Information for walk leaders: 2024

Below is information for folks planning to submit a walk for Jane's Walk Ottawa-Gatineau 2024. It covers all you need to know about registration. The numbered sections are as follows:

1. 2024 dates and contact information for the Jane’s Walk organizers 
2. How to register your walk: a. On-line (new walk); b. On-line (previous walk short-cut); c. Off-line (hard copy) 
3. Photo(s) to illustrate your walk 
4. 2024 Covid-19 precautions & link to the guidelines 
5. Walk management (group size limits, megaphones, marshals)
6. New: Cultural Awareness Guidelines
7. Comments and feedback

__________________________________________________ 

1. 2024 Dates and Theme

This year's Jane's Walk will be held on Saturday and Sunday, May 4 & 5.  

• Registration opens: The on-line registration form is now open. 
• Registration deadline:  All registrations should be submitted by April 12. 
• Contact information: 
• --- email (right click to copy email address)
• --- website: www.janeswalkottawa.ca 
• --- phone: 613 563-4922 (Leigh) 

• Postal address:
• --- Jane's Walk Ottawa-Gatineau,
• --- c/o Leigh Thorpe,
• --- 272 Holmwood Ave.,
• --- Ottawa, ON K1S 2P9 

If you have questions, want to give feedback, want to discuss your walk idea, or if you just want to say hello, you can email us (either language) or give us a call. 

2. How to register a walk  

Details required

We need your name, email address, phone number, walk title, a description of the main topic or theme that you'll be sharing along the way, and the logistics including the starting place, the ending place, the general route you'll follow. If you'd like to see a couple of examples, click here. You can find more examples by going to Past Events in the Walks menu on the website. 

Note: Your contact information will not be shown publicly. 

We will only use your contact information to: 

• contact you about the walks 
• if you answer 'yes' to the media question, we may share your phone and/or email address with reporters so they can contact you directly for questions or interviews. This is helpful to us in promoting the walks. However, you are not required to agree to have your contact info shared with the media in order to lead a walk. 

Double-check that your email address and phone number are entered correctly. Otherwise, we won't be able to contact you to confirm your registration and to share additional information as we prepare for the Jane's Walk weekend. 

Walk type. Choose the type of walk you want to enter: in-person, self-guided, or virtual.

• In-person walks: the normal Jane's Walk where everyone meets to walk a route with a walk leader. If you're signing up to lead a walk during the May weekend, this is the walk type you want.
• Self-guided walks are walks where the participant physically takes the walk, assisted by text or recorded audio descriptions of the points of interest, possibly accompanied by photos. The walk materials should be either: available to download to mobile devices or suitable to print out so the walkers can bring the description along. Note that the route of a self-guided walk should not require the walkers to venture onto private property that would require permission to enter.  
• Virtual walks are comprised of video, still images, etc., along with text or audio description, that can be viewed on a computer or mobile device from any location using an Internet connection. Virtual walks should be self-contained. The walk description can link to the material on another website or uploaded to Jane's Walk Ottawa-Gatineau.  

Note: Self-guided and virtual walks can be submitted at any time. If you would like to submit one of these types of walks and find the submission page is closed, email us to let us know and we'll turn it on for you.

Choose a day and time: For an in-person walk, you are asked to indicate a time during the weekend that would be convenient for you. Please indicate a preferred day and time when you register. We may ask you to change the time of your walk so that we can spread walks over the weekend to accommodate availability of marshals and/or megaphones. You will be consulted about any change to the time or day. 

Language:  Walks are welcome in English, French, or other languages. Normally, walks are given in (one of) English or French. You do not need to do both. Our walk form offers both English and French. Please provide the walk description in the language you will use when leading your walk. If you'd like to lead a walk in a language other than French or English, please get in touch so we can talk about the best ways to handle your walk description and publicity. 

2a. Process to register on-line:  Online Registration (Or click on Submit a walk on the Walk menu at the top of the website.)

Fill in the form with your contact information and your walk information.  The system will notify you if you have missed required information.

When you are happy with your entries, click Submit at the bottom of the form.

We will review your entry and contact you within a day or two. See "After you've submitted" below.

 2b. Registration recall (short cut for people who have led their walk previously) 

If you have led a walk in previous years and you want to re-use most or all of the information from that walk, the form can automatically be filled in with the previous walk information. You will then have a chance to make any required updates before submitting the walk.

