A new, exciting future for Wild Things

For more than five years now Sally & I have poured our hearts and souls into building the Wild Things community and doing all we can to provide Club members with Ideas, Information, and Inspiration to fuel their trail running (and now peak bagging) adventures. It’s fair to say that when we started out we had no idea just how big this would become or, to be honest, just how much it would come to dominate our lives. It’s been a wildly exciting and fun ride, but it’s now time to reassess our priorities.

The simple fact is that we are both getting on a bit – I’m 61 years old and Sal is only a few years behind me. We know we only have a finite number of years left in which to undertake the many outdoor adventures that we still dream about. Yet at the same time I find myself spending more and more hours in front of a screen, while Sal spends more and more time running the Wild Things shop.

We want Wild Things to be continuously developing; always offering new and exciting things to its members. But to maintain such forward momentum would mean giving ever-increasing amounts of time and energy that we’d now like to put into other, more personal, projects. While we still can!

We love what we have created but now it’s time for Wild Things to move on to its next exciting phase under new guardianship.

We are not closing Wild Things down. Nor are we selling out to some faceless corporate entity. There’s no way we could do either of these things! Instead, we are passing on ownership and management of the business to our good friend, long-time collaborator and passionate trail runner, Rob Bathgate, who shares our vision for an ever-developing Wild Things community.

Rob is not someone that too many Club members will be familiar with, but he is the unsung hero of Wild Things. Rob is a very smart web developer who I was first introduced to over 8 years ago. He built the website for both the High Five-0 Challenge and our ‘Chasing The Dragon’ around-Wales run, and so has played a key role in raising some $600,000 for the Mental Health Foundation of NZ. But most importantly, Rob is someone who we have worked with from the very inception of Wild Things and the world-class website that is now the beating heart of the Club is all Rob’s work.

So Rob totally ‘gets it’. He was the first person that came to mind when we started to ask ourselves how we could move on without abandoning all that we had strived so hard to build. And thankfully Rob’s passion for Wild Things, combined with his desire to see it not just stand still but to constantly develop and thrive, meant that he said “yes” when we proposed that he take over the running of the business. He will be at the helm from Sept 1st 2021.

We genuinely believe that Wild Things is way, way more than just Sal & I. Its greatest assets are the members themselves, the community that is forged by their coming together, and the world-class resource that is the Club website. Rob is superbly and uniquely placed to continue what we have started; he has the passion and the smarts to look after the community and to develop the Club’s resources so that it becomes an even greater source of Ideas, Information, and Inspiration. We hope that everybody who has in some way benefitted from the existence of Wild Things, be they VIP Members, Free Members, or just an occasional visitor to our Facebook Group, gives Rob their full support and helps him take Wild Things to the next level of awesome.

All that remains for us to say now is “you’ve not seen the last of us”. No way! Sal & I will always be Wild Things at heart and we look forward to making a continued contribution to the Club, just as members rather than as owners. I will also continue to assist with the management of the Trail & Peak Directories for the next few months while Rob settles into his new role.

If you want to ask Rob any questions, or just say hi, you can drop him an email directly at rob@wildthings.club.

Thanks for all your support down the years and remember #itsgoodtobewild