Tell us your thoughts on connecting with other families for outdoor activities - £100 voucher to be won! NOW CLOSED

[EllieMumsnet]

Like us, we're sure that the majority of you are relieved to see the end of the cold, dark, and wet months of winter (although it doesn’t quite feel like it yet!) and are welcoming spring and summer with open arms. The arrival of warmer days, bright mornings and longer evenings for many of us means it’s time to get outdoors with the family.

Here at MNHQ we would love to find out your thoughts on being able to connect with other families for shared and group outdoor activities such as: organised walks, visits to nature trails and areas of outstanding natural beauty, and other fun stuff for parents and kids to do together.

What sort of activities would make you consider joining an outdoor network with other families? Would you like to be able to connect with families in your local area or from further afield? Perhaps you have ideas of how this network could be run/organised? Are you already part of a group of families that organise outdoor activities together? If so tell us about it!

Whatever your thoughts are about connecting with other families do to outdoor activities, please comment on the thread below and you will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £100 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!
MNHQ

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Me and a couple of mums from school meet up regularly in the school holidays, we like doing free activities! A nice local park and we take a picnic and games, also which the kids love we go to a local stream and the kids take their fishing nets and wellies, it's a great day out plus free

Our local park is great for family get togethers! There is a little area set apart which is perfect for cricket, rounders or football. The kids getting together keep themselves entertained and love it and the adults can have a bit of socialising while keeping a watchful eye!

It's a great idea and a lovely way for the children to be able to meet other children and explore together.

Good for everyone concerned because the children get to make new friends and have fun and the adults get a change to mingle and support each other and unwind together

this is a great idea because it a good way to meet new people and join in activities you might not normally do.

It's a great idea to meet other families who have the same interests, you could end up being friends for life

I think that this would be very good, but would not know where to start, or where to join in. Any information would be welcome.

We like to meet up with friends who also have children in a local woods, walk all around it and then cook bacon sandwiches for brunch on a camp stove. The children have the incentive of each other and some bacon at the end of it and the adults can catch up with flasks of tea and a sarnie, great mornings out in nature all round

I have a friend with kids the similar ages so we tend to make plans that include going for walks. The beach, the park or even in a local woodland with cafe. The kids love running off some steam and the adults love chatting and the nice relaxing walk!

I like the idea of it, its a chance to meet new people and your kids can make new friends. I wouldn't travel too far for it though, i'd prefer to keep it local

This is a great way to encourage kids and families to spend more time together outdoors away from the TV screens and game consoles for a while and helps motivate being healthy and happy! I think it's brilliant, especially during the summer months when it's the perfect time to be outside. I'd love to be a part of organised walks and trails, we have a dog too and I think involving the pets would be good fun :)

Would love to do more outdoor activities, we do walk our dogs as a group sometimes but to make a trip of it, maybe a picnic on a sunny day would be ideal!

We regularly go out with other families on farm trips, to theme parks or just local parks and woodlands. It's so much more fun for our kids to have their friends along and nice for us to have other adults to chat to :)

We already have lots of people in the extended family network and friends to go out with. We wouldn't have time to add another group o this

Our eldest is Autistic and trips out can be unpredictable at best sometimes. He is very flighty and can buzz from one area to another very fast, so day trips out for us usually mean 1 parent with him, and the other parent with our other 2 children. This means we don't often meet up with other families for days out as just not practical at the moment, although we do have play days at home and at friends houses where we can keep an eye on him easier.

I think it is a great idea, especially if the other families come from farther afield would be a great fun learning experience for adults and kids alike

We live in then eat of the Pembrokeshire countryside - out in the 'sticks' as we put it, so having meet-ups with other people is impossible. We would love to have get togethers and walks on the 186 mile coastline but there's not life for miles and miles!

I love the spring/summer when you can get out and get together with friends. I'm still in touch with my NCT group and now we're such a large group as we all have 2nd and, some of us!, 3rd children we need to go out somewhere. We love going for walks with the kids or to parks etc where they can have fun and we can catch up and chat :)

i prefer just my family on days out as we dont spend enough time as a family

It sounds good in theory, but I'm not sure how it would work with different abilities (how far/fast DC can walk etc) and different ages. If someone can make it happen then I would probably give it a go

It would be good to meet DC of similar age, could persuade my DC to go out more / get more involved in the activity. It would also be nice to widen the friendship groups without it costing money (for paid for clubs) and where adults and children can both connect at the same time

I wouldn't do it all of the time though because I do like to spend time as a family and wouldn't want it to completely replace that

My younger sister has children who arent too much different in age to my youngest so we meet up with them for outdoor activities usually

having an actual activity helps, and asking each person to do something in particualr as well. if every person ( of every age ) has a task makes them feel involved

We are not keen on making arrangements with other families; we have done in the past but often other families ideas of fun aren't the same as ours and vice versa. Also you need to rely on the children getting on and that isn't always the case, it's easy to resolve arguments between your own children but much more difficult to resolve if the argument is with a friend's child.

I think this is a fantastic idea, especially for shared walks, activities etc.
This would be good for social interaction as today's lifestyles can leave people feeling very isolated so having a group of other families who you could meet up with would really help this and benefit both parents and children.

Join a local walking group.