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FRAN: Hello and welcome to On The Outside, the podcast that shares diverse views on outdoors news. We are recording this episode on Wednesday, 11th August and in today's show, we're talking about responses to racism on Ben Nevis, the ethics of horses in sport and our feelings on outdoors festivals.
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FRAN: My name is Francesca Turauskis. I am the producer of On the Outside and your host for today. And on our panel today we have Oge Ejizu, back for another episode. Oge, welcome back. I'm glad I didn't scare you off.
OGE: Thank you for having me, and I’m glad to be back.
FRAN: And we have two new panellists as well who I will get to introduce themselves starting with Soraya.
SORAYA: Hi, I'm Soraya. I'm an award winning writer, artist, advocate for diversity in the UK outdoors and founder of the All The Elements network.
FRAN: And Ani.
ANI: Hi I’m Ani. I'm an outdoor enthusiast who is chronically ill and disabled. I use the outdoors to gain confidence and freedom to contrast the daily limitations my health brings. I enjoy hiking, wild swimming and stand up paddleboarding.
OGE: Thanks. I'm happy to be back. My name is Oge Ejizu, and for those that don't know me I am the London regional leader for Black Girls Hike and I love hiking.
FRAN: Welcome to the show, all of you. And it's been a fairly busy week in the UK outdoors. The climbing world has been alight with Olympics talk. Snowdonia National Park has told off a wild camper who camped out on Snowdon. But today we are talking about three stories in particular, and the first story comes from Ani.
ANI: So a couple of weeks ago, there was a far right group that decided to climb Ben Nevis and hold a huge banner saying White lives matter. It got quite a bit of reaction because Ben Nevis is a very popular mountain and quite a few people came out against it. Some of them organisations that are part of Scottish hiking. Some of them more diversity groups aimed at getting diversity black Asian, minority ethnic people out into the outdoors. I think that I found out about this from who runs the Muslim Hikers group. He'd literally gone up with his group the first time the day before on Snowdon, and they were all excited and posting about that. It was a huge outcome. And then obviously this stunt happened. And it kind of made, I think, a few people nervous and yeah. So he spoke a lot about how he was really angry, why he did what he did and why he set up the Muslim hikers. A few other groups, like boots and beards, which is more of, a they want to bring colour to the outdoors is what their phrase is, I think, and they are Scotland based. But their members had come to them and said, Look, I'm nervous about going outdoors now, but also in return said this is a minority and we don't need to let people stop us from doing our thing.
FRAN: No, I think this is something which obviously Ani, I think you were the first one to tell me, but a couple of people bought this to me as something that needs to be talked about essentially. And there's so much that we can unpack here. One of the things that I really wanted to focus on and we talked about this off mic a little bit was that I want to talk about the responses to this. I don't think that we should give too much attention to what actually happened, but I think it would be really useful to talk about the way in which people have responded. So you've heard a little bit there about some of the groups that come out. The groups are always very vocal about diversity and visual diversity in the outdoor space. But there are a couple of places that have responded quite well and some that haven't responded at all as yet. So, Oge or Soraya, is there anything in particular that you would like to mention on this?
SORAYA: I don't really have much to say about individual responses. And that's mostly because I avoid this sort of coverage entirely, which is kind of almost part of what we should be talking about. I'm really in two minds about it because I feel like it's really important to talk about these things happening because it's important to share with people, especially the people who say that racism doesn't exist in the outdoors and that people feel welcome and should feel welcome all the time. So it's important to put this out there to kind of tackle that narrative, But I feel like I went to a really interesting talk in London by Cass Sunstein. I'm not sure I'm saying that correctly, but he was part of Obama's team, and it was about how change happens, basically and one of the things that I took away from it, and this is really simplifying it. But one of the things I took away from it was that people will take action and be more vocal about what they think if they believe that a lot of other people hold the same opinion as they do. And I feel like by really putting the image out there and talking a lot about the action and spreading it around on all our social media and doing all of those sorts of things. Are we not making them feel like they're part of a bigger movement? Are we not getting it in front of people who are also going to think ‘Oh well, they think it and they're doing it. And I also think that so I should be out there also talking about my opinions on this matter’ when actually, it's a very small percentage of people. And we would all well, not all of us. But I think all of us here would rather that they kept those things to themselves and understood that actually, it's unacceptable within our society. And I also think, and I touched on this at the beginning of what I'm saying, that it's also very emotionally draining to see that sort of thing online all the time. And I personally try and steer away from reading about it and seeing it and having it too much drip feeding into my mind. And not everyone wants to see it. And I also think, touching on what Ani said about what Haroon was saying about his new group of hikers that he's just started. We're also communicating a message that they're going to see that, and they're going to think that is what the outdoors is like, and if they haven't had any experience of the outdoors, how do they know that that isn't what they're going to face every time they go out there. So we are also perpetuating this idea that some people don't belong there.
