The Hansville Greenway relies on volunteers to maintain trails, monitor use, and manage the land.
We want all new volunteers to know what is expected of them and how to perform their duties. The pay is not very good, but there is great satisfaction in helping maintain our natural area—in effect, Hansville’s community forest. The Stewardship Manager will work with you to get you started and will be available to answer your questions.
This document will help the Stewardship Manager get you lined out. The actual Stewardship Guidelines can be found on the Greenway website (hansvillegreenway.org). When you open the site, go to the Library menu and choose Stewardship Guidelines.
Greenway Stewards
The Greenway is divided into 15 stewardship areas, each with a designated trail steward. The steward’s job is to be an observer. They should walk their section of the trail every week or two and report trail conditions. Trail reports can contain as much detail as the steward wishes to include. At a minimum, the report should state when the trail was visited, the weather conditions, maintenance needs, how many people were seen, and if there were dogs along (on-leash or off-leash). In addition, the steward should look at their area to see if there are any disturbances, such as someone building an unauthorized trail, people camping, or incidents of littering or vandalism. The steward may also report on wildlife and wildflowers seen, as well as any invasive plants. The reports are sent to trailreports@hansvillegreenway.com.
Other volunteers
Even if you are not a designated steward, your help in walking the trail and making observations is critical to us doing our job. Just keep your eyes open as you hike the trail and submit a trail report when you finish. Send your observations to the same email.
Some folks wish to help out with trail maintenance. They are happy working to help beat back the brush, cut fallen trees from the trail, and work on special projects. These activities are normally accomplished by a trail crew put together for each maintenance need. As volunteers get familiar with the trails and our equipment, many include the maintenance needs in their trail report and then organize a crew to do the work. The projects mailing list is used to identify the project to be done and to recruit help from our list of people willing to do manual labor.
We need you all, no matter what experience you have or where you live.
Administrative Stuff
In order to officially become a volunteer, you need to fill out the registration form on the county site: https://www.volgistics.com/ex/portal.dll/ap?AP=566670317&OR=1
Once the form is filled out, you will be listed on the county’s official list of volunteers and will be covered by the county should you be injured while engaged in the operation and maintenance of the Hansville Greenway.
Volunteers will be given a username and password so they can log onto the county site and report their hours spent on the Greenway: https://www.volgistics.com/ex2/vicnet.dll?From=12603. The hours are accumulated by the county and used as matching funds to obtain grants.
Mailing Lists
There are three mailing lists on our server which we use to communicate with everyone. Access to the mailing lists is restricted. This means that you and your e-mail will be entered in the system for whichever list you choose to join. If you try to send mail using any e-mail other than the one you signed up with, you will be rejected.
trailreports@hansvillegreenway.org is used for stewards and other volunteers to share what they see on the Greenway. This list gets the most traffic and is a good way to see what everyone is doing.
projects@hansvillegreenway.org is used to announce projects for which help is needed. It helps coordinate workers as to time, date, and equipment needed. Many of our volunteers don’t wish to see all the day-to-day activities, so they only want to be informed when we need help. The projects list is best for these folks.
greenwayfriends@hansvillegreenway.org is a special list for people who don’t really get out on the ground but want to keep track of important news and events. The list includes county administrative personnel and county commissioners.
When you decide to join us, please provide your name, e-mail, and phone number to the webmaster, Art Ellison at afellison21@gmail.com.