Home

ABOUT US

The Wee Binnian Walkers are a Newry based hill walking group started in 1987 as a direct result of the Northern Ireland “Change of Heart” coronary prevention programme.

Founded by Veronica McCann, a lifestyle tutor with the programme, the group which began with 11 women and evolved in a very gradual way over the early years. Having it’s origins within this community health promotion programme proved to be a major factor in the successful development of the club, as in the early days there was no source of income.

The founder was able to legitimise this as a project within her professional remit, which not only gave it status but allowed her to give it the necessary dedicated time and access to resources. Development was within a project framework and the only other person involved at that stage was a paid walks leader. This was a very loose arrangement with a fee of £1 per head being charged to cover this expense. However as a result of publicity from various initiatives and a pro-active recruiting strategy the attendance never went below the initial 11 and eventually by 1994 had grown to 60 plus.

By then new members with hill walking leadership skills had joined the ranks and were acting as co-leaders but it was becoming increasingly evident with an ever increasing membership that for reasons of risk management the group needed to be formalised.

In 1994 as part of the Newry 850 celebrations the first Wee Binnian Walking Festival took place and the success of this event established the club firmly on the national hill walking circuit .They were the very first group to host a walking festival in Northern Ireland and still are the only independent club to do so.

Running the festival and the subsequent surge of new members was the spur to form a properly constituted club. The festival steering group, acting as a management committee, took on that task. Following widespread consultations at both regional and local level a properly constituted club with a strong cross-community focus was established at a public meeting in Newry Arts Centre on 15^th March 1995.

The Wee Binnians who see themselves primarily as “a social group who walks” have dedicated themselves since then to becoming the safest possible walking club on the hills and their investment in both their leadership training programme and safety equipment ensures that.

The development of hill walking as a leisure pursuit has been phenomenal over the last number of years and The Wee Binnians Walkers, who are the largest hill walking club in N Ireland continue to meet all the challenges that this has presented. For club sociability 2 away trips are organised each year either linking in to the thriving Irish Walking Festival circuit or club led outings to new areas. The club also operates an open policy for visiting clubs to promote intra-national networking. The Wee Binnian Walking Club is affiliated domestically to the UFRC (Ulster Federation of Rambling Clubs) and internationally to the IVV (Internationaler Volksportverband).

Wee Binnian Walkers | weebinnians@eircom.net