FRAN: For me as somebody that is essentially the white life, as they like to call it: I still find it very angering to see the photos online all the time. It's something that, for me, is quite a visceral reaction. So I can only imagine what it would be like if you feel like that banner is being aimed at you. Is that something that anyone would like to speak to at all?
OGE: Yeah, I don't mind speaking to it. I mean, when I saw, I didn't actually see the banner, I just saw people reposting what Haroon had put up who is part of Muslim hikers. And, you know, his condemning of the banner and everything. And when I saw it, I thought, ‘Oh, these people again’. And then I went on with my day because they did it last year. They did it the year before that, and that's what they want. You know, that they put it on their website explicitly that they want people to be enraged and start re-posting them. So as Soraya was saying, we give them the oxygen, that they want. And my heart really does go out for, you know, the people who have said or you know, after seeing that they feel intimidated or they feel scared to go out into the outdoors. But that is really the minority. And it is really not the majority. I think what summarises my feeling when they did it last year, in I think it was June or July, I put something up on Instagram, and this and that post was a reminder to myself that this will continue to happen, but I can't get distracted with you know, these feeble attempts to stoke a quote unquote culture war or, you know, race war wherever may have you. And it's a Toni Morrison quote that I always have to remind myself whenever I feel like I'm emotionally being pulled into kind of these, these topics of, you know, discussion or or when kind of a knee jerk reaction is going to be elicited. The quote, not in its fullness, but an abbreviation of the quote says ‘the function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again your reason for being’. And then I put a little disclaimer of, you know, the events that had happened for me to get to that point. And then I said at the end, for me, this racism train is losing steam, and I'm no longer taking passengers. There will always be another layer. In other words, I can't come and kill myself, which is, African euphemism. But it's basically this is not the hill that I want to die on, and those are my thoughts.
FRAN: There's a lot of nodding going on on the screen that we're on here just to let listeners know. Yeah, I think it's beautifully said, and it's something that I don't think will dwell on this much more, like I say I wanted very much to talk about how we should respond to these things. And it was something that I put into our newsletter last week. And I spent a long time thinking about how to phrase that story because I wanted it to be known that it has happened. But I decided to focus on the reaction to it and one of the positive reactions, which was Haroon inviting people to come and climb Ben Nevis as a community as a whole outdoor community. And I think that that's what I personally wanted to share.
OGE: And I also think, you know, when these things do happen, it's just an opportunity to also shine a light on the amazing people that are doing such great work, or even just existing and being out in the outdoors that people can look to and say, Oh, wow, you know, I do see myself in the outdoors and I will give a few shameless plugs. So Zara the Hillwalking Hijabi. So there’s Steppers, there's BGHUK. Black Trail Runners, Muslim Hikers, Outdoors with Rena and everyone else on the On the Outside podcast I think we should more so shine the light on the work that we're doing to encourage people to be more diverse and inclusive in the outdoors.
ANI: I'm always in two minds about it and I have the same opinion as Oge and Soraya, but I do find it like an emotional response. And I think something that always rings a bell for me is that I always get sucked into the sharing thing and then I realise that this is what they want. They've taken that photo for this exact purpose to hurt people, to get shared, to get more publicity to that thing. But the other side of it is, I remember posting something last year about this. I had a friend who messaged me like ‘I didn't realise this stuff is still going on’, and I didn't I didn't realise that this actually happened. I thought it was like it happened in the 70s. I didn't realise people still had these opinions. And for me, this person is very intelligent, very caring, compassionate, but they just didn't know because it wasn't something that was on their radar. Sometimes I feel like by putting it out there, but it has happened, that image helps people realise that, and then as a result, I don't know, maybe gains a bit more awareness into the issue. But then it goes back to it's still advertising them. I don't want to get emotional and waste my time on that.
