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At the beginning of 2006, some friends in the Godalming & Haslemere Ramblers Association walking group started an independent unofficial sub-group designed to attract younger walkers.
We called it the South West Surrey Walkers with the aim of running walks and social activities geared mainly for walkers below retirement age, with the entry age of the group restricted to people aged 35-59, although existing members of SWSW are not excluded when they go over this age limit.
Once a month, on a Sunday, we hold a "figure of eight" walk usually in South West Surrey, or adjacent parts of West Sussex or Hampshire.
The "figure of eight" concept means that you can join the walk in the morning, or at lunch-time. You can also walk just for the morning, only the afternoon, or stay all day! Your choice! We usually try and get together to eat lunch in a pub wherever possible.
These walks are now proving very popular and we are seeing lots of new faces each month.
Our mailing list has now grown to over 300 members!
Everyone is welcome, but you must be reasonably fit, and enjoy walking in good company.
We are not a "singles" walking club, but there are a large number of single people in the group - probably because walking with a friendly group is a good way to make new friends. But if you are married or have a partner, don't let that put you off - we have plenty of couples as well.
In June 2007 we had our first weekend break on the Isle of Wight, and because of the success of this we now have two short breaks planned in 2008 for Wales and the Cotswolds. See our walks page for more details.
At present, there is no membership fee, and to join, just
to be put on the Surrey Walks mailing list (please don't change the subject of the email or you won't get added to the list).
Please use the above email address to add your name to our mailing list only - if you have any comments or would like to help with administration, leading walks or other ideas
for a personal response. Please note that emails to AOL addresses quite often don't arrive. If you have an alternative email address please use that instead or just keep an eye on the walks page of our web site.
If you want to go on a walk there is no need to telephone beforehand, just turn up at the start point, where you could find anything from half a dozen to twenty or more people. If you want advice before walking with us just telephone the leader of the walk for that day.
Apart from the enjoyment of being out in the countryside with a friendly bunch of people, walking is a very flexible leisure activity - there is no commitment, you can do just one, or any number of walks in the year, on any Sunday you choose. Come alone, or with your friend or partner, we'll make you very welcome!
SWSW is an independent walking group but we do support the Ramblers Association and we encourage our members to join the RA individually, which has additional benefits - you can quite often get discounts off purchases from retailers with your membership card and many people say this quite often saves their membership fee each year!
You must have an email address available as we cannot send out mailings by post, but this can belong to a friend if you don't have your own computer.
Our founding members all walk with Godalming RA group, and on the weekends where we don't have our own walk, we will be advertising Godalming walks as a useful alternative, but if you walk regularly with Godalming & Haslemere you will need to join the Ramblers Association and specify Godalming as your local group.
This is our main web site - but we also have a Facebook site with a discussion board - click here to join Facebook:
https://register.facebook.com/r.php
Then go to search, look for SWSW and click on the link to ask to join our group on Facebook.
We look forward to hearing from you! |
