Organizations

Checklist for a Successful Track Chair Programs

• Visit many parks, beaches, national monuments and develop your venues making sure they are fun, safe, and accessible.

• Establish a good working relationship with the authorities of your venues. This may be a county for a county park or a state department of national resources for a state park.  Determine fees, permits and insurances required to operate at that venue.

• Understand the resources at your venues such as pavilions and BBQ grills.  Are there support personnel available like park rangers or park volunteers?

• Are there specific track chairs activities available at your venue like shore-based fishing, disc golf or geocaching?

• Will your trail tours be open, guided, or have specific educational themes like an evening bat tour or a geological adventure?

• Can you partner with other organizations and offer accessibility to their schedule of activities.  Potential partners can be friends of “the park”, Fish and Wildlife Commission or County / City Parks and Recreation.

• Establish various types of venues to give your guests the opportunity to enjoy different outdoor activities.  Sunset at the beach.  Trail Adventure. U-pick blueberry.

• Consider an EcoRover Chair for everyone in the group.  This may be hard to understand.  But the first time you see a father and his two sons enjoying a morning in the woods together for the first time, the reason will be very clear.

• Set up a good scheduling system that is simple and assures the guests that their information will remain confidential.  Events should be scheduled well in advance so guests can plan their schedules.

• A good venue strategy is to set up multiple venues under one authority and in the process partner with them.  In 2022 we set up five county parks with Hillsborough County (Tampa, FL).  The parks had a wide variety of activities.  Hillsborough County provided free pavilions and waived the requirement for insurance riders.