As San Antonian's we, as a city, are proud of our culture and historical heritage. One of the things we love to do in San Antonio is to celebrate, so an event was created to honor our inclusion into the rarefied air as one of the UNESCO World Heritage sites. That event is the World Heritage Festival which took place over the past five days.
The organizers describe the festival as follows:
"The City of San Antonio, in connection with Bexar County, San Antonio River Authority (SARA), National Park Service, The Alamo, Mission Heritage Partners..., and Las Misiones organized the first City of San Antonio World Heritage Festival in 2016. The fesitval occurs after Labor Day weekend and overlaps with the Organization of World Heritage Cities, Solidarity Day of World Heritage Cities that occurs annually on September 8th. The Organization of the World Heritage Cities was created on this date and urges the administration of each organization city to take advantage of this day to stress the important responsibility of the city to protect as well as promote the world heritage and especially the privilege of having a part of that heritage in their city.
"The World Heritage Festival is an annual collaborative event to celebrate and promote our San Antonio Missions, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Festival is a five-day celebration spread throughout the five San Antonio Missions and surrounding area and has something for everyone, while providing funding for nonprofit organizations and projects that preserve, maintain, promote, and connect."I am going to tell you about "our" little piece of that festival: organizing the Tour de las Misiones 5k and 10k walks. The "our" I am referring to is the American Volkssport Association (AVA: America's Walking Club) and the Selma Pathfinders (a member club of the AVA). [NOTE: Tour de las Misiones also has 22-mile, 17-mile, and 7-mile bike rides, as well as 5k and 10k runs. Those are managed by other groups.]
In 2016, the first year of the festival, a different group was in charge of the walk portion of the festival. Apparently, it did not go well and in 2017 the AVA took over stewardship of the walk. The 2017 event was a success with 200 walkers participating, and close to 500 enjoying all the events.
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| 2017 World Heritage Festival AVA volunteers |
Each year, months of planning lead up to the festival. This year, I attended only the second to the last meeting. (I was taking over for my friend Susan Medlin, one of the AVA volunteers, who was going on a Canadian cross-country train trip. A group of Volksmarchers were on board the train and would do walks in stops along the way.) From my little glimpse into what was needed to run the festival, my eyes were opened and I was amazed and a bit overwhelmed.
I am no stranger to the walks. At least year's festival, Bob and I helped a little. We joined Susan on the walks to make sure the written directions were correct.
This year, Susan and I did the 5k walk together to check the route 1-1/2 weeks before the event. Then our group of volunteers had a "worker's walk" six days before the event to strategize optimum placement of our walk checkpoints and to let everyone know where the festival's "water/wellness" stations would be located. Major portions of our walk routes were on trails along the river. Our volunteers had jobs ranging from organizing the walk portion of the event, working at the water/wellness stations and checkpoints, to working in our booth selling items, talking with people who wanted to join AVA, checking people in at the end of the race, and stamping members' AVA achievement books.
You never know what might happen to change a walking route, such as construction causing a detour or flooding on the Mission Reach of the River Walk, the main part of our trail. During heavy rains in San Antonio, the river can (and sometimes does) come over the banks onto the Mission Reach Trail. When it does, it deposits mud, garbage, and fish along the sides of and on the trail itself. We cannot be on the trail with conditions like that for safety reasons. The mud is thick, oozy, and extremely slippery. Walking on that mud was described to me as being like walking on marbles over ice. I have slipped in it myself.
In this year's planning, we had to be hypervigilant about the weather. Thunderstorms and flooding in previous days had inundated other parts of the San Antonio, especially the west and north sides. So far, we had residual flooding coming down the San Antonio River from creeks and tributaries flowing into it from the north/northwest.
I should mention, that in addition to Tour de las Misiones, Mission Pachanga was also scheduled for Mission Pavilion Park from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. After the bike rides/runs/walks, we could stay to enjoy musical entertainment, and food, informational, and shopping booths. So all of these events hinged on the weather cooperating.
The forecast for Saturday was for thunderstorms and a flash flood warning. The event leaders had to make a determination on Friday whether or not to hold the Tour de las Misiones on Saturday a.m.
When a group went out Friday a.m. to check the trail next to the river, the San Antonio River was 10' over flood stage. Later in the afternoon, when checked again, it was 5' over flood stage. The trail would not be safe to walk.
The decision was made to go ahead with the event; however, the walk routes would be changed to be the same as the run routes. The runners were going on streets, not trails. That presented our group leader with a challenge. We didn't have exact written directions of the new (to us) running routes. We hand out detailed written instructions to our walkers to go along with our trail markings.
We have to give a lot of credit to John Ives, our stand-in walk organizer, for getting new written directions together in an afternoon and getting them printed and sent out to everyone involved via email.
Incidents and unexpected events like this test the true mettle of volunteers. John handled the whole turn of events with aplomb. He did say, however, that our regular walk organizer would not be allowed to go anywhere during the festival in the future...he was going to put an ankle-tracking device on him (all in jest, of course).
