Written by Nancy Stone
With a membership of greater than 4,500 dedicated and eager folks who want to help create more mountain bike opportunities in NW Oregon and SW Washington, NWTA knows that leadership and guidance are vital in making that desire a reality. The Trail Sustainability Institute (TSI) focuses those efforts on training highly skilled and dedicated Trail Stewards to become Crew Leaders through our Crew Leader Training program.
This program focuses on, among other things, leadership skills, in-depth attention to safety, expanding the knowledge and skill of the crew that they are leading, and ensuring that the trails are being built in high quality, sustainable way. Besides, everyone is having a lot of fun while doing it. It seems like a tall order; however, the eight folks that showed up for Sunday’s training session were up for the job!
Eager to learn, ready to listen, prepared with questions, and open to suggestions, this group had leadership written all over them. Once completing “classroom” time, they put their skills to work in cycling through on-the-trail scenarios, all while breaking ground on a brand new trail connecting the north and south sides of the trail system. We (TSI) are very proud of these new Crew Leaders and are excited to see their leadership shape our trails’ future.
Although the training took place at the Rocky Point trail system, these newly minted Crew Leaders come from multiple trail systems across the area. They will be a considerable asset in furthering the maintenance and expansion efforts of our ever-growing trails.
Instructors: Nancy Stone, Andy Jansky, Colin Marthaller
Special thanks to Scooter Sutterer