Mellow hikers taking a break during an urban hike in downtown Scottsdale (photo by Al Metz)
Warren Wasescha, Sun Lakes Hiking Club
Volunteers make the difference. To make a good club experience, you need the right combination of dedicated individuals willing to put their good talents to work for the betterment of the club. For the Sun Lakes Hiking Club, we’ve benefited from years of talented individuals stepping up and defining the club experience. We can always use additional volunteers!
Our club founders established the basic guidelines for how we run the club. Those guidelines have pretty much stayed the same over the years: Make group hiking fun, challenging, social and safe.
We have a board of directors that helps run the club. They inform members of club policies, manage finances, decide on guest speakers, and determine ways to further enhance the camaraderie amongst hikers.
A group of hike leaders is at the core of our hiking experience, bringing their love of special trails to other hikers. We have hike leaders who have led hikes for years. And we always have room for new hike leaders at all hiking levels.
We have a team of volunteers that each year determines where we’ll have our multi-day special hike. This team does the strategic planning to make these hikes a reality, including pre-hiking the area, making hotel selections, and planning social outings and dinner venues. Paul Feeney has done a great job leading this effort, with many others helping, and is always looking for volunteers to help out with next year’s hike.
Barb Smith and Tracy Nilsen use their IT talents to manage our Meetup site, helping us communicate with each other about upcoming hikes and social gatherings.
DeEtte Faith managed our Welcome Back Picnic, End of Season Club Picnic, and Potluck get-togethers. Now that she has moved to Oklahoma, we are looking for her replacement. Interested? Please let our president Ted Maresh know at [email protected].
Like the idea of hiking socially? Join our club and enjoy all that we have to offer. We are a friendly, inclusive group of hikers welcoming all able-bodied hikers. Our goal is to make group hiking fun, challenging, social, and safe. We hike Mondays at three different intensity levels and often a second “mellow” or “moderate” hike on Wednesdays. Our club is open to anyone living in Sun Lakes and SunBird. We also love volunteers who can help us out!
For more information about our club, please type “Sun Lakes Hiking Club” into your web browser and look for our Meetup page. You’ll find information about our club, along with photos and descriptions of past and future hikes. If you have questions about the club not answered on our website, please contact our president Ted Maresh at [email protected] and he can help you.
Hiking is one of the many rewarding activities you can do in our community. We look forward to hiking with you!