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I’On Village Walk
Suggestions for Youth Group Leaders |
The
I’On Village Walk was originally conceived as a dayhike
experience for school aged youth groups and was optimized to be a
positive, introductory walking experience. It has since become
popular with adults, people interested in wildlife and people
interested in traditional neighborhood development planning.
Kids have a grand time on this walk, which provides a lot of variety
and interest in a short walk of five miles. Children today have
far less opportunity to explore their environment than their parents.
This walk was designed to restore some of that opportunity to them in
an organized way which would accommodate hectic family life
commitments. Guide author William Hamilton prepared this
project as a trained Cub Scout leader. Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts,
Girl Scouts, School Groups and athletic teams have all enjoyed using
the trail.
Make sure all of the parents have a copy
of a check list and map to the start of the Walk on I’On
Square before the date of the walk. This can be found in all
versions of the guide. The parents and children may enjoy
looking at the Village Walk On-line pages at
www.ioncommunity.com. They can follow the entire trail through
the webpages there, print out adult and youth guides to the trail,
see maps and other background material. If the kids want
patches, collect a $2.50 fee from each of them.
A CD Rom with a Powerpoint presentation on the Village Walk can be
obtained from guide author William Hamilton at no cost to youth group
leaders. It is a great way to introduce your kids to the
trail. Most churches, where many of these groups meet, have a
data projector and laptop and can assist you with presenting the
Powerpoint presentation to your group.
Uniformed youth group leaders can purchase patches
for their members before they start on the trail. Contact
William Hamilton through www.ioncommunity.com
to make arrangements to purchase patches.
Ask Parents to park behind the buildings and assemble for the walk on
the grassy lawn in the middle of the Square. It is perfectly OK to
walk on this grass. The brick retaining wall around the trees
provides ample seating and shields the area from traffic. Try
to avoid the tendency to gather in the parking lot, because the
Square was designed to be a pleasant gathering place and helps orient
the children.
Try
to get the kids to go to the bathroom before they leave the
Square. I’On Realty, O’Brion’s Pub and Belles
Fleurs all have bathrooms they make available to Village Walk
participants. Please express your appreciation by picking up a
menu or returning later to patronize these wonderful, community
oriented businesses. Try not to send in more than one child at
a time, per location as these are single occupancy toilets and be
sure the children are accompanied by an adult.
Image, left - Summerville Cub Scouts on Lafayette Canal Towpath,
Nov. 2002
If some of the kids plan to have a meal or snack at
O’Brion’s or the Square Onion after their walk, pick up a
menu before you leave the square. Inquire about making advance
orders if you have a large group. You can call ahead when you
are about 20 minutes out and have some of the food waiting on you
when you get back to the Square if you make a cell phone call from
the Boathouse at Step # 53.
You should have two printed adult guides for any group of kids over
10 members. This allows the two adults to work together
following the trail. Additional guides are available on-line or
by purchase at Belles Fleurs, the Square Onion or Grace
Salonspa. It can also be checked out of the Charleston County
Library. The printed guide booklet has larger print and
clearer, high resolution images than the downloadable versions and is
recommended for youth group leaders. The lower quality of the
downloadable version is due to bandwidth limitations. The
downloadable version is less than 1.4 mb to make it available to
dialup users.
Children in the 3rd. grade or higher can fallow the trail using the
youth guide which can be downloaded from the Village
Walk Website at www.ioncommunity.com. However, the full
guide has background material you can use to enrich their experience
and to help them develop insight into the landscape.
The trail has there major Sections:
1.
I’On Square, The
Rookery & Ponsbury - Steps 1 - 15
2. The Marsh Walk
& Shelmore - Steps 16 - 42
3. Eastlake & Return to Start Point
- Steps 43 - 66
You may wish to consider dividing your group in into 3 teams and
assigning each of them a section of the trail to study and lead the
group on. Having the kids work on navigating helps keep them
focused and frees you to supervise and watch more. They will
enjoy using their compasses. Children rapidly get the hang of
finding their way along the trail.
To start, position one adult leader at the head of the group and
another at the back. One leader should read the step in the
guide and encourage the children to identify the appropriate
direction of travel. Once you have determined they are going
the right way, you can instruct them to start walking.
Continue, keeping the kids between the two leaders, until you reach
the next step. The background commentary in the adult guide
allows the adult leader to enrich the children’s walk experience
as they deem appropriate.
Most people find the kids rapidly start moving along and the real
challenge is to keep them from taking off in the wrong direction or
running ahead. Use questions about the landscape to help focus
them on their surroundings. Since modern children spend so much
time in the automobile and structured activities, they find an
extended walk in unfamiliar surroundings very exciting.
After a few steps, the stop, read, spot the direction of travel and
go until the next stop will smooth to an even rhythm. The kids
will rapidly catch on. The real challenge is to hold them back
so they don’t run ahead and get lost. If you do get lost,
most I’On residents will be happy to help you find the trail again.
The playground at stop # 40
seems to be the location children favor for a snack stop. It
has a picnic table and a trash can. Despite the fact that they
have walked over three miles already, they still want to play on the
play equipment. The fenced playground is a good place for the
leaders to relax a bit while the kids play.
The Hillside along the North end
of Eastlake along step # 50 is steep and makes a good, sunny
place for a group picture.
Almost every group that has taken the walk ends up having something
to eat at O’Brion’s pub. Parents can gather there to
wait for their kids to return from the walk. Most groups with
children finish the walk in about 2 hours and 45 minutes.
You can use cell phones to provide updates to the Parents on your
progress as you approach the end of the walk. It usually takes
about 20 minutes to finish the walk from the Boathouse, Step # 53 and
about 10 minutes from the Eastlake Park Marker at Step # 60.
We hope you enjoy your visit to our community. It is our hope
that the example of the I’On Village Walk will encourage other
community planners and governments in our area to increase the
amount, variety and quality of pedestrian experiences available to
the public. Take pictures, pick up a copy of the Village Walk
Guide and use them to advocate better walking for both youth and
adults. Our Village Walk Reading List
has a lot of background for community advocates interested in this
issue. We welcome feedback through our pages at www.ioncommunity.com.
Email helps us refine this project and improve the experience for
those walkers coming in the future.