Graeme Collins, Author at TRF Trail

When Dom Hunt discovered an old broken gate hanging off its hinges on Hexham Lane he didn’t just roll his eyes and curse the council. He did something about it, with the help of Northumbria TRF. We caught up with Chairman Greg Villalobos to find out how the club is forging new relationships with the local council.

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Wasn’t Hexham Lane

TRF:

Wasn’t Hexham Lane the green road that was part of the big fundraising campaign?

Greg:

That’s right. Hexham Lane is in the north of England in County Durham. It’s one of a small number that connect North Yorkshire with Northumberland. In 2015 the TRF orchestrated a fundraising campaign to help take legal action that eventually resulted in it being re-opened. A big win the trail riders.

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Find out about the Hexham Lane fundraising campaign HERE

http://www.trf.org.uk/save-hexham-lane/

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So how has it

TRF:

So how has it been used since it’s re-opening?

Greg:

Trail riders around the north have enjoyed using it. We’ve been mindful of weather conditions but thankfully with the summer we’ve just had the surface has fared very well. We’ll need to keep an eye on things as we go into winter.

TRF:

What’s the story with the gate then?

Greg:

Traditionally the TRF and local authorities tend to meet over boardroom tables in public hearings and legal conversations. That’s fine and indeed necessary a lot of the time. However there is another way. Over the last few years Northumbria TRF took a strategic decision to try and build more amicable relations with our local authorities, having a chat over a coffee to see how we can work together to maintain the green road resources that we are both invested in.

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https://trail.trf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Hexham-Lane-Gates-01.jpg

Durham County Council contractors get busy

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The dream team. Dom, Dave, Eric.

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One of our

One of our members, Dominic Hunt noticed that two of the gates on Hexham Lane were in a very poor state. At a club meeting he suggested that Northumbria TRF might want to do something about this and either repair or replace the gate. It was an interesting idea – some members being very much for the initiative and some feeling that it wasn’t our job to fix farmers gates for them, which is a very fair point. After some discussion we decided that we’d see if we could make this work and reach out to help Durham County Council as part of our initiative to position ourselves as a resource for the local authority, who to be honest are very resource stretched.

TRF:

So did you physically replace the gate?

Greg:

No, we didn’t actually do the work. I spoke to Audrey Christie, Senior Rights of Way Officer at Durham County Council and we agreed that for us to do the work would require permits etc that we didn’t really have the energy or time to achieve.

It was much simpler for DCC to do the work and for us to donate funds to cover the cost. NTRF put in £150 to cover the cost of the gate and DCC covered the labour costs.

TRF:

It all sounds quite simple then!

Greg:

Yes it was really. We identified a need. We went to the council with an ‘ask’ as well as a financial contribution. They said yes. A couple of months later it was done. Plus we were able to put our NTRF sign on the gate which is all part of the positive TRF message.

TRF:

What’s next?

Greg:

Well, there’s some good energy in NTRF right now, with more and more members stepping up to take on responsibilities and ideas. I’d like to think that now we have this model of working under our belt we will be able to work more closely with the rights of way teams at Durham and Northumbria. I genuinely believe that our club (and others) can become a valuable resource for authorities as a proactive and responsible user group.

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https://trail.trf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Hexham-Lane-Gates-07.jpg

Spreading the TRF vibes

Find out more about the TRFs conservation work HERE

http://www.trf.org.uk/conservation/

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This September sixty riders headed north to take part in Northumbria TRF’s Hadrian Adventure Weekend. We caught up with event organiser Greg Villalobos for a detailed look at what goes into putting on an event like this.

The Hadrian Adventure

The Hadrian Adventure Weekend is now in its fourth year and whilst it’s not got bigger it’s definitely got better. We’ve learned a lot over the years, made a few mistakes and hopefully improved every year. This article is designed to help other groups understand what we do here for our event and share some of the processes we have developed.

01: EARLY STAGE PREPARATION

ASSIGN EVENT MANAGER

For this event myself and NTRF Treasurer Davy Myers took on the roles of Event Manager. It was our job to ensure the successful and safe running of the event. It’s our names that are put forwards on any TRF insurance documentation.

