A get together of the key people from walking clubs and organizations of South Australia was held to develop a more cohesive and relevant strategy going forward. We had nine clubs in attendance, representing over 2,600 members from around the state, however mostly Adelaide based.

The feedback seems to indicate a clear mandate to take the lead on issues and to be bolder and more coherent with our strategic vision.

There was an acknowledgement that most clubs were not seeing the benefits of stay-at-home tourists bar the bigger groups and all agreed we needed to find a way to get walkers to try out clubs. Volunteer leaders/maintenance teams were also identified as a finite resource.

The Leadership Training program has to date proven to be very popular with clubs, we still have some spots left for clubs who did not take up the offer first time around, so get in touch with the office.

Our guest speaker from National Parks and Wildlife Service South Australia, who was to speak on getting clubs involved in park of the month promotions had a covid scare and could not attend. The proposal was presented to group, but without a calendar of parks, no actions could be made.

The importance of walking trail development and maintaining walking trails was iterated and it was great to see so many passionate people keen to keep these assets both in place and also being established.

Generally, all agreed this was a useful get together, if not lacking some strong vision on getting more people bushwalking.

Thankyou to all who took part. We hope to build from this and link up the thinking, resources and knowledge of the greater South Australia walking community to benefit all.

The next Summit will be in six months time. We are planning a First Nations training workshop in February 2021 – details to follow when finalised.