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The Online Fellwalking Club - Chapter 1 |
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Written by Peter Burgess
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 The Online Fellwalking Club was founded on the 9th April 2001 at the height of the Foot and Mouth Epidemic that had essentially closed the British countryside to the walker. In my frustration at being unable to visit the countryside, I decided to divert my energy into something productive during this period. Having had a few years of experience with the Internet already I trawled the world wide web searching for people whose profiles expressed an interest in fellwalking. In my mind I had already decided to found a society or club. Of course, I could have had a site devoted to all the great outdoors, but my own love of fell country made sure that the focus was firmly set in the north of England with, of course, its focus on The Lake District. In any case, I had found that there were already many excellent websites devoted to the outdoors and I just didn't want to replicate something already there - what would be the point? I had written a basic website for my own entertainment using notepad. My website was nothing special, and my skills, which are still very limited, meant that I had little idea or even the aptitude to develop the kind of site I would want to see. Having used Yahoo! I had seen their 'groups' feature and decided that this would be the perfect vehicle to deliver a fellwalking club to the world. On the 9th April 2001 I set up an account and the club was born complete with its one member! Sadly, when the site was updated by Yahoo! a while ago, some of the messages in the archive were lost. However, the very first message is still there and it is quite entertaining to read when in fact at this early stage I was the only person to have joined up - with hindsight I could have been a very lonely 'Billy no-mates'! ; "In these gloomy times, enjoy the experience of meeting up with fellow fellwalking friends and chat about old times. Recollect those foggy days on Bowfell, the glorious ridgewalk along the Helvellyn massif and those walks in every glorious backwater you know so well. Come on in, put your boots over the fire and grab a pint of your favourite........"
After a day spent trawling the web, I eventually found one hundred people who firstly had some mention of fellwalking on their profile or own website or, and secondly, had some means of being contacted i.e. an e-mail. After composing an e-mail regarding the matter, I fired off an unsolicited e-mail outlining my intentions and essentially inviting people to log on and join up. I now realise that I should not have been disappointed by the response as ten people responded positively from my invitation. Perhaps, I should make special mention of John Paterson who essentially became the second member to join up and from square one made such a positive contribution. Over the next few weeks things ebbed and flowed, with discussions about Foot and Mouth and the frustration that some felt at missing out on their favourite places. By the end of May, discussions were happening which hinted that some fells would soon be open and even at this early time the idea of a club logo was formulating in my mind. The picture below shows some early sketches for an initial design. Click the image to see the sketches in more detail.
Below: Two designs later abandoned.  
WATCH OUT FOR THE NEXT ARTICLE CONTINUING THE STORY OF THE OFC.... |
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"On Saturday we met up with Ann and Roger Hiley, John Paterson and Terry Gargrave for a walk up High Rigg and on Monday we met Paul Harrison on Pike O'Stickle. It was a real pleasure meeting everybody and we enjoyed every minute." Dave Leslie
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