So, overnight, all of us worried about the festival. Would we have thunder, lightning, and downpours? Would the river become a raging torrent? Would we be able to put on all the events?
Saturday morning, 5:00 a.m.: Volunteers and city workers started arriving. The area did not have thunderstorms overnight. The forecast had changed and no storms were predicted until noon. Yay!
Bob and I were in charge of marking the 5k (me) and 10k (Bob) walker's routes. The San Antonio River Authority (SARA) provided ATVs to take us along the routes. We gathered up our trail-marking materials -- metal stakes, arrows, and streamers on clothespins -- and loaded them into the ATVs. It was pitch black, so we were happy to have ATVs with headlights.
My part of the trail marking took us through some woods on the way to Mission San Jose. The cart did not have a windshield. I could see spider webs across the trail in places and I hoped we did not get any spiders in our faces!! (No one told me about THAT hazard when I volunteered.)
As we drove along, there were places where I put in stakes with directional arrows, and in other places hung AVA streamers on tree branches or fence posts. At one such stop, my ATV driver, Carlos, was trying to get something off the hood. It was a big spider we had apparently picked up in the woods! Eek!
I was able to mark all of the 5k route except inside Mission San Jose's walls...it was way too early for them to open. Normally, the missions open at 9:00 a.m.
Bob and I met back at Mission Pavilion Park. Most of the AVA volunteers were there setting up our tables, banners, brochures, items for sale, and table displays.
At 7:00 a.m., I had an appointment with Greg, the local national park security manager, who was going to open Mission San Jose early so I could mark the route inside the mission grounds, and the volunteer set-up crew could put up a water/wellness station and a checkpoint. So far, so good.
My next obligation was to lead the walkers through the start gate and onto the trail at approximately 8:30 a.m. All the prep and set up of booths by volunteers at our and other organizations were either done or well underway.
The thoughtful organizers of this event brought in free breakfast tacos (donated by Nicha's Restaurant) for all the volunteers. I think even the participants partook.
As I was eating and waiting for the walkers to start, I was perspiring like crazy. The humidity must have been 90+%. My hair was wet and dripping down my neck. Just before the start, I changed from my walking shirt into my volunteer shirt.
The bikers headed out the start gate first, followed by the runners. The walkers were in the back of the pack because we're the slowest. Last year, when we headed out the start gate, my friend Susan Medlin was the lead and she carried a huge rainbow umbrella. Before they left for their train trip, she gave me the umbrella so I could continue the tradition this year. At last, they counted down the walk start time, and we were off.
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| 2017 Tour de las Misiones walk. [Photo courtesy of Martin Callahan.] |
So as not to confuse the 5k walkers, I became a human arrow before the running group person to direct our 5k walkers toward the directions indicated on the walk instructions. (I found out after the walk that our 5k instructions only came out to about 4.5k. Oh, well, we did the best we could at the last minute. As far as I know, no one got lost, although some 5k walkers who had passed me after the mission, did end up going the runners' route. They did not get lost either, LOL. All was good.)
After I finished leading the walk, it was time to take down the 5k markings. Since I was headed out with the ATV, there were supplies that needed to be delivered to some of the water/wellness stations. One station was out of water and cups. It was crucial that job got done before I took down the trail markings.
On the way back to take down trail markings after the deliveries, I saw a lady walking who looked like she was in distress. We stopped. She hurt herself walking and needed a ride back to the park. Blake gave up his spot in the ATV and we took her back. She was very grateful.
I then went out with Carlos in the ATV and we removed the 5k arrows and streamers. There were still four people on the 10k walk course, so we left up those markings until they finished. Bob took down the 10k markings that the people had already passed.
Our weather was good with no rain at all during the full day festival. Toward the end of the walk, we had a little breeze, although the temperature was still about 92.
What I would like to leave you with is this.
- Even though our original leaders for this festival were not there, the rest of us pulled off the event.
- In the RVing world where we have spent a lot of our time, we call this "plans made in Jell-o." We remained flexible and went with the flow. It was a little wobbly at first, but we didn't melt down. In the end, it turned out fine.
- If you are volunteering and major changes have to be made, keep your chin up and a positive attitude. People participating in the event don't need to know all the details or your woes. They are there to have a good time.
- If you don't already, make time to volunteer for an organization you believe in. They need you and will appreciate whatever you can do.
- Even if you can't volunteer for some reason, thank the volunteers you see.
- Support your local events. It took a lot of effort to make sure you have a good time.
- Everything may not be "perfect," but things are probably good enough.
way to go. . .sounds as though, through it all, there was success!
ReplyDeleteJanice,
ReplyDeleteYes, the event was a success. People enjoyed the walk, for many it was their first time doing a 5k or 10k. Everyone finished, except the injured lady, despite the heat and high humidity.