Park Rep Handbook

From JORBA

IMBA
IMBA

This is a WORK IN PROGRESS

This page will contain a hand book for Park Representatives and will describe responsibilities and suggestions for running a vibrant and successful volunteer group with JORBA.


Contents

[edit] Leadership Structure

All chapters should have a Park Rep leader and a co-leader (or an alternate), as well as other capable people that are willing to take on some responsibility (trail bosses, organizational needs, etc.). The reason for this is many:

  • monolithic organizations eventually fail due to boredom and burnout by the "larger than life" leader. JORBA and the chapters should have a leader with many people trained and ready to step in and lead at any time. What is a "monolithic organization"? You've seen it before... this is the organization where one person does all the work and volunteers are not (intentionally or not) given and opportunity to lead. As a chapter leader, you NEED someone to help you get through the ups-and-downs that come with this game. If you do not have someone that can help you out, either when you need a break, or you have a conflict, you need to make this a goal this season.
  • a chapter leader may not be able to attend and run trail crews every time a trail work schedule is announced. Instead of canceling when the chapter lead cannot attend, let the alternate take the task. as a leader you should feel ok with delegating this task to a trusted individual, once that person is identified.
  • separation of concerns: a large chapter may want to have specializations in trail work bosses and social or ride leaders. Have people ready to step in take on a trail work day, and have other run the social rides. Do you need to do it all? No! Surround yourself with bright passionate people and let them lead and share in the satisfaction of a job well done!

[edit] Advocacy and Organizing

Familiarize yourself with IMBA's Advocacy and Organizing Page. There's a plethora of great information here.

[edit] Minimum Requirements for Chapters - By Laws

Please review the By Laws of JORBA specifically the minimum requirements for a chapter of JORBA.

[edit] Using the website: editing the wiki and posting on the forums

This is your site. We're taking great pains to make this site editable by you and your key people. Please do not hesitate to get involved and contribute.

[edit] The Wiki

If you're confused what to do, then please ask. If you want to know what a wiki is, this is a good blog about it.

If you want to read more about how to edit the wiki, please have a look at How to edit the Wiki

Logging in: if you do not know your user ID for the wiki, please contact the webmaster. We've created many logins for chapters but some are yet made. Note: Your login for the wiki is different than the Forums login (it all looks like one website but the wiki is one application and the forums are another and they use different user tables).

I've started a series of How-Tos here: http://www2.jorba.org/index.php?title=WikiHowTos

[edit] The Forums

TODO: elaborate. post phpbb3 how to here

Note: the way the posts sort on the new forums is not ideal: sticky's push all normal posts down the page, so when you post a new post it does not appear. Do to this, we will stop using Sticky posts because they just confuse everyone. In addition, use Announcements will be kept to a minimum for similar reasons.

[edit] Publicizing Trail Work Days

[edit] Trail Work Announcements: what to say, and how to say it

The most important thing to remember about getting the message out is to be as brief as you can, make sure that all of the important items are in the announcement, and that you are having fun doing it. These may sound like conflicting items but it can be done.

[edit] Set the right tone - Lay out the project

Have you ever been excited to come out to volunteer, just because the announcement got you excited to be involved? Keep this in mind when you craft your announcements. Here's some tips to help you achieve that:

First make sure that you sound like you're having fun on the trails at these events. Obviously, these events are fun, but you'd be surprised how dry an announcement can read if you don't sell the fun. This can make all the difference, especially for folks that have not participated in the past. That said, don't feel like you have to be a comedian; you don't. Trying to be a comedian especially in written form can backfire. Instead, focus on keeping an upbeat tone and make the announcement project oriented.

By project oriented, you need to announce what is on the agenda and if that fits into a long term project in the park, make that clear. For example, if you are working on a project that represents an exciting new re-route of a muddy or eroded section of trail, make sure you announce these facts and explain why its important. People want to be part of a project and be part of the bigger picture that ultimately leads to better trails and more trails to ride.

In contrast, the wrong tone is to simply state: "We're doing trail work. Meet at the gate at 9am." That certainly does not want me to get up at 7am and drive to a park to do work. I want to know why we're doing this and what it means for me and my riding buddies.

