Walk leaders, as I once heard a wise man say, are the lifeblood of the group. Without members prepared to volunteer to give up their time to lead walks for others, we - quite literally - wouldn’t have a walking group.
Because the group needs a greater range of walk leaders, I am organising a hands-on walk leader training day in the Aldermaston area on Saturday 11th October. We’ll meet at the tea rooms for an introduction, and then split into groups to first, plan a walk route from Aldermaston, and then actually go out and recce it.
When I led my first walk, I had been in the group about eighteen months, and wanted to give back and do my part. I really did start with the attitude of “wouldn’t it be good if I could just lead one walk?”. I was nervous before my first walk, but I planned and recced my route, wrote my description and waited for the day. It went alright, and I wanted to do another, longer walk - and to do it better than the first one. It wasn’t long before I was relishing the process of planning and leading walks.
It also didn’t take long before I noticed that my confidence in talking to large groups and planning and organising events had risen - in all areas of my life. When I applied for my current job last summer, one of the interview questions was “what are you most proud of?”. It wasn’t a question I had expected, so I had to give the first answer to come to mind, which was...walk leading, and how I had been nervous before my first walk but it had become something I really enjoyed doing. As it turned out one of the interviewers was also a keen walker, so this answer set us on a short tangent about our favourite walks. This went a long way towards breaking the ice and was a big reason I got the job!
If you’ve ever been on a BW walk and thought “could I be a leader?” (or even “I could do better than this!”), why not take the first step and sign up for the training? You never know where it may lead...