Connecting with Recreation Professionals at RecLink

RecLink

RecLink

If you are a recreation professional or want to be one, reclink.us is a place to connect with others like ourself. The community has a mission statement:

RecLink unites people who share a passion about quality outdoor recreation and its value to society.

and a vision

Renewing Body and Spirit, Inspiring Passion for the Land

Matt Arnn, a landscape architect with the U.S. Forest Service, created the website and says, “We provide outdoor recreation that brings personal health, community vitality that showcases the environment. Our group understands and values public lands in a way that encourages land stewardship. We are motivated, inspired by and connected with the land and give back so that future generations can enjoy this same legacy.”

What is RecLink?

RecLink is a website that allows recreation professionals to contact and collaborate with each other.  Use of RecLink is free and includes:

  • a library developed from contributions of RecLink members.  It includes documents and links to further information on topics in the categories of data, design, general references, recreation planning, and work styles/training.
  • groups that you can join.  There are public and private groups.  You need to request entry to private groups.  When I last checked, there were 37 groups with titles like: Sustainable Recreation Design Guidebook Working Group (10 members), International Public Use Planning (11 members), Scenic Byway (46 members), Trails Planning (109 members),  and Sustainable Recreation and Tourism (153 members).  Some are quite specific and are intended as collaboration areas for specialists in certain agencies or people working on specific projects.
  • a forum with 96 discussions when I last checked.  The forum seems to get little use, something that’s quite common. The latest post was a couple of weeks old.
  • blogs.  Each member can post messages to their own blog.  These then show up on the ‘Blogs’ page for everyone to see.  There were 165 blog posts when I looked and I added one “Writing about RecLink.”
  • media.  A section containing almost 1200 photos and 13 videos submitted by members.
  • events.  Users can enter information about any recreation-oriented event and it will be posted on the event page. For example: Access Fund Climbing Stewardship Training in Salt Lake City, UT June 25, 2015 to June 27, 2015 and Southwest Virginia Outdoor Expo September 12, 2015.
  •  jobs.  A few job vacancy announcements are listed here.  If you are interested in Federal jobs,  it’s best to use www.usajobs.gov.
  • My Page.  A page that keeps track of your posts and allows you to keep your profile and other information up to date.

RecLink has been in operation since 2010, but it seems to have, maybe, a few hundred members that are not highly active.  It is easy to use and shows a lot of promise.  You could make a great contribution by bringing your group to the site and participating in the discussions and adding your events.

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#RecLinkUS #recreation

 

 

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