FRAN: And I think that's where allies come in, isn't it? It's where people that don't have - well, I mean, everyone should have an emotional reaction to it - but people that don't have as much of an emotional reaction and as much of a personal - again everyone should have a personal investment in it - but people that are slightly disconnected from it should be the ones that are in the position of sharing those stories. And like Oge said, we can try and do that in a way where we are amplifying the good as well as sharing the bad, and I think that one of the good things with that - Ani you pointed out to me that Haroon was getting hate messages on his YouTube channel - afterwards, the first thing that I did was go and just, like, make some nice comments on his YouTube channel. And as he was saying on his Instagram stories, thanks for upping the engagement racists. So they do have, even though they don't want it to happen, they do have a purpose sometimes.
OGE: I do want to talk about, though, Ani, I agree with what you're saying. Like the balance between how much exposure do you give to enlighten people, and how much do you have to find the balance of not being not getting sucked into the emotional side of it? But I think what's really interesting is when people think, or you know, this narrative around, that is what racism is, and you know those overt acts and those kind of, you know, terrible, you know things. And it's like, well, that's over there. That is not me and I would never do that when in actual fact, it's about, you know, the things that are, you know, covert, the things that are more under the surface, the structural things, the you know the things that we don't think about when we're building infrastructures or, you know, when we're looking at inequities, the things that we don't challenge. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but you know, when we're looking, when we're building kind of or trying to capture ethnicity data, you know, putting categories like non-white or white, and that's it. Not thinking about those things like what does that kind of perpetuate in our minds in terms of yes, not overt racism, but it's still building that narrative, that white is the norm. And so how do we challenge those kinds of ways of thinking? I think that's where the work comes in for me.
SORAYA: I was going to say I completely agree with you, and I think that's the difficulty with talking about racism in the UK compared to a lot of other places is that as the British public as a whole generally will respond with, ‘I'm not racist’, even though they hold subconscious bias, even though they're upholding structural systems that are perpetuating racism and problems throughout our society, and that is one of the things that I feel actually really passionate about is making sure that when we talk about racism in the UK and we talk about under representation and under supported groups in the UK, is that we make sure that we make sure that we use stats that are UK related, that we talk about the situation here, that we talk about people who are doing good work here and we don't get to - we can learn from the U.S. We can learn a lot from the US - but we don't get too distracted by that. And we talk about what's going on in our own society and how we can tackle it on the ground here.
FRAN: So our next story will be coming from Soraya. But first I'm going to tell you a little story about sponsorship.
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FRAN: I am excited to learn more from this next story because it is something that I know nothing about. And that is horses. Soraya, tell us about horses.
SORAYA: I mean, that is a very broad invitation. But today I am bringing a story which has originated in the Olympics but actually has kind of spiralled out into the broader community. As anyone who follows horse sport and quite a lot of people who don't follow horse sport have probably seen there has been a bit of a scandal going on around the modern pentathlon. For those of you who don't know modern pentathlon involves people fencing, swimming, running, shooting and horse riding. And it was actually introduced into the Olympics when it was restarted as the modern Games. And the idea is supposed to be that it's like the most elite of the athletes, because they can do all of these different activities really well. What happened is that during the modern pentathlon this year in the riding segment, a German rider, Annika Schleu, I hope I'm saying that correctly, was she was struggling with her horse basically and her horse did not want to go. It didn't want to do the show jumping round, and she was hitting it. And her coach also hit it, which is completely against the rules. And her coach has now been banned from the Tokyo Olympics entirely. But it raised all sorts of issues about using horses in sport and has started up the ongoing debate that's been going on for many, many years about whether horses should be used in sports and in the outdoors in general. I think for me there are a lot of different aspects of this. There are lots of equestrian events in the Olympics. There is dressage, which is the horse dancing. There is show jumping. And then there is also eventing, which involves some dressage, some show jumping and a round of what is called cross country, where you go over a longer distance over fixed fences. Although they have got increased safety measures these days. And in all of those activities, you bring your own horse basically. And so it's established partnerships that compete already all over the world at a very high level who come to take part. In modern pentathlon, the horses are actually provided by the host country. So volunteers give them for the period of the games. They are screened as being suitable to take part. The riders who take part in modern pentathlon have to pass a competency test to show that they are able to ride up to a sufficient level. And the course that is designed is actually designed for the horse to make it easy for the horse to make its way around, if it is a competent show jumper, which it will be, and so the riders just have to kind of hold them in place and guide them. So the debate has gone on forever about the use of force horses in the outdoors. Should we ride them? Should they be forced? I'm using that in inverted commas to take part in these activities. Do they have a place at the Olympics? And I would like to get everyone else's thoughts on this because as a horse person, I know that there's a variety of opinions within the horse community, but also, I want to know what everyone else thinks.