How to use recall function: 

1. Click on the blue button, “Autofill a Previous Walk” or “Cliquez Ici”.  
2. A dialog box will open. 
3. Enter your first name, your last name, or both, and click “Search”.  
4. A drop-down box will appear. One walk title is shown, which is probably your most recent walk. If this is not the walk you want, click on the box to see the drop-down list with all the search results. If you don't see the walk you want, try changing the name entry and click search again. (For example, if you entered 'Bob', but your walk did not show up in the list, you can try searching for 'Robert' instead).  
5. When you find the walk you want to recall, click on that walk in the list, and it will appear in the box. Then click “Select Walk.” The text from last year's registration will be automatically entered into the registration form. 
6. If you decide you don't want to the information from the earlier walk, click “Close” to go back to the form without recalling a walk OR if you change your mind after you've filled in the boxes, you can scroll to the bottom of the form and click 'Clear Form' or click on Online Registration above to get a clean form.

After the computer fills in the entries from last time, read it over and make any changes that are needed to update the details. Things to check: 

• Enter the date and time entered you want this year
• Has your contact information changed since you led the previous walk?  If so, please update.
• Is your starting location the same as last time? If not, please update both the meeting point and the map pin.

 2c. Other ways to register: 

We don't want to exclude people without access to the Internet or a computer. If you can't use the on-line form, you can fill out and return a form by email or by postal mail. If you would like a form, we can send it by email or postal mail, or you can make arrangements to pick one up. To obtain a form or to get assistance with registration, please email us or call Leigh (613 563-4922) or Louise (613 749-6466).

After you've submitted: Once you've submitted your registration, we'll be in touch with you about your walk. We will send a link so you can see it, and you'll have a chance to request changes before it's posted. We will need your approval on the final walk description before we post it.

If you've submitted a walk but you haven't heard back from us in a day or two, please give us a poke to make sure your registration was received (contact info above).  

Walk leaders are invited to submit self-guided walk or virtual walks. Each walk type must be submitted separately.

 3. Photos for walk descriptions 

We like to have one or more photos or other images to illustrate each walk. A photo will make your walk page unique. If you have a suitable digital photo, you can email it to us after you register your walk. Photos that would be good to illustrate your walk might be a building or a view that will be visible along the way, a group photo of the walk attendees from a previous year, a picture of a relevant item or artifact. An image of a diagram of your route would also be a good choice. As well, we can include links to websites of interest.  

 4. Covid-19 precautions. Jane's Walk is mainly an outdoor event, which makes transmission of covid-19 and other respiratory viruses less likely. That said, we still want to help everyone feel comfortable while participating. Our covid-19 protocol is being updated for 2024 based on current Ottawa Public Health guidelines. View our guidelines on the website.

5. Group management.

• Most walks have attendance limits. Participants sign up for each walk they want to attend. Sign-up is through the link on the walk page, and attendees are notified by email of their reservation. The default limit is 35, but we can set a higher or lower limit for your walk if you prefer a different group size.
• We have megaphones for walk leaders. We hope there will be enough megaphones so that we can have one at every walk, but in cases where a lot of walks overlap, we will have to give priority to walks that are in noisier locations.
• We like to have two marshals at each walk as well as the walk leader. Marshals help keep the group together when moving the group from place to place, look out for safety concerns (e.g., traffic), and assist the leader as needed. We are asking walk leaders to help us by finding one or two people who can help by serving as marshals for their walk. Please pass on contact info for folks you ask to marshal so we can contact them to work out logistics for distributing our marshal kit, as well as flags and megaphones in cases where an organizer might not be attending your walk.

6. Cultural Awareness Guidelines. For walk leaders whose walk topic may include a cultural perspective that differs from their own, we have developed Cultural Awareness guidelines. The guidelines are intended as a self-assessment to examine and hopefully improve cultural sensitivity and authenticity. View Cultural Awareness guidelines. Comments on the guidelines are welcome.

 7. Comments welcome about the website or any aspect of Jane's Walk Ottawa-Gatineau.   If you have any suggestions or comments on our website contents or how well it works for you, or if you have noticed errors, malfunctions, out-of-date information, or broken links, please let us know (email).