In other words, nothing gets people more excited to help out when the project is worthwhile. Nothing makes people move on by than something that seems to be less than important in their eyes. Remember this when you announce. Quite simply, remember back to when you were just getting involved in trail work and what jazzed you up about getting involved. Recreate that!

[edit] The Facts

Make sure you have all the facts in your post, don't force people to wonder, or make it hard or complicated to make it to the event. Usually, these are the normal must haves:

  • Park Name: this is the easy one!
  • Date and Time, and duration: duration is important so people can determine if its appropriate for them. 4 hours is typically the max that IMBA recommends.
  • Meeting Point: a parking lot name, or a street address. If possible include a Google link to the meeting spot.
  • Description of the work: see Tone above. This is where you make you case why you need to be involved.
  • What to bring: usually this includes work gloves (if you can budget it with your stipend, please have extras on hand), water (if you're not supplying it), food (if you're not supplying bagels, etc), sturdy shoes, and your bike (if you're riding to the work site).
[edit] Examples

Example 1: this is a great example of an announcement by JORBA's own Bob W, who conveys a sense of excitement about a new trail almost completed and covers every last detail. 

We had a great session in September at Allamuchy.  We armored three sections of the Green Trail close to the 
Cranberry Ledge Rd Trailhead.  The following folks came out to to the August TM:
-
 ( list of volunteers here )
-
Here is the info for the October 17th TM session:
-
When: Saturday Oct 17th starting at 8:30
-
Where: North Section of the Park, meeting place will be on Cranberry Ledge Road at the "Yellow Gate" 
Directions RT 206 to North Shore Rd to Cranberry Ledge Rd, make a right turn and go approx 1/2 mile to gate. 
-
What: We will be working on Lumpy Bumpy. This new trail is close to completion and hopefully we can get 
it finished.  We have some rock work to be completed, and general corridor cleaning.
- 
What do you need to bring?  Bring your favorite gloves (we will bring extra for those without). 
The event will be rain or shine (barring a torrential downpour), please dress accordingly.  
- 
We will have a Pay "its not just for racers" Dirt sign up sheet to keep everyone in the running for the 
bikes that will be given away at the end of the season, and for race points!!!
-
If you can shoot me a quick email so I know how many people will be there (allamuchy@jorba.org).  
Also, if you would like to bring someone along, please do so. Thanks to everyone for showing interest in helping out!
- 
Karen and Bob

Example 2: This is an excerpt from the Stowe Mountain Bike Club in VT just so you can see that this is not just a Jersey thing. They're adding a personal touch and including all the right information (this is an example on how you can be brief yet effective and make that personal case): 

Trail Work – Alex’ Trail – Saturday October 17th 9AM – Meet at the stump dump in Moscow. 
The stump dump is at the end of Adams Mill  Road. Take Barnes Hill Road - the turn by the empty building.  
Go about ¼ mile and make the right turn onto Adams Mill Road. Follow that to the end.
- 
Wear work clothes, bring gloves, water, food or a snack. 
It would be interesting to get a kiosk or a sign built and installed.  Any carpenters willing to take that on? 
Let me know rick@domain.com or call me at xxx-xxxx
-
We would like to see a lot of people show up for this as a way to honor Alex’ memory and thank the Roberts family 
for putting up with us all these years. Anyone that knew Alex, please be ready to share some thoughts.


[edit] JORBA Forums

Post the details of the event in your park specific forum, usually this is a Trail Maintenance forum. These posts will appear on the main page of the website in about 30 minutes once the RSS feed updates.

[edit] Other Forums

You are free to cross post your event on mtbNJ.com (our partner), or mtbr.com (in the NJ Forum) or other bike sites you are aware of. Ideally, you want to keep the details brief and include a link to the JORBA forum post which contains full details. Why? If you have to change details, or cancel, you can update one post (the one on JORBA) and it will trickle down to all other cross-posts, saving you time. You don't want to post a time, date and location and then have to update all those specifics on 3, 4 or more sites. Cross posting allows you to change it once and it takes immediate effect.