OGE: I was going to say thanks, Soraya, because I am totally uninitiated in modern pentathlon and also just in the horse riding community. I don't know. I don't know if I have any kind of strong thoughts around horses and riding horses in the outdoors, but I do have a lot of thoughts on how these articles are really framed, you know that Fran you shared when kind of pulling this together and understanding about some of the issues that have come out of the Olympics. Just, you know, uncooperative horses wreak havoc, killed dreams at Olympic pentathlon. It's not the horse's fault, it's so weird to me. But anyway, I do think there is an ethical question around how these horses are transported, how they are used, how they're treated. Yeah, I don't have any strong opinions. I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks.
ANI: So I actually used to ride horses when I was younger. So I have limited knowledge of the horse community. I actually stopped riding because I fell off a horse and had quite a bad, nasty injury. Because the horse I was riding in was unhappy - I mean, bearing in mind, I was a child so don't come for me. He wasn't wanting to do what he was supposed to do. We were doing a cross country course. Just a little one that we had at the riding school. He wasn't being cooperative, so I was told, give him a tap with the whip. And the more I did this, the more angry he got. And I was like, no, he’s starting to buck. He's getting angry and they're like, no, no, can't carry on. He needs to know who's boss. In the end, he showed me that he was the boss. I think after that I decided that horses are very - they can be very strong personalities. Very, you know, quite a good character. I don't know if we should never ride them. I think that probably on a modern pentathlon level it would be better to ride a horse you have a partnership with. you Get along with, um, from my own personal experience, because this horse, I did not ride very often at all. And the one I did, I had a great sort of time riding. But I’m not knowledgeable enough to say nobody should ride horses ever or the way that professional organisations are doing it is just totally wrong. But also kind of agreed with what Oge was saying about the articles, the whole ‘wreaks havoc thing’ and ‘horse brings rider to tears’ was just like, did it insult her? It was quite comical to me. But I’m a bit mean like that.
SORAYA: I think it's I think it's really interesting that the idea of having a horse, that you have a relationship with the modern pentathlon and actually a lot of people, including some top riders, have come out saying that they think that the idea of it has to be reviewed and because they get 20 minutes basically to get to know their horse before they do the show jumping round. 20 minutes is not very long but what's interesting about that is that's also the amount of time you get at university competitions. So I used to take part in the university teams in the BUSA league, and that is the same thing you get. In fact, for the show jumping, I think you get two jumps. It's not even like a time limit. You literally get to take it over two jumps, which for me was terrifying because I find jumping sometimes if I don't know the horse absolutely terrifying. The thing about the horses is that they know their job, and most showjumpers want to jump. That particular horse had had a bad round with somebody else previously. It obviously got through the screening process as being a horse that was suitable and wanted to take part. Because, as Anne has said, if a horse doesn't want you riding it and doesn't like the way that you're treating it, you're not going to get the best out of it. You're probably just going to get told where to go. And that's why the the riders that go to the Olympics and compete in the other disciplines to me is so incredibly inspiring because they work all year round building these relationships with their horses to make sure that they are going to perform and the best way that they possibly can, and so that they can have that level of communication, that they can get them to do things in an environment like the Olympics, which is very stressful with big audiences and lots of things going on.
FRAN: When you said you wanted to talk about this one and the modern pentathlon, I think I sent you a text back, which was ‘how effing niche is that sport seriously’, because, as you said, it seems like a very odd mix of things to put together. But one of the articles that I read about it was the idea that it was the modern soldier. It was how a soldier should be in the early 20th century and that kind of thing.
SORAYA: Well, there is a legend, which is that a young French cavalry officer had to go on horseback to deliver a message and that he had to ride, fence, swim, run and shoot during his journey, which I think somebody is definitely made up. All of the pentathlon originally, though, right back in the day, not to go into too much modern pentathlon and pentathlon details, but the original thing was in 708BC. I just had to check that because I couldn't remember, and it actually was running the length of the stadium, throwing a spear, throwing a discus, long jump and wrestling. And it was like the conclusion to the games. It looks like it's a thrilling climax, but when it was brought back, the idea was that it was like this elite athlete that could do everything. And that's why it was so exciting.
FRAN: Well, I like that urban legend. I like that legend.
SORAYA: Outdoor legend.
