Mentoring a New Hiking Leader

	Mentoring a New Hiking Leader

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New Leader Program

In an effort to better prepare new hiking leaders for the experience of leading Mountaineer hikes, the Hiking Committee has developed a program for training our new hiking leaders.

The new Hiking Leaders program has 3 components.

1. The Hiking Leaders Guide. This guide was written to introduce new hiking leaders to the policies and procedures associated with leading Mountaineer hikes. It also contains a good deal of practical information on leading outdoor activities. A copy of the guide is given to everyone attending the Leadership Workshop, or will be sent to you upon request.

2. The Leadership Workshop. We have combined efforts with the Singles Committee to offer a workshop for hiking leaders. Every aspiring new leader must attend a Leadership Workshop. The workshop emphasizes the practical aspects of leading: signing up to lead hikes, what to do about unprepared hikers, scouting the trail, emergency procedures, etc. Established leaders are encouraged to attend the workshop as well. We welcome the contributions of seasoned hike leaders!

Hiking Leadership Workshops are held throughout the year. See the New Leaders page for information on the next Leadership Workshop.

3. Mentored hikes. Every new leader must go on a minimum of one mentored hike with an established leader before they can be added to the leader's list and lead hikes on their own. The purpose of these mentoring trips is twofold. First it will give the new leader first-hand experience with a typical group of mountaineer hikers and give the new leader a chance to learn from our best leaders. Second, it gives the Hiking committee a chance to evaluate the effectiveness of the Leadership Workshop by having our best hiking leaders evaluate the skills and knowledge of our new leaders.

How the mentoring program works:

As an experienced leader, your name, phone number and current hikes will be given to a prospective new leader. The prospective leader will contact you to see if you'd be willing to act as mentor on one of your scheduled hikes. If you agree, you will need to call the clubhouse and sign up the new leader as a "CO-LEADER". This needs to be accomplished before the hike is opened up for general sign-up. You may want to contact the new leader before the hike to discuss what you do to prepare for leading a hike, and let them do some of the scouting or calling ranger stations, etc.

Once the hike has commenced, you may share as much responsibility with the new leader as you are comfortable with. Please share with the prospective new leader your insights to a safe and pleasant hike. We're especially concerned about issues such as dealing with unprepared or slow hikers, scouting the trail, and how to handle situations involving lost or injured hikers.

The Hiking Committee is also very interested to know if you think a particular candidate is not 'leader material'. For instance, if he/she has little group awareness, or is lacking wilderness skills, or unwilling to accept responsibility. Please include a line or two on your trip report about the new leader and his/her potential. We value your opinions.

If you would like to volunteer to be a mentor to a new leader, please contact Jon Shields.

Revised: 10/04/04