Note: because mtbNJ.com is committed to NJ's Trails, they've RSS linked posts from JORBA to their site. This does not mean you can't post your own personalized post. Shaggz would like that. :) But please, make the JORBA post the first post in the chain of events. If you don't its unlikely that its going to appear on the JORBA calendar below, and that it will get mentioned in our monthly emails and newletters. (We skim our forums and calendar to gather content for these, and if you've only posted the information on a site outside of JORBA.org, we're going to miss it).

[edit] JORBA Calendar

The new google calendar is a powerful tool. Users can add the JORBA calendar to their own calendar, copy events to Outlook and even synchronize. In addition, you have the Google Maps feature automatically wired in if you enter a valid address for the event.

Its fairly easy to add events but there are some gotchas. A "how to" is located here.

[edit] Bike Shops

The JORBA development committee is working on a bike shop packet for all LBS in the NJ region. We hope to have this complete and in the stores by late 2009 and early 2010. This will help raise awareness about parks that we're working in and how to contact folks to get involved.

In the meantime, do not hesitate to approach your LBS with a JORBA flyer and a trail work schedule for your entire season. If you have questions on how to make this happen contact mergler at jorba dot org.

[edit] Maintain a Mailing List

The Pay Dirt sign in forms contain an email box. Please add these volunteers to your monthly emails that announce your event. Ideally, you should compose the email with basic details with a link to your forum post below. This will familiarize your volunteers with JORBA by asking them to visit the site.

[edit] Organizing Trail Work Days - Pay Dirt

For each chapter, JORBA needs you to record volunteer hours using the Pay Dirt Sign In form. Pay Dirt program is here, and the Pay Dirt Sign in sheet is here. Some things to do to make your event worthwhile:

[edit] Prior to the event

print out Monthly Pay Dirt Sign In and have them on hand prior to your event

publicize (see above)

pre-plan your event by:

  • attain landowner permission
  • walk the work site (alone or with your lieutenants) and review and plan the day's agenda; track this time as "trail work prep" using this Sign In for Recurring Individuals form
  • plan for more volunteers than you expect, just in case. if you are expecting 15 people, plan for 20, or 25. have enough tools on hand and have enough proposed work areas to keep everyone busy for the event. if you have less people, no worries... you were well prepared. You'd rather be looking at extra tools than looking for them.
  • don't overwork the volunteers; limit the work to 3-4 hours depending on the project and the terrain.

[edit] Day of the event

  • Be early, be positive, be friendly
  • Pass out a clipboard and pen with the Monthly Pay Dirt Sign In forms and a copies of the waivers for signing as early as possible
  • Offer water and food (your stipend covers this)
  • do your safety talk prior to beginning work - sometimes the parking lot is the only place you'll have a chance to do this.
  • manage the trail work. if you head is down and you're digging all morning, you are probably not managing the volunteers well. you need to make sure they're not hurting themselves, they're having fun and you're available for questions. if you ignore volunteers, they tend to "dig trenches instead of benches" and they may not feel their being mentored, and may not return. Nurture your volunteers, they are the work horses.
  • thank everyone for their time, remind them of the next date for trail work.
  • never pressure volunteers to to return, or "guilt them" for missing a work day.

[edit] After the event

  • Start thinking about next time!

[edit] IMBAs recommendations

IMBA has excellent suggestions on running successful volunteer events:

Attracting and Keeping Trail Volunteers

How to Organize Volunteer Workdays

More: http://www.imba.com/resources/organizing/index.html#people

[edit] Organizing Social Events

JORBA is strong on the Trail Work but historically weak on the social aspects of a club. We aim to change that in 2010!

[edit] Group Rides

JORBA will be organizing a number of group rides and beginner's rides throughout NJ. These rides will be publicized ont he website and calendar.

[edit] Round Robin Group Rides

Our group ride schedule is on the Calendar. If you wish to put your park on the group ride list, please contact Mare at events@jorba.org

todo: link to Mare's flyer here.

