose and role. You may need to change the constitution to do this.

Ensure that committee members change regularly by limiting the number of times a member can stand for a particular role. This prevents stagnation and burnout and brings fresh ideas onto the committee agenda.

Make it easy to participate

Clarify processes and procedures and document them so that others know what they should do and how to do it. e.g. how to join, how to become a leader, how to arrange an activity.

Remove obstacles from member and visitor participation e.g. paperwork.

Put your documentation and programs on your website so that everyone can access the information.

If members show an interest in a particular activity or idea or have a suggestion to make, ask them to lead the activity or implement the idea.

Don’t wait for people to volunteer; ask them to do something and give them assistance to carry it out. e.g. buddy potential leaders.

Feature program changes and late-notice activities on the website and encourage members to check it regularly.

Promote the club

Give members club business cards to hand out to interested parties, rather than bulky, old-fashioned leaflets.

Ensure the club website has a current design and feel and is easy to navigate.

Make visitors feel welcome and ask them to return.

Don’t get hung-up about age

Understand your Target Audience. Some clubs are youth oriented, such as university bushwalking clubs, some have all age groups in their membership, while others are composed of 50+. Don’t worry that your club has no members under 50 years old. People’s lives have a natural cycle. After they have had children and the demands of raising a family are most over, then they will start to look for new activities as they enter their fifties. Target these people for membership. The most important point is that you cater to their needs and continue to attract new members in that age group.

It is natural to have a turnover of membership or around 15-20% annually, so don’t worry when people resign. It is more important that you replace departing members.

Members don’t have to be locals. Having intercity, interstate or international members can open possibilities for club holiday activities utilising local knowledge.

The program

A diverse program, with a broad range of activity types and grades, will attract a diverse range of members, increase membership and increase activity participation.

Consider posting your program on the website so that both members and potential visitors can see the latest activities on offer.

Most clubs now email the program rather than printing and posting. Consider offering a monthly emailed program instead of the traditional quarterly. This means the Program Secretary’s duties are spread evenly across the year rather than clustered in a couple of months. It also means leaders don’t have to commit to an activity 4-5 months in advance, Late notice activities can be easily added to the website or sent out as an email alert.

Be social

Joining a bushwalking club is not just about outdoor activities. It is also about socialising. It’s okay for a bushwalking club to run purely social events with no walking involved. Create opportunities in the program for members to socialise, such as; planning for coffee at the end of a bushwalk, restaurant nights, attending fun events. The result will be increased group cohesion, increased membership, a spirit of volunteerism and higher participation in bushwalks.

Running a successful club takes a few tools and skills that can be just as handy as a map and compass for keeping your club on track!

Great bushwalkers use their tools and resources exceptionally efficiently, so on this page we shares some tools and tips from Bushwalking NSW and our clubs. This is by no means all the great tips and tools employed by all our clubs, so if you’d like to add to this list, please share your tips here.