The Banff Film Festival World Tour hit Wellington last week, with three sold-out screenings. I only managed to catch one of the two programmes, which was the usual mix of inspiration and eclecticism. There’s something special about seeing the outdoors on the big screen in the company of several hundred like-minded people.
This is the tenth year I’ve been to Banff’s Wellington screenings, and the first time that three screenings have been held. Next year it’ll be four. It was interesting to look around the audience and see who it was driving this increase in demand. Neither our club, nor other Wellington tramping clubs, nor even the organising Alpine club would be able to claim all the people there. They represent the segment that clubs most want to target: people already interested in the outdoors, keen for adventure and without too many grey hairs. It seemed like an even younger audience than previous years (though maybe that’s just my own grey hairs talking).
As a club we value our wide spread of ages equally – but we are all conscious that the under-30 group can be underrepresented. To stay dynamic, we need to both keep attracting new members and make sure that our spread of ages is sustained. While other tramping clubs often remark on our “youth”, we’ll only maintain this vitality if we consciously keep our doors open to younger people. Encouraging and nurturing their leadership skills will in turn renew our club leadership so that we remain attractive and relevant.
We’ve been talking about these kinds of issues at committee, and will be examining our membership structures and requirements to make sure that they are not a barrier to new members. More on this next newsletter. If you have thoughts or opinions or ideas in this area, I want to hear from you. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
July sees our annual leadership training session, run by me and Illona. This is based at the TTC hall and will be a fun, interactive morning that sets you up to lead a club trip with confidence. If you have any inkling of desire to lead, please drop me an email. It only lasts four hours (including free lunch!) so plenty of time for later outdoor pursuits. If you want to suggest someone who should receive a personal invite, please also drop me a line at .