The situation is improving but there are still spaces to fill on the next programme. We still have 3 Mondays (21 & 28 Apr, 19 May), 3 mid week (9/10/11  and 15/16/17 April, 27/28/29 May) and 4 Saturdays (5 &12 April, 3 May and & 7 June)left to fill.

This will be closed 24/7 for about a month and may affect people coming to our walks at Amberley or Minchinhampton. Tina

Please note that Helen and Norman’s 10 mile walk on Saturday 1 March from Minchinhampton is now a FASTER PACE walk. Sally

Message from Jill and Sue: Our walk on the 8th March is not without its challenges. Ascents and descents are very slippery in places because of mud, there are a dozen or so stiles and at our proposed lunch stop, at Resting Hill, there are several fallen trees across our post lunch path.  

Alex Y has asked us to let you know that her walk on Sat. March 15th is now 10 miles and as she puts it ” includes a bit of the Birdlip mayhem(!), with coffee/loo stop on Crickley Hill”.

Get in early and choose the most convenient date for you! You can find what dates are available on the Leaders Page under Walk Planning progress or follow THIS LINK. Sally

Trying to put on walks to suit everyone isn’t easy. We experimented with nominating 1 Saturday a month as a possible Faster Paced walk but it was suggested that this was too limiting, so we are now saying that leaders are free to choose whether they prefer to lead a Moderate or a Faster Paced…

If you missed the email about this, HERE ARE THE RESULTS.  Thank you to all the leaders who completed it. Hopefully Ramblers head office will pay attention to it. Sally  

Area have again arranged a Walking Together day for all of the groups on Saturday May 10th from Witcombe and Bentham village hall. Would any of our walk leaders be prepared to lead a walk, if so either email or ring me on 07931114439.

Over recent years the way we mail out information and the walks programme has changed. Mike Garner began without the benefit of computer help and things have gradually progressed from there to the system we now use. As things have begun to be more structured by central Ramblers both Janet and I have endeavoured to…

You should have received an email either from Ros or Janet with this attached (as well as information from Glos Area Ramblers) in December. However, if you have missed this, I have updated it on the website under Walks, Walks Programme. Sally

There is a link on our website under Footpaths, Report a problem, which takes you to Gloucestershire Public Rights of Way office who use Fix my Street. The form cannot be used as it goes to a group’s Footpath Officer, and we do not have one! I have left the form on our website in…

I have been contacted by the Community Support Officer at Cotswold District Council to ask if any of our members would be interested in leading Well Being walks of 10 – 60 minutes . Please contact me on the contact email address on the website if you feel this is something you may be interested…

If any walk leaders are thinking about leading a walk from barrow Wake the car park is closed for 30 weeks, the access road is still available for parking. It’s something to do with the road works.

You can set up an emergency contact number on your phone for someone to call (friend, family member) on your behalf without the need to know your password or screen lock. It doesn’t call 999, just the person you have nominated. HERE are the instructions. Ask if you need any help. Sally

Ramblers members can get this discount by going to ramblers.org.uk/offers-and-promotions then click on the OS link and enter code RAMOSM at the checkout.  There are details about this on p.10 of the latest Walk magazine. Sally

We now have Janet helping Ros in her job as Membership Secretary. There is quite a lot of work involved (mainly caused by Ramblers Head Office’s unfriendly bureaucracy) so it is good to have someone else to share the load. The 99% of you who receive communication by email should have received the next walks…

If you are a leader who doesn’t have a pre-organised backmarker who knows your route but rely on a volunteer in the car park beforehand, it would be very helpful if you could give them a copy of the map of your route so they know where you are going. Another option for people who…

Pathwatch, the mobile phone app supported by Ramblers that enabled us to take a photo of a problem on a footpath and send it directly to Ramblers head office and to the Public Rights of Way officer giving the co-ordinates of the location, has now gone. There is a link on our website under Footpaths,…

We have introduced the option for leaders to designate their walk as a Faster Pace walk when they complete their Submit a walk form, as well as the Leisurely (for Monday walks) and Moderate for the majority of our walks. We anticipate that this will be used quite sparingly (probably by only a handful of…

Ramblers are proposing to update their 10 year strategy and charitable aims, you can read about it on the link. Click here

There has been 2 major improvements after the disastrous introduction of their new website. Firstly, on our South Cotswold page, you can now see the Date and Distance of the walk, instead of just the title (you still have to scroll through all their stuff about joining Ramblers and donating) but this is a significant…

Ramblers have a page on their website listing all the errors they know about (quite a long page!!). If you want to look at it you can find it at https://www.ramblers.org.uk/walks-manager-website-status  

If you use the app to access walks, you need to select Walking, My group (if you want just us) or My area (if you want all group walks in Gloucestershire). The information you get for each walk doesn’t show the name of the walk leader or contact details, but if you click on the…

The much delayed new Ramblers head office website came on line on 31 May. To find OUR walks, the easiest way is to start from our www.southcotswoldramblers.org.uk website, click on All our planned walks below the main picture, which will take you to our page on the Ramblers main website. Scroll down to Upcoming walks…

This car park has suddenly become very busy and finding a space there is difficult. Additionally a lot of the adjacent roads have double yellow lines on, so this area should be avoided as a starting place. You can always park at St. Cyr’s church (next to Stonehouse Court Hotel) if you want to lead…

The Glos. area committee is hoping to put together a list of people who would be willing to help with footpath clearance in areas not necessarily covered by the Cotswold Wardens. This would be cutting back with secateurs etc not power tools. If anyone is interested could you please contact me initially via the website…

We receive a sum of money for Group Funds from Ramblers Holidays where members taking a holiday with them have nominated South Cotswold Group. If you ever forget to tell them when booking, there is still time if you contact them before you go. If you do so, they will donate £10, £20 or even…

Here is a link to a guide on how to find walks on our website. Click on Read more and you will be able to access it https://www.southcotswoldramblers.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/guide-to-finding-walks-on-our-website.pdf  

Leaders do need to complete the simple Risk Assessment form that Ramblers head office has issued. This can be found on the Leaders menu  on our website. There is a PDF version and a Word version. Sally

We are still in need of a footpath officer to represent the group. You do not necessarily  need to be a regular walker, if anyone is interested please ring me on 07931114439 to discuss further.

Parkruns in Stratford Park and Tetbury Goods Yard are taking place and it is almost impossible to park as all spaces are taken by runners on a Saturday.  Leaders might want to avoid these as a starting place on Saturdays, though they are still fine for other days. Sally

Walk leaders if you need to cancel a walk at the last minute for whatever reason e.g. weather conditions, illness etc. rather than using the contact page on the website which may not be picked up straight away you can ring either Ann  on 07931114439, Sally on 07818425088 . We can then put a message…