Margaret Jones: bringing people together

What sort of trips are appealing most to members at the moment?

We’re finding that days out are really popular. I’m doing a Buxton Crescent trip in two weeks, and it’s already oversubscribed. We’ve had to put a limit of 40 people to make it comfortable for everybody. We used to have a lot of formal dinners, but they seem to have fallen by the wayside. The focus now is all about days out.

We put on 16 events a year and we have a group of 50 who come regularly. We also send out a quarterly newsletter advertising what events we’re going to put on during the next quarter, and we try to advertise six months in advance so that members can put a note in their diary.

At one stage, we used to do a ramble every month that included a pub lunch afterwards as a reward. It was great. Interest hasn’t been as high of late, so we only put four on a year now.

What are the big challenges when it comes to arranging visits?

Our policy is that we don’t provide transport. People have to get there under their own steam. This is because we cover such a huge region, from south of the Lake District to the Wales border. It’d be almost impossible for us to put on coaches. You would spend all day picking everybody up and never get anywhere!

It makes planning more difficult. It’s disappointing when you think you’ve found somewhere brilliant, then you see it isn’t near a train station. With the Buxton trip we have coming up, I was worried because I thought it wasn’t going to be easy for our members to get to. It turns out that a lot of them can get there by train.

In many ways, not providing transport is just as challenging as arranging it. You’ve got to be conscious about what time you book the tour for in relation to what time members can get there and stuff like that.

Is it important for you to keep trips local?

Yes, we tend to keep locations within an hour’s travelling distance of Manchester city centre. I think the furthest south we would go, truthfully, is Chester. We’ve done things as far as Preston, and that doesn’t seem to put people off. Within an hour of Manchester seems to be the ideal place.

We also need to be mindful of the group’s accessibility needs. Some of our memberships are elderly because it’s a pensioners’ group. Also, because we don’t get a lot of new members our age range is only going up. It means you’ve got to be aware of whether people can climb stairs, or whether there is an access lift at places we visit.

What has been the ‘stand out’ trip in recent years?

There is a brilliant walking tour of Manchester. We’ve done two of those now. A brilliant guide called Josh takes us, and he does them on different aspects of the city; the next one we’re going to will be based on the Northern Quarter. It’s just fascinating. It’s so good, I’ve had someone on the tour say to me, “I’ve lived here for 60 years, and I didn’t know that about Manchester!”

With walking tours, we tend to find that people initially aren’t that keen on the idea but once they are there, they thoroughly enjoy themselves. They surprise people. We had a Blue Badge Guide give us a walking tour around Liverpool, and people were totally bowled over by that one. We’ve never had so many emails afterwards saying how good it was.

What trips have you got lined up for the rest of the year?

The next major visit we’ve got is a tour of Buxton Crescent in Derbyshire. We’ve paid for the guided tour because the guides really bring the history of the place to life. It’s a two-hour tour and includes a cup of tea at the end, which appeals to the masses. You also find that with a lot of these places they give you a discount for group packages, so that makes it better value for money.

We do a golf day every year, but that doesn’t tend to be as popular as other trips. We get about 16 people going on that one – but then you’ve got to do some niche things to keep members interested, haven’t you.

The next big one we’re doing is in August to Horton Tower and that includes a guided tour and afternoon tea. You can have a wander around the gardens in the afternoon, so that should be a good one.

After Christmas, we do a lunch in a pub up near Rochdale. It’s quite a pretty journey to get up there and it’s quite reasonable, they put three courses on for us. That’s quite nice as it gives people a chance to have a natter and talk about their Christmas.