Not Ladylike Hikes is my most successful club. I don’t think it’s a secret that I struggle with acknowledging my successes, so in this post I will try and convince myself. And in doing so, hopefully entice more people to join in on the fun.
VISION AND MISSION
One of the areas I see the most opportunity for improvement, is better communicating my vision and the mission of our group.
Our mission is to build community while we explore nature.
Working on solidifying this message begins now. There are some other resources I have found to help me do this, but it’snot like I have a fancy coach or anything to talk this though with! NLL Hikes continues to be a fun hobby, and I walk a very fine line between that and something “more official”. Is that my ultimate goal? Not really, as I enjoy the casual aspect of the hikes. And again, I am only one person. We’ll see what happens this year!
SUMMARY OF OUR 2022 HIKES
2022 was the year I started purposefully tracking number stats for our group. A simply designed document printed out and stored in my planner, it made it easy to track a few key stats each week.
GOALS FOR 2023
Tracking distance, weather and number of hikers worked really well in 2022, so I will continue to track those numbers for fun in 2023. I have also set up a new system for planning and organizing the upcoming trailheads. I have approximately 35 hikes to choose from in my list currently, and no true system for choosing hikes for the upcoming months. It would be so helpful to get this flowing more smoothly.
Land acknowledgements and introductions every time. More fun hikes with props. More day hikes! All of these depend highly on my energy levels, and how vulnerable I am willing to get.
I set a goal in 2022 to “expand NLL Hikes”. More specifically, I wanted to get more folks interacting with us on social media, and ultimately coming out to hikes. This became a S.M.A.R.T. goal, with dedicated next steps. It worked fractionally, as we had five new folks out to hikes this year. My goal hasn’t changed and I would still love to see more folks out on our hikes. The questionnaire I sent out in the fall gave me mixed results, and I nmow realize I have a lot of relationship building to do first if I want to see any of the tire kickers come out.
FURTHER READING AND RESOURCES
The Edmonton Nature Centres Foundation (with the assistance of the Wild Rose Ramblers walking group) has put together some trail maps for some parks around the City. They include details about the location’s history of use, and important figures.
You can find the full list of upcoming trailheads on our site here, with a month lead time. We also post more details about the trails, including more accessibility details on our Instagram (@notladylikehikes) and Facebook.
If you want to read more about our group, check out NLL Hikes July through September 2022, or the review of our 2021 hiking season.
Not Ladylike Community 