AGREE THE FORMAT OF THE EVENT

The Hadrian Adventure Weekend is a non-competitive 2 day guided trail ride around Northumberland and Cumbria. It takes place on byways and public roads. We also have access to Kielder Forest as organised with The Forestry Commission. We work with the FC to put together a route that goes in one direction through the forest on fire roads and some enduro style routes in the woodland. We set an easy, medium and hard route to cater for the ability levels of participants.

SELL THE EVENT

We use https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/ to manage the ticketing of the event. It’s a very powerful and easy to use website that vastly rescues the administrative burden of organising the event. We allocate 60 tickets and TRF members can buy these directly from the website. The process of buying the tickets requires them to input their details including TRF membership number etc, and the website takes payment. Everyone who buys a ticket is automatically sent info about the event and we can message people directly when required. If someone wants to cancel it’s very easy to issue a refund. We also have a waiting list so once it’s sold out people who are on the list and are offered a space if/when it becomes available. I can’t recommend this website highly enough. Our total sales were about £2,600 and the commission was about £200. This was a bargain for the amount of time and hassle it saved us as organisers.

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https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-hadrian-adventure-weekend-2018-tickets-41276352682#

View the Hadrian Adventure Weekend on Eventbrite HERE

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-hadrian-adventure-weekend-2018-tickets-41276352682#

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Arrange Run Leaders

ARRANGE RUN LEADERS & TAIL ENDERS

When we first put on the Hadrian Adventure Weekend it was difficult to get Northumbria TRF members to commit to being a run leader for the weekend. However, over the years as the event has grown in popularity we’ve been fortunate to get a large number of members to help. This year we had 12 leaders and 12 tail enders. It was important to get them to commit early on and get it booked into their diaries.

GET TRF APPROVAL AND INSURANCE

It’s essential that the event is covered by TRF insurance. Hopefully it will never be needed but if something does happen the insurance ensures that the TRF will be involved in any legal proceedings. There are set criteria that the TRF require to obtain insurance, largely based on a robust risk assessment. We worked with TRF Director Dave Carling to make sure that our processes met the insurance criteria and that we were covered.

CLERK OF COURSE TRAINING

Clerk of Course training is an ACU accredited programme designed to help people organising motorsport events. The TRF encourage all event managers to take part in this training. For the Hadrian Adventure Weekend we did not have a Clerk of Course within Northumbria TRF (although a participant did have the training), however we are looking to take up this qualification before next years event.

ASSIGN ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Putting on the Hadrian Adventure Weekend can take up a considerable amount of time and energy. We assigned roles across the committee, some major and some minor which greatly helped spread the load. There’s no point in the Event Manager running around on the morning of the event putting up signage, signing everyone in and giving the briefing as well, all those things can be distributed across the team.

02: PRE-EVENT DOCUMENTATION

ORGANISE FILE SHARING

Northumbria TRF has a Google account for the Committee. We used Google Drive to create a folder for the Hadrian Adventure Weekend. This allows us to keep all our important documents in one place where everyone on the committee and event team can access. It really helps in the smooth running as well as keeping everything safe and easy to replicate for next year. It also means that if the event organiser has to drop out for some reason everything is there for someone else to pick up.

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RISK ASSESMNET

RISK ASSESSMENT

A risk assessment is designed to demonstrate that event organisers have planned ahead and taken steps to reduce any potential risks to people involved in the event. It’s an essential part of obtaining TRF insurance. We try not to ‘copy and paste’ from other risk assessment forms as it’s important that you do your own thinking rather than rely on someone else’s. That said it can be helpful to see how others approach this, here’s ours.

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CERTIFICATE OF INSURANCE

This should be sent to you by a TRF Director once your event has been approved. We upload ours to our Google Drive folder.

TRF MAJOR INCIDENT PROCEDURE

This year we were provided with documentation from TRF that covers actions to take in the event of a major incident. This was very helpful as it made it clear what the event organiser should and shouldn’t do. We made sure that the Event Managers had copies during the event. We also took the key points and included them in the Run Leader Briefing Document (see below).

ACCIDENT BOOK

This is a folder with A4 accidents printed out. Instructions were included in the Run Leader Briefing about what should be reported. The Event Manager made sure that all accidents went in the book, there were three minor accidents this year.

