Our Aim is to promote walking as a means of enjoyment, exercise and social contact.  We are also active in ensuring that our legacy of Footpaths remains open for all walkers.

Essex Area is one of fifty nine similar county organisations that co ordinate the needs of the various Ramblers Groups established within each County and also to help collate and disseminate information to and from Ramblers Association Head Quarters.

If only Essex looked like this.   Although our landscape is a little flatter, one of the prime functions of Area is to maintain contact between Central Office and the various Groups that have been formed across the County.   Close contact is maintained with Members of the National Executive by sending delegates along to National Council meeting and from time to time promoting motions to be considered at national level.   We also ensure appropriate  distribution of capitation and supplementary funds that are necessary for the efficient running of the Groups.   We also have an undertaking to help set up and support formation of new Groups to meet the needs of developing communities across Essex and an involvement in how London is providing for walkers.

Beating the bounds

This year's Use Your Paths Week, 20 to 28 September, sees the Ramblers' Association put the emphasis on parishes. In our own form of beating the bounds - an ancient custom where the community would walk the boundaries of the parish, to share the knowledge of where they lay - we'd like as many parishes as possible to have their rights of way walked so we can share the knowledge of, and bear witness to, their condition.   During  " Use Your Paths Week " why not organise a parish walk (it doesn't need to cover the whole of the network) and invite the parish councillors along with you.   We're aware that many parishes already take an active interest in their rights of way, completing their own surveys, publicising the routes and carrying out routine maintenance, but we would like to see this grassroots action becoming more widespread.  Finally if you are, or were, a parish councillor yourself please let Des Garaham at H.Q.  know so that he can learn more about how best to work with parish councils.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

I don't know about you, but I thought there were some interesting items in the February EAU, especially when they are related to some of the problems the RA is currently seeing on recruitment.
First, our Area President was highlighting changes to the state of footpaths between the 70's and now. Then, not only were there the obstructions he mentioned, but you also needed to be good at map reading, as many paths were not clear on the ground, and there was little, if any, way-marking. Compass skills were also useful where paths had not been reinstated across cropped fields.  To any member of the public wishing to go for a walk, the need for the work that the RA members were doing was all too obvious, and as a result the RA gained a lot of support and I think, quite a good number of members.
As Fred says, there has been a marvellous improvement in the state of the paths since then, and although they are certainly not perfect, the fact that the public can walk many paths quite easily as they are clear on the ground and way-marked, diminishes the need in the public eye for the work that the RA does.  The majority of the public wouldn't know the proper width of a path and, once safely over, a dodgy stile or footbridge would be forgotten in a few steps.
So, what do those who join but don't renew want from a national walking organisation?  Without careful research carried out on a national scale we won't know for certain, but I wonder if Maurice hit the nail on the head in his letter.  He points out that the larger old established groups often have a lower turnout for their walks than groups like Friends.  Although shorter walks by traditional groups often do increase the headcount, it rarely matches that achieved by Friends. WHY?  Could it be that what many people outside the RA are looking for is a walking and social club?  I don't know and, from the steady decline in RA membership, nobody else knows, which is why we need the research.  If a walking and social club is found to be what the public is looking for, and the RA cannot provide it because of the constraints of the charitable objectives, perhaps there is a case for the RA to set up a sister organisation, in the way that Ramblers Holidays was set up, with surplus funds channelled back to the RA for its work.  This may result in a reduction in membership of the RA as we know it, but we are achieving that anyway, without doing anything and without any solution in sight.
I know this is thinking "outside the box" but we may have to do that to survive.  These are just some thoughts.  I may be right, I may be wrong, and certainly there will be those that disagree, but something has got to be done and soon.  If you want to enter a debate on this I would ask one thing.  Destructive criticism is easy, and achieves nothing.  Look at the situation the RA is facing and be constructive.

Over to you.

David Cullington,  
Immediate Past Chairman, Essex Area
N.B. It would be interesting to hear from anyone who is thinking along similar lines. Why not drop an e-mail to EAR.

THE SOCIAL SIDE OF THINGS

Following on from David's acticle above I have had several 'phone calls from Group Officers and one or two written responses which indicate that we might, once again, have misled you about the relationship between Ramblers' charitable objectives and our social activities.

I'll try once again!  The walks which groups run are a social activity just like a barn dance; a whist drive; or a coach outing.  The only exception would be some walks specifically designed to engage people in walking who were otherwise unlikely to join groups walks - examples might include walks for the sight impaired; family walks; walks for schoolchildren etc.   Social activities should not make a loss.  In other words charity money should not be used to subsidise social activities.  It is recognised that activities will need a 'float' and that some social activities, whilst mounted to make a profit, can sometimes result in a loss.  A social fund or separate account is a means used by some Groups to draw a paper distinction between the charitable and social activities.

In the end, all monies existing in Group funds belong to the RA.  Anyone reading the very upbeat nature of the Groups' entries in the Essex Area Annual Report will know that the social walking side of our activities is going from strength to strength.
However, we must keep remembering that the bulk of our membership never go on Group walks - I have recruited five new members this year, I know for certain that four of them have no intention of going on a Group walk and one wouldn't agree to join until I had convinced him that he didn't have to walk with others as a condition of membership.

It is this bulk of our members that we must convince to renew their membership each year.  We must, as the new CEO has pointed out, continue to remind them of the work we do in keeping paths open; of lobbying for coastal access; of persuading Authorities to spend more money on our hobby.  We must continue to publicise our successes so that we retain the membership of those who provide the bulk of our finance.

Len Banister

ASK NOT WHAT YOUR AREA CAN DO FOR YOU BUT WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR THE AREA

The Area officers exist to promote effective communication and coordination amongst the Groups that are established throughout Essex.     The above is what we do in cooperation with the Groups throughout Essex but if you wish to contact us directly with your ideas drop us an e-mail at the address below.  Remember its your Association, without you, we wouldn't be able to get beyond this page!

If you have any comments on the above or any other pages within this site please contact the editor at ear@essexarearamblers.co.uk