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FRAN: The last item we're going to be talking about today is outdoors festivals. We seem to be a slap bang in the middle of festival season now. We're getting outdoors festivals going on. The Adventure Uncovered film festival began on the 20th of July, just after we recorded the last episode. The Ultra Black Running had their first Ultra Black Trails event. Last weekend, there was Great Outdoors Festival, which is all about bushcraft and the Women's Trad Festival, which is in Sheffield. We actually were very kindly gifted some tickets to the Salomon Running Festival, which is down in the Chilton Hills this weekend, and Ani was the one who told me about that, so me and her went along to the festival. Ani, it's a little while ago now, but can you remember how you found out about the Salomon Festival and why it appealed to you.
ANI: So because I'm kind of part of the Wanderlust Women group chat, she was like creating a little group of people that she thought it would be really good to go down, because it's not normally the demographic you see there. So that's how I found out about it. And then I think the appeal was that it wasn't just running because I am a terrible winner if you ask anybody. And it was like, you know, there was some hiking involved going to be like the swimming talks. I was more interested in the talks. I think there was a lot of different categories and varieties of things that were being discussed. And some people that I really like, been interested in, found them on social media or blogs and things like that. And the weather pulled through, which was pretty impressive.
FRAN: Yeah, So on my way there, I went through a thunderstorm and got absolutely drenched by a bus that pulled off and had a little tsunami over my entire bottom half. So I was squelching all the way there. But by the time we got there, it was nice and dry for the rest of the day, which was quite nice.
FRAN: So, you mentioned the talks, one of the things that appealed to me as well actually. How did you find the talks? Was there any in particular that grabbed you?
ANI: The mental health and survivorship. Obviously Amira’s talk was amazing, because I love Amira and actually, it was very interesting to hear from different people, and what Salomon as brand were doing towards their diversity plans. We are looking at what they were trying to do for plus size and things like that. It was nice to hear that conversation being had, but the mental health and survivorship talk was pretty impressive. So, yeah, Jonathan Ascot was talking about how he experiences the outdoors with his mental health after battling cancer and multiple other sort of health things coming up. And he was just so blase about the entire thing. You know, he was just there for a good time. He wasn't there to, you know, he runs marathons and does really impressive challenges and tackle and things that he does. And the whole idea is I'm not doing it to get the speed or endurance or to be the best performance in the outdoors that I can be. But just because I like doing it, I think he said something, like, you know, I don't run fast, but I am a runner, and I don't care how fast you run as long as you're out doing something because it's just it's fun to be outdoors. It's fun to be the slow one, and that really resonated with me. It's not about climbing the highest peak, going the furthest distance, being the fastest person, it’s just about having fun. The basic reason why most of us started going outdoors.
FRAN: I really like the fact that it was easy for me to get down as somebody that doesn't drive. So I don't drive for several reasons, but mostly it's because I had seizures for several years, and so I never learned to drive. So it's really important to me to have places that are accessible by public transport. Solomon had done that from an environmental point of view, but it's something which obviously is really helpful to so many people if they don't have access to a car. And that's something that in the diversity talk we spoke about a little bit. I thought it was really nice. There was quite a lot of exchange as well between the people that were on the stage inviting questions, and the Solomon team were on the stage as well and listening. I do think that they did that really well. This was the first time that I think I've ever been to, like, a sporting festival of any kind. Those are usually the kind of spaces that I feel a little bit out of place it. And there were possibly moments of that when you had people coming back from the 20k run and everybody knew each other, and it was like, oh, OK, I don't know any of these people. I'm just going to go and find people that I do know, but otherwise I really felt quite comfortable there. I think it was a nice kind of a range of activities like Ani said. I'd like to open this up a little bit to Soraya or Oge. Obviously you couldn’t join us at the weekend, but I know that you've both taken part in festivals in the past. And like I said, this one was my first one. I haven't always felt comfortable at them before, and I'd really like to know how comfortable you guys feel at festivals. So Oge, I know that you were actually involved in the London Mountain Festival earlier on this year, and, yeah, how did you how did you get involved in that? And how did you find it when you were doing it?
OGE: So, that was virtual. And it was a film festival, actually. So, the London Mountain Film Festival, I think the organiser reached out to Rhianne, who is the founder of BGH. And then, reached out to me to kind of see if I wanted to be involved, in the festival, but not as somebody to give a diversity talk, but more so to interview, which I thought was really lovely. I got to watch two amazing films and interview the directors and the cost of those two films. So one was called Passages, and the other one was called Cold Feet. Two broadly different films. But it was amazing being able to kind of watch those films and really get into the minds of the people that created such great pieces of artwork. But also kind of combined my love of the outdoors and kind of seeing it from a different perspective and through other people's experiences. So it was really nice being involved in the film festival. I really enjoyed it. I haven't been to an in-person actual festival before. Because Covid has ruined everything. But I'm hoping to go to one in the near future.
