There will be two types of sign-ups for 2025:
Some walks have an attendance limit. These walks require attendees to sign up in advance. When you sign up, you'll be sent a confirmation. If you sign up for this type of walk, we ask that you cancel your reservation if you cannot make it to the walk. You can do this from a button in the confirmation email. This allows us to offer the place to someone on the wait-list. Thank you for your co-operation! For walks with attendance limits, if there are a lot of reservations, we have enhanced the process to show how many people are signed up. If the walk is full, it will show the number of people on the wait-list.
Some walks have no attendance limit. You don't need to sign up to attend, but it helps with planning if we have an idea how many people might attend. When you sign up, you'll increase the attendance count, but you will not receive a confirmation email and you will not need to cancel if you decide not to attend. We'll have your email so we can notify you if a walk is cancelled for some reason. (In the past, this has been because of flooding in low-lying areas along the rivers.)
The sign-up dialogue box will indicate whether sign-up is required or not.
We are trying out these changes in response to feedback from walkers last year that the sign-up process we adopted during the pandemic could be frustrating in different ways. People missed the spontaneity of 'pre-pandemic' Jane's Walk, where you could (usually) just show up at a walk to participate. Others found that the walks they wanted to attend were filled and they had no idea how long the wait-list was. On the other hand, the organizers found that it helpful to have an idea how many people to expect and on occasion we were able to add a repeat walk by the same leader when the wait-list was very long. With respect to attendance caps, we are working in collaboration with walk leaders to establish attendance limits based on their preferences and with consideration for the walk routes from a safety and logistical perspective.
Let us know how this is working for you so we can make adjustments if needed.