Club News

On Walks and Walkers

We had a great turnout at our September 12th Breakfast Walk at Zorinsky Lake. The weather was perfect, the route was great and the food was plentiful. Special thanks go to Lee Frantz and Donna Campbell for sponsoring this walk and sharing it with 69 people.

Sandy Spaulding has laid out a great route for our Magic City Walk (aka South Omaha) on October 3rd, starting at El Museo Latino at 9 a.m. Workers are needed to staff the Start Point, the 3 Check Points and to greet folks and/or to walk with them. If you’d like to volunteer, don’t worry about getting to do the walk.  The Workers’ Walk will be Saturday, September 26th at 9 a.m. Come a little early to do paperwork, but remember that the museum will not be open early that morning and bathrooms will not be available there or generally on the route that day. To volunteer, let Butch or Sandy Spaulding know via email.

Speaking of volunteers, it’s time to nominate our 2015 “Walker of the Year”. Any club member can be nominated.  Submit your nominations with a brief write-up to Butch Spaulding by October 15th, so that the nominations can be published in our Nov-Dec newsletter.  We’ll be trying out a new system for voting this year, so that all club members can participate, even if they can’t make the December club meeting.

Coming up in September

The ever-popular Breakfast Walk will take place at Zorinsky Lake, near 156th and F Streets, on Saturday morning from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. on September 12th. Walkers should be off the 5k or 10k trails by 2 p.m. Those coming later in the morning should count on eating before they head out on the trail. Please bring a ready-to-eat breakfast item to share – no cooking facilities are available. Fun walkers pay $1.50, while those wanting AVA/IVV Credit pay $3.

The club’s September meeting will take place on Monday, September 14th, a week later than our usual 1st Monday, due to the Labor Day Holiday. We’ll have speakers from Restoration Exchange of Omaha to give us some South Omaha history in preparation for our October walk. These speakers are fantastic and are a must-hear! Meetings take place at 7 p.m. at Morning Star Lutheran Church at 311 S. 85th St. (near Methodist Hospital). Our speakers will talk during the first portion of the meeting for 15 – 30 minutes, followed by a brief business meeting and will close with refreshments.

September – October Newsletter now available

Here’s the latest newsletter. Please note the information about the Breakfast Walk coming up on September 12th – you’ll be seeing more reminders, so go ahead and mark your calendars now!

It’s also not too early to think about our “Walker of the Year” award, voted on in December and awarded in January. Get those nominations in now, so that they can be presented in the next newsletter.

For your reading pleasure: NWFT Sept-Oct 2015 Newsletter

 

July and August Activities

A capacity crowd of 20 showed up at Ted and Wally’s in Omaha’s Old Market on Monday, July 13th. Participants report that it was a “tasteful” experience.

Club members Butch and Sandy Spaulding organized a spontaneous group walk of the Bennington Lakes Year Round walk on Saturday, July 18th. A total of 7 folks enjoyed the gardens at the Start Point, and beat most of the day’s heat by walking early in the day. Want a walking partner for any of our year rounds? Send us an email at netrailblazers@gmail.com and we’ll put the word out!

Our next scheduled club activity is a group walk of the Ashland Year Round on Saturday, August 15th at 8:30 a.m. Save some time in your schedule to have lunch at Cheri O’s and/or a visit to the SAC Museum nearby! The organizer for this event is club president Mel Bohn, who can be reached by personal email or by the club email at netrailblazers@gmail.com.

Our regular season of Traditional or Regular Events begins in September. If you didn’t get flyers for our first 4 walks of the season, let us know! More information to be posted in September.

 

 

How To Conduct A Successful Border-Crossing Volksmarch

Our Grand Island correspondent, Jim McGahan, tells us in words and pictures how to put on a successful traditional event that will pull in walkers from across the country. This event was held July 11th. This was a 9 hour round-trip drive for most of the walkers from our club, and the event pulled in folks from much farther away!

Hope you will enjoy reading all about Big Stone City! We loved one of the photos so much, that we added it to our list of header images that appear on each of the pages in this website.

And even more news!

Our hard-working Regional Director Phyllis Olson is handing over the reins to Jerry Wilson as of July 1st, but not before sending us lots and lots of news! Club President Mel sent all of this via email, so it may be old news to you. Do take a look at the other walks in our region, so that if your travels take you nearby, you can add a walk to your itinerary.

Executive Director’s Report

Regional Director’s Report June 2015

List of Regional Events for remainder of 2015

Too hot? Too cold? Try walking INDOORS!

Our newest Year Round Event opened today at 7 a.m. at the Westroads Mall, thanks to Point-of-Contact (POC) Sandy Spaulding and the AmericInn, which is graciously serving as our Start Point. The AmericInn is located at 9720 W Dodge Rd, Omaha, NE 68114, which is just east of the Westroads Mall in Omaha, The entrance to the mall  is from the parking area between JCPenney’s and Dick’s, which is on the NE side of the mall, along N. 98th Street, just north of Dodge Streets.  For those unfamiliar with the area, the roads around the mall do circle around, so if you miss an entrance, you can drive to the next entrance and make your way back.

See AVA website Event Details for this walk for better directions on how to reach the Start Point.

Once inside, see if you can find Snow White’s mirror or check out where the new food court will be. The mall opens at 7 a.m. so that walkers can avoid the shopping crowds.

Raindrops keep falling on . . . Ashland

Salt Creek in Ashland is forecast to rise above flood stage over the next couple of days, which means the first 2k of the Ashland, Nebraska 10k YRE may be inaccessible by foot. Before she left town for the AVA convention, the Point of Contact for the walk had re-routed the walk due to construction on 14th Street (main N/S road in town), but not for the flooding that is occurring while she’s gone.

Suggestion: walk the route backwards and use the map to get back to the Start Point before crossing 14th Street to go east on the north end of town. (This makes sense if you’re looking at the map, really!) The rest of the town is unaffected and it’s a *great* walk, which is why the club is walking it in August.

June news

We welcome travelers on their way to and from the 2016 AVA Biennial Convention being held in Salem, Oregon! We also wish our club members and friends on their way to the convention safe journeys and great walks.

Our next event is the National Trails Day event, being held between 8:30 and 10:00 a.m. at the Chalco Hills Recreation Area Visitor’s Center just off of Giles Road at 154th St. The Papio-Missouri River NRD is opening the building just for us during those times, so that folks can register and start walking at their own pace during that time. We’re borrowing the stamp from the Chalco Hills YRE Walk Box during that time and we’ll have a special 5K route that starts from the Visitor’s Center.

Also on hand will be our new luggage tags for $5, free samples courtesy of the National Trails Day folks, and a great free selection of older awards. Those wanting AVA/IVV credit for the walk pay $3 – everyone else is free! Come join us and celebrate walking while in a great natural setting.

Finally, Jim McGahan has put together a pictorial plethora of pleasures in PDF from the last week of the Grand Island YRE, which has been in operation for the past 20 years. Jim adds that our walking friend Charlie Gentile should be in these photos, but missed that opportunity by just hours.  Check it out here: The Final Four