Hopefully you have been taking full advantage of the great Spring weather to get outdoors tramping, cycling, kayaking, running or just to catching the pool matches in the Rugby World Cup. Shivering in the Cake Tin watching Scotland try to beat Argentina did remind me rather a lot of tramping. With daylight saving here now is a great time to get out on all those trips you thought about but perhaps put off over the winter period. Now is also the time to start planning your longer Xmas tramps.
Good luck to Jo Boyle and Gareth Morton who will be competing in the Wairarapa Marathon next weekend, to Weimen who is doing the Beijing Marathon and to all those members busy training for the Tararua Mountain Run in November and the Goat mountain race in December. If you are keen to get into trail running Google the ‘Wellington Ridge Runners’ for more information. Running is great fun and excellent training for tramping.
Congratulations to Sarah and Alistair who have welcomed another baby girl into their family. Good luck guys! At least you won’t be losing any sleep over whether our 24 year drought is about to end, well at least I hope not.
Since the last newsletter I think I have been on no fewer than four Club trips, all very different but all great fun. A couple of them I led and on a couple of them I was just one of the team. The different experiences reinforced for me how important it is for the Club to have a stock of people prepared to step up and lead trips.
The job can be very rewarding but it can also be very time consuming preparing for the trip and challenging running the trip. I know that some of you love coming on trips but don’t like leading them which is fine, not everyone is cut out for leading trips. However, we are all cut out for supporting our trip leaders and that is something I would really like to see a bit more of. If trip leaders feel that the group is working with them to make the trip, whether it be an easy day walk or a multi-day epic, a success, they are more likely to do a good job and volunteer to do it all again another time.
How can you support your trip leader? There are lots of ways of doing this and I’m not going to attempt to detail them all here. A good start can be made by anticipating trip leader requests for information before the trip or at least responding promptly to requests. You could also volunteer to help with certain aspects of the trip planning.
On the trip following instructions and helping the leader to make decisions and ensure everyone is clear about what is going to happen can be really useful. Sometimes what is best for the group will not equate with your personal preferences. This is when you need to remind yourself that you are part of a group and a self-centred attitude may not be helpful. Adopting a respectful, constructive, inclusive and considerate attitude can improve the chances of a trip running smoothly and of everyone enjoying themselves. The trip leader is not a tour guide, a mind reader, a dictator or your mum. If they appear to be trying to fulfil any of these roles think about whether your behaviour is encouraging this. Perhaps the best thing you can do is ask if there is anything you can do to help.
After the trip show your appreciation by thanking the trip leader. Yes, leaders get a lot out of leading trips and they certainly don’t do it in order to win the adulation of their punters, but this is not to say that a bit of sincere appreciation does not go down a treat. If you can think of specific things the leader did particularly well then point them out so the leader will know what worked for next time.
Go the All Blacks! At the risk of being a bit vague, if you could do more of what you did against France in the coming games that would be much appreciated.