I attended the Bristol Liaison Ranger Conference at Bristol last weekend. The format of the weekend was an afternoon ride on the Friday followed by presentations and workshops the following day. There was a total of about 70 Liaison Rangers there (another 70 were at the Liverpool conference the previous week). Overall an enjoyable and useful weekend and despite funding issues (see below) the weekend was very upbeat.
I can give some more detail when we meet, but here are a few snippets for now:
Sustrans and volunteering in numbers ...
There was lots of recognition and thanks for the huge contribution made by an army of volunteers. In numbers ...
2704 Rangers, (3239 total volunteers) across 210 Groups
25% female; 11% age 26-40; 32% 41-55; 33% 42-64 and 23% active
average volunteer gives 4-5 hours / month
13000+ miles of NCN, 57% of population within a mile of the network
Volunteer Roles
Work has been done to more formally define roles other than the traditional "Ranger" role. The Liaison Ranger is now called a Group Coordinator and roles have been defined for signing champions; publicity; media; workday organiser; ride and walk leader; fundraising. Along with this the recruitment and induction process has been overhauled.
We should think which of these roles we might want to establish more formally in our group.
Sustrans Funding
Sustrans continues to get central funding from Scotland and Wales, but the central funding from England which came through (the now defunct) Cycling England has ceased. The government has given some interim funding for 2011, but going forward Sustrans will need to negotiate with (120!) local authorities.
Other Groups
There was a slot where other groups gave a 60 second update on their successes in 2010. What was apparent was the diversity of what groups focus on and get involved in e.g: Dr Bike; public bike rides; local campaigning; route maintenance (some quite heavy work); route development; ecology. This was borne out by chats with other people - the groups reflect the local issues and the interests of people in them.
Other Snippets
- Sustrans now has some limited capacity to do ride leader training
- they seem keen for groups to get involved in local planning issues that impact local cycle facilities (I went to a workshop on this)
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