What gets your goat? The Ramblers want to know
What’s your biggest gripe as a walker? Is it badly designed stiles; barred routes; litter-strewn paths?
The Ramblers, the country’s biggest walkers’ charity, wants your views on what they should be campaigning on next. With the organisation’s 75th anniversary on the horizon, the group want your suggestions for their next big drive in tackling walkers’ issues.
grough readers are invited to visit the organisation’s website to make their views known. The campaign page has an online questionnaire to tell the Ramblers what they can do to help improve the walker’s environment.
A spokesperson for the Ramblers said: “We would like to find out the issues which you feel we should be campaigning on in 2010 and beyond. We are interested in the places you walk and what we can do to help improve these walking environments.
“From the countryside to the city we work across England, Scotland and Wales to improve the places where people walk. One of our campaign aims is to ensure walking environments are of the highest quality and so we would like to find out your top priorities for improvement.
“For example, whether you are walking in towns or the countryside, it is likely you will have come across paths which are spoilt by a locked gate, discarded rubbish or poor lighting. We will use your comments to help shape our campaigns in 2010.”
The questionnaire asks for one issue readers would like the Ramblers to campaign on; an example of where the problem has arisen; and what you would do to change this if you were a Government decision maker.
Sarah Gardner, e-campaigns officer, told grough: “It would be really fab if you could ask your supporters to get involved, as I am sure they have lots of interesting ideas about improvements to the walking environment. It’s a brilliant opportunity to really shape some of the Ramblers’ future policy and campaigns, and share any bugbears about paths and infrastructure.”
- The Ramblers’ online magazine has picked up an award from the Association of Publishing Agencies. The web edition of Walk and its agency River collected the prize for the best digital solution of the year for charities, public sector and not-for-profit organisations.
The judges said: “This is the kind of website you’d expect a huge commercial brand to produce.” Its bold design and use of social media tools was also praised.
steve thomas
26 November 2009the most annoying thing if you ask me is that the routes on maps in the welsh forestry cannot be followed or found, this is due to logging firms destroying them or turning them into roads that end up having 5 different sets of forks that you end up turning back at, as a hiker that enjoys those challenging paths that can have you walking for hours sometimes a whole day or 2 this is wrong as you get so far and cannot risk going futher because of the this fact of what these firms have done to our forestry , its not just the pathways they destroy but they also leave all their rubbish from the dinner breaks all over the land, fine take the trees especially if they are diseased but dont take the land !!!! yours greatfully steve thomas.
OMR
26 November 2009My pet hates? Somewhere near the top has to be organisations which pull the rug out from under proven effective campaigners like the Ramblers in Scotland. What on earth is the Ramblers Association (after spending who knows how much in consultancy fees to come up with the stupid 'Ramblers' name change) doing asking what people want it to campaign on when it can't support the very effective work being done north of the border. They should face facts: if they can't manage to do their existing job, it's time to step aside and let someone who can take over. 'Ramblers@: you are the weakest link. Goodbye.
Bryn
29 November 2009If they could make winters a bit colder and summers a bit warmer I would be very grateful.