Ramblers Roadshow

 Today I went to a Ramblers Volunteers Roadshow. It was held at Granta Park, just south of Cambridge.

The facilities were very impressive and we were well looked after with breakfast, lunch and drink break refreshments all provided.

There was a plenary session to start with where we were brought up to speed on what the Ramblers organisation is doing and plans for the next year or so.

We then split into groups doing different workshops. Some of my fellow members of the Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers attended the First Aid and Navigation skills courses, whereas I did the Walk Leaders workshop. along with 11 others. Our workshop was led by Rebecca, who, among other thngs, is the Ramblers Safeguarding Officer as well as being part of the Volunteer support team.

We had a very interesting morning discussing all aspects of being a walk leader. It was good to hear about other ramblers groups and their experiences.

In the afternoon Ed and Rebecca led half our group each on a short walk. Here is Rebecca briefing us.

Later described as "The worst walk you will ever lead", we did a little tour of the Granta Park campus taking it in turns to be the walk leader. Every now and then Rebecca handed out little slips of instructions to people in the group to role-play some of the situations a leader might have to deal with.

When it was my turn, I had to deal with someone who found our pace too fast (we can't have been walking more than 1 1/2 mph to start with!), someone who had to be stopped from getting too close to the lake and in danger of falling in, and then, to cap it all, someone who had a heart attack. Crikey!

I also had to take my turn at the role-play, having to have a strop and refuse to walk any further and stopping to (pretend to!) have a wee, get left behind and get lost.

It was all very entertaining.

So thanks to Rebecca and the rest of the team for a great roadshop and workshop and to my fellow workshop members for sharing their experiences.

Highly recommended!