In an effort to streamline our walk management process, we’re retiring our current Google Forms-based walk submission system, and moving over to using the central Ramblers Walks Manager system to submit walks. (See below for more detail on the reasons for this.)
What’s changing for walk leaders
This involves a number of behind-the-scenes changes, but for walk leaders this means that our “Submit a Walk” Google form is no more. Walks should now be submitted through the Ramblers Walks Manager, and we have a detailed page explaining the process, though hopefully you’ll quickly become used to it.
Two particular highlights from using a system that was specifically designed for the purpose, rather than generic Google Forms, are:
- you can directly pinpoint the exact starting location via a map interface rather than specifying coordinates – please make sure you indicate e.g. the correct side of a railway station with multiple exits;
- you can upload photos directly when you submit your walk, rather than having to email them separately afterwards – if you have any photos from the route, they really brighten up a walk listing.
Why are we changing?
Our current walk submission system was introduced in 2021, as part of an effort (largely by Shannon) to automate the manual effort that was involved in creating the sign-up forms that were required for each walk during the time of Covid restrictions – when all walks had to be limited and we were required to collect details in case contact tracing was required.
That system served us very well, but thankfully times have changed! Although a few walks still have limited numbers at the walk leader’s request, this is now handled through Meetup and everything related to running our own sign-up forms was decommissioned some time ago.
The other big change has been the introduction of the Ramblers Walks Manager, which provides a modern interface for submitting and editing walks at a national level, and directly provides the walk listings on the Ramblers website.
While our current system still works well in partially automating the process of formatting walks for the group website, Ramblers website, and Meetup, we have concluded that we can improve this further if walk leaders submit directly through the Ramblers Walks Manager and we generate the content for our group website and Meetup from there.
As we have a change of Walks Coordinator following the AGM, we’re also doing this now to avoid handing over a process that is more complex than it needs to be.
— Zak (outgoing Walks Coordinator)
— Tom (incoming Walks Coordinator)