[edit] Beginner's Rides

Allaire State Park has been doing beginner's rides for a number of years with great success. The power of the beginner ride is:

  • you introduce new people to the sport
  • you are able to make them responsible riders, aware of the rules of the trail, from the beginning. This has later benefits because responsible riders volunteer and are inclusive and respectful of other trail users.

If you organize any group rides please review these Ride Leader Responsibilities

[edit] Annual Reporting

[edit] Annual Activity Reports

An annual report for JORBA will be compiled in January each year to summarize the previous year's activities. In order to complete that we will need to have the following reported:

- total volunteer trail work hours (this is the hours spent on trail doing volunteer trail work). The standard paydirt sign in sheets can be used to tally this total.

- total chapter leader trail work prep hours (these are field-related hours that usually entail, surveying new trails, taping and flagging, unloading your tools, etc.). this needs to be tracked seperately (I tend to write the prep time hours on the reverse of the standard paydirt sign in sheet, but you can use your own system).

- total chapter leader administrative hours (this is paperwork hours, please track it in a spreadsheet or a paper form)

Submit this the Executive Director as soon as you can in January of each year.

[edit] Annual Affirmation of Trail Work Activity

If your chapter totals are being counted towards a recreational trail program grant match of volunteer hours (usually Mick will have asked you for this), you will need to download this document and have it signed off by the Land Manager. The state of NJ requires this sign off to validate your hours for the RTP grant match.

Document: Annual Affirmation of Trail Work Activity

[edit] New Jersey State Volunteer Application Form

For our chapters who steward a NJ State Park, these forms should be filled out by each volunteer prior to performing any work. The original should go to the park and a copy should be kept for your records.

Document: Volunteer form

[edit] Local Trail Conditions

The Trail Conditions Page allows all Chapters to indicate conditions at their local park. To do this:

  1. go to your Trail Conditions forum for your park
  2. locate the single post in the forum and edit it.
  3. your updates will appear within 30 minutes on the trail conditions page

[edit] Getting Reimbursed for Chapter Expenses

JORBA will reimburse chapters for some or all of your expenses incurred. Please review the details of the Chapter Stipend Program

[edit] Sales Tax Exemption

JORBA is a registered non-profit with New Jersey and legitimate purchases made on behalf of JORBA are exempt from NJ State Sales Tax. Typically you will provide an ST-5 Form to the retailer and they will exclude Sales Tax. These forms are available in our Board Only Documents area, here:

ST-5 Form

You must be logged into the forums to access this form.

[edit] Insurance and Liability

Bad things do happen to good clubs! This is why we purchase liability insurance for JORBA for trail related activities such as Trail Work, Skills Clinics and Group Rides, et. al..

Our "IMBA Club" insurance is provided by RJF Insurance Company. Our 2009-2010 Policy FAQ is available here.

What does this mean to you as an event organizer?

You have a responsibility to run a safe event, have your participants sign our Waiver Of Liability, and adhere to some basic rules when promoting the event so that the liability insurance terms will be honored. In short:

The event must be promoted as a "JORBA event" in order to adhere to the terms of the agreement; you must not promote the event using a chapter name 

JORBA or Jersey Off Road Bicycle Association presents:
 
Event Name
Location
Event Details

Sponsors are allowed on the event flyer, and are encouraged. The reason why there is no need to be concerned about a sponsor is because of "assumed negligence". In other words, its not possible to name a sponsor of a skills clinic and prove negligence. The park and JORBA are the entities that can be named as negligent and the Park has insurance for that, and we do to (via RJF).

Again, the problem that arose in 2008 was this: if you make mention of a chapter name, you will be breaking the current arrangement with our insurance carrier and a claim against JORBA, a chapter named and individuals involved may not be covered by the insurance carrier. this is not under our control but its a fact of doing business.

[edit] Resources

A Links page is being built up now which will contain links to various resources, such as Advocacy, Trail Building, and other literature. Please keep this page handy and feel free to add links to it if you find something appropriate that should be shared with JORBA.

[edit] Forms

Forms referenced on this page. (TODO)

Retrieved from "http://www2.jorba.org/index.php?title=Park_Rep_Handbook"








Personal tools