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RUN LEADER BRIEFING

In the past we’ve made some assumptions that run leaders knew what their job was for the weekend. This year we decided to improve this process and put together a formal briefing document that covered what the Event Managers expected of them, as well as giving clear guidance on what to do if certain situations occurred. In my opinion this was one of the most important documents we created for the Hadrian Adventure Weekend as it removed any assumptions or guess work for the run leaders. Every run leader and tail ender was required to confirm that they had read this document before they could take part in the event.

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Download our Run Leader Briefing HERE

https://trail.trf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/HAW-2018-Run-Leader-Briefing.pdf

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PARTICIPANT SIGN ON

PARTICIPANT SIGN ON FORM

All participants were required to sign on the morning of the event. This included reading, signing and returning a sign on form that covered the TRF Code of Conduct as well as extra information that the event organisers asked them to agree to for the event. It’s essential that these signed forms are kept safe for five years after the event. In the unlikely case of a claim being brought against the organiser this paperwork will help prove what information was given to the participant before the event.

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Download our Participant Sign On Form HERE

https://trail.trf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Hadrian-Adventure-Weekend-2018-Participant-Sign-On-Form.pdf

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RUN LEADER & HELPFUL CONTACT

RUN LEADER & HELPFUL CONTACT INFO

For this years event we provided all participants with a form containing all run leader / tail ender mobile phone numbers, as well as event organisers emergency contact and local recovery provider. This was designed to help in the unlikely scenario that a rider became separated from their group. We made sure to ask permission before distributing everyone’s phone number.

WELCOME BRIEFING SCRIPT

Getting everyone organised on the morning of the event can be a little chaotic. We put together a ‘briefing script’ to be printed out and read from in the morning briefing. Having this script made sure no important info was left out. It also meant that someone else could read it if the Event Manager was not available.

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Download our Briefing Script HERE

https://trail.trf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/HAW-Event-Welcome-Briefing-Script.pdf

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GPX ROUTES

The Hadrian Adventure Weekend takes participants through Kielder Forest. There are three routes to get through the forest, easy, medium and hard. We provided run leaders with GPX files for each of these routes so they had options based on the kind of riding their group was looking for.

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THE EVENT

03: THE EVENT

SIGN ON

All participants signed on at the start of the Saturday morning. This allowed us to make sure we knew who was there (several didn’t show up) and that we had their signed agreement forms before they started. They were not given their riding group number until they had signed on.

RIDER BRIEFING

The Event Manager gave a welcome briefing to all participants. This was a friendly way to start the event but also a verbal briefing of the document that everyone had signed, making sure that the important info had been conveyed. A group photo was taken which was fun but also a helpful way of proving who was there at the briefing.

DURING THE EVENT

Whilst groups were out riding the Event Managers were either ‘roaming’ by bike dropping in on groups and being on hand if required, or desk based to co-ordinate or help by phone. This year there was no need for any support or intervention by the Event Managers whilst the groups were riding.

AT THE END OF THE DAYS RIDING

It was a requirement for each ride leader to check in at the end of the day and confirm that all participants were back safely and report any incidents or accidents. Most did this, and for the two that forgot the Event Manager called them and got confirmation before the end of the day. Three minor accidents were reported which were all written up in the accident book. The Event Managers were satisfied that all participants were accounted for.

EVENING MEAL

The Hadrian Adventure Weekend requires all participants to arrange their own accommodation. There are plenty of camping, B&B, bunkhouse or hotel options close by. We hold an evening meal in a local pub as a way of getting everyone together and celebrating the weekend.

04: AFTER THE EVENT

QUESTIONNAIRE

Using the Eventbrite system and a Google Form, we send out a questionnaire to all participants in the week after the event. This is a great way to get feedback that helps us shape future events. It’s also a great way for participants to pass on their largely very positive feedback to their run leaders.

SAFE STORAGE

All signed forms and accident book are put in a folder and stored by a Committee member for five years after the event.

THE NEXT EVENT?

The energy that the Hadrian Adventure Weekend brings to Northumbria TRF is tangible, in the days after volunteers are full of ideas about what we can do next year. Its a great way for people to experience the joy of helping guide others around who are appreciative of their efforts, a real reward for the effort put in. We try to keep that energy going – lets see what we come up with next year!

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