Over the course of this past year I’ve realized that it would be nice if I expanded my circle of local friends. I have a couple of great friends who I love to meet up with for coffee…but that’s like a whole event to plan and it doesn’t happen as frequently as I’d like (or need!).
Growing up, I remember my mom meeting our neighbor for a walk a few nights a week. They’d call each other on the phone and say, “I’m leaving the house now,” and meet in the middle. They’d walk for a half hour, visit, unwind and then head back home.
That seems so nice…and recently I have found myself wishing for a similar friend in the neighborhood to walk and visit with…and I have no excuse– there are three new families on our road that are close in age– one family even fosters!
So I’m pushing myself out of my comfort zone and starting a walking club. This scares me for a few reasons:
- What if no one shows up?
- What if one person shows up and they’re weird or I don’t enjoy their company?
- What if I want to quit and can’t because I started it!
I think these are valid….but if I’m looking for friendship, I’m guessing a few others on our road are too!
Tips for Starting a Walking Club
So I did a little “research” and found a few helpful tips for starting a walking club:
- Designate a “co-leader” once it gets going so all of the planning and organizing isn’t on my shoulders.
- If possible, have a set schedule so everyone knows when the group is meeting each week.
- Have a set meeting location.
- Have a plan for poor weather days.
- Be clear who is and isn’t invited– are kids and pets allowed?
This seemed reasonable, so I set to work making a flyer (this is the fun part for me– actually distributing seems scarier ;) Here you can see a sample of the flyer. We’ve created it as a Google Doc, too, if you want to copy it and use it yourself!
TO USE OUR FLYER TEMPLATE:
1) Follow this link to Google Drive
2) Click on “File” in the upper left of Google drive (not “file” for your web browser! ;)
3) Select “Make a copy” from the dropdown
4) Hit “Ok” — this will save a copy to your Google drive that can be edited!
How I’m going to distribute the flyers:
I thought about mailing them but know that a personal invitation goes a lot further! So my hope is to deliver them in person. Then I can put a face to the flyer and hopefully they can see that I’m fairly normal myself (I know they’ll have most of the same concerns that I did!! ;)
VIDEO: Will you be my friend?
(Or watch this video on YouTube here!)
What will happen next?
Overall, I don’t know how this will go…and as much as I’m nervous, I’m also excited. I think we all could use a little more human interaction right now (outside of the humans in our immediate household!) so I’m hopeful that some great connections will be made!
I’ll keep you posted!!!
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