SORAYA: I am also a big fan of the film festivals, and they’re my favourite type of outdoor festival, to be honest, although I was hoping that I might get to Kendal this year because I'm all about the like, writing and creative vibes. And actually, considering I've been in the outdoors forever, I had really not noticed that Kendal existed as, the UK's answer to Banff, which is really exciting. So I usually go to a Banff film festival. I love that because it does a tour, so you can see it in your local environment, which is my favourite. This year I am actually on a panel, which is another film festival that's coming up. So I'm really looking forward to that. I love celebrating female lead film and female lead projects in general, especially in the outdoors. So that's going to be great. You mentioned Adventure Uncovered, which is one of my faves as well. James, who is the co-founder, I love him. He's one of my one of my friends, and he's an amazing person. I actually volunteered when it was the last in person one. I was there on the desk saying hello to everybody awkwardly and welcoming them in. And yeah, so I'm excited now that we can get back out there, see people in real life again and to try out some different types of festivals. I would never go to one generally, that was like brand focused. Just because it's normally it’s around a sport, and running is also not my thing at all. And I know people who volunteered at the Women's Trad Festival, and they always say about how amazing it is and how wonderful an environment is for women to get outside and climb and do some trad climbing and feel really supported. So I just want to shout out that a bit louder.
FRAN: You saw me looking really confused there when you said you were at the last Adventure Uncovered because I'm pretty certain I went there as well. And I didn't see you.
SORAYA: Did you do our little? Did you do the box where you voted for, like, the most popular film?
FRAN: Oh, no. I think, actually I might have gone on like the evening launch. So I wasn't at the whole thing.
SORAYA: I am very proud. I made that box. Yeah. My biggest contribution.
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FRAN: Those are our main news stories for today, but in other news
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FRAN: Community project Outdoor People has opened a new shop in Hackney. The opening event featured polar explorer Dwayne Fields. New changes to the highway code give pedestrians greater priority over cars at junctions and crossings. The new code will also ensure cyclists have priority when travelling straight ahead at junctions. Motorists only have to give way when pedestrians step onto a crossing. And 11 year old Max Woosey has celebrated his 500th night of camping outside for charity. Max has been camping outside every night since March last year to raise money for a local hospice. He initially set himself a goal of £100 and has currently raised over £540,000 which is amazing.
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FRAN: On the Outside is about starting conversations with a view to change things that need changing. And so we do have, at the end of every episode, a literal call to action from all of our panellists. So that is one thing that they think you as listeners can do to support us and help change the narratives that we've discussed today. So, Ani, what is your call to action for this episode.
ANI: My call to action is to change the narrative on the events that happened on Ben Nevis, rather than focusing on those like Soraya and Oge said, let's focus on the amazing people that are in the outdoors.
FRAN: Oge. What is your call to action for today?
OGE: My call to action for today is to follow, support and/or invest in any of the outdoor groups that I mentioned earlier. So that is Steppers, BGHUK, Muslim hikers, Black Trail Runners and any others that you can you can find to support.
FRAN: And we will have those in the show notes for you as well to make it really easy. And you have no excuses, not to. Soraya, your call to action for today.
SORAYA: So, my call to action for today is that All the Elements which is a network for community group leaders and individuals looking to create change on diversity in the outdoors, we are doing a survey currently with the Pilgrim Trust, and we are looking for groups who are working to either increase diversity and walking and hiking or who are just working with underrepresented and under supported groups to fill in on this survey so that we can basically tell the funders what it is that is needed to create more change. How can we amplify what you're already doing by channelling the funder's money to the things that you need the most? Tell us.
FRAN: I love that. And my call to action, as always for these two episodes is if you liked today's episode, please, can you give us a review? You can do that on Apple podcasts and share it with somebody that you know would like it. Share it on social media and share it in your group work chat to make sure everybody you know listens. The full show notes for this episode, including links to the articles we spoke about and the groups we spoke about are all available on our website ontheoutsidepodcast.co.uk. On the Outside Artwork is by Sophie Nolan. Music is BaseBeats by Alex Norton. On the Outside is produced by myself. Editing and Transcript by Jack O’Driscoll. Social Media is by Frankie Dewar and our Patreon support crew are Wild for Scotland and Charlie's Supply Shop.
Please get in touch if you are a small business, and you would like to be part of that crew.
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And of course, I'd love to thank you all for listening today.
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