As group secretary for South Wales I have been collecting the information required for the walk register from 1st January this year. The information is stored in an excel spreadsheet on my password protected PC. We will upload the information to the LDWA server when a system of doing this is in place. Walk participants are aware of the need to collect this information and it hasn't caused any issues at all.

Christopher, could you please clarify the procedure for processing the register forms once they have been completed, thanks

Christopher, Thankyou for your detailed reply and it brings home to us members how much work it done by the NEC on our behave and I thankyou for that. Re public liability insurance cover I had to take out £2,000,000 cover just to turn up for work and it was checked every year to make sure that I had renewed it.

Yes I know times are changing and the LDWA as to change with it, some of us are not too happy with the changes, in this instance we do not have a chose. I only go on a couple of social walks a year and I for one will comply to the rule. I've only had limited dealings with insurance companies and there is a lot of hoops to jump though with them.

Ian.

Thanks for your posts on walks registers. As the data manager for the Association, at least for the next month, nothing would please me more than abandoning the social walks register. However, we can't if we want to stay insured, according to our current insurer and another we have asked. Sandy Gee is researching yet other insurers to see whether any of them would cover us without knowing who has been on the walk. But our current understanding is that we have to keep a register of members and potential joiners for each event for three years to satisfy the insurance company that we have a system that would show that a particular individual had been on the walk or attended another type of event.

In my volunteering experience most organisations require me to register on the day. This is not really a problem. When I am leading social walks I WOULD WANT all participants to register to ensure that the event is covered for public liability. If it is not, I would be concerned that both I and my group would be liable in the unlikely event of something going wrong. Let’s be honest, the first thing that assessors ask, if there is a claim, is “have the terms of the insurance contract been complied with?”. From that point on, they will be trying to escape or reduce their liability.

But why do we need insurance? The public liability insurance covers us for claims resulting from negligence by the LDWA in its events management. The problem is that the costs could be very high even though the chances of this happening are very small. The costs could wipe out the organisation altogether. For that reason we need insurance cover.

Lastly we have the possibility that people might refuse to declare their names on the walks register. I would point out that:
1. It is a very minor act to put your name on the Register. After all, walkers have already announced this to everyone else on the walk when they turn up.
2. The proposed system for scanning walks registers centrally on the LDWA website will be highly secure and will not be searchable by name.
3. The Walk Leader, the Group and LDWA as a whole would be put in a difficult position where our insurance company might not allow a claim, which would threaten the finances and the existence of the Group and LDWA as a whole. Does this shy walker really want to run this risk?

Groups, I submit, should realise that our public liability insurance policy and walk registers are required for their benefit and the benefit of their leaders as well as of all LDWA members.

Please contact me on datamanager@ldwa.org.uk if there are particular issues affecting your groups or any individual. Otherwise, I am happy to answer general questions on the Forum – until March 10 at least.

I too would prefer to be less formal and not require the register and change insurance company to one that does this info.
But yes this has gone as crazy as American's on the litigation culture of I must make somebody else pay for my stupid mistakes.

Aren't I pleased that I joined the LDWA when you could just turn up for a walk with other like minded walkers, have a good day out without thinking about all this legal stuff. I'm a adult doing a sport that I love, I don't what someone to tell me that the route may be muddy or uneven (I would be upset if it wasn't). I don't need to be told that any roads we cross may have traffic on them. How many walk leaders are we going to lose because of this? This country as gone crazy.

Now that groups are using the walks register, I know that this has been raised already but I've not seen an answer yet.

What should the walk leader do if a member/non member refuses to provide the information for the walks register???

Logic says that the walk leader should inform this person "that while you are free to walk any of the public footpaths that the group is using, they will not be considered part of the group and won't be cover by the groups liability insurance".
If this person does tag along, then the leader should add note to the register that a person did tag along and were informed about their status.