Parks & Trails Day NB is an annual event held on the first Saturday of June which provides an opportunity to promote healthy, active living in communities across the province while celebrating New Brunswick’s many incredible outdoor spaces. Every year, several thousand New Brunswickers take to their favourite trails, parks, paths, and waterways!
“Each year we are proud to see the incredible events put on by a diverse selection of organizations from all over New Brunswick,” says Charlotte Hill, Marketing and Events Coordinator at the NB Trails Council, who played a leading role in organizing promotions around this year’s celebrations. “There is such great energy and community spirit at each event. As always, our partners from around the province have done a wonderful job in coming together to create something all New Brunswickers can enjoy. The planning committee working behind the scenes really goes above and beyond each year to make sure this program is delivered.”
As a member of the Parks & Trails Day NB Committee, the New Brunswick Anti-Tobacco Coalition (NBATC) recognizes the importance of having access to wellness supportive smoke-free outdoor spaces for New Brunswickers. Ensuring that outdoor spaces are smoke-free and enforcing a smoke-free policy during outdoor community events like Parks & Trails Day protects people, especially children, from exposure to dangerous second-hand tobacco smoke. The NBATC’s Making My Outdoor Event Smoke-Free guide has been available since 2015 to event organizers who register their event on the Parks & Trails Day website, providing tips and tools on how to promote an event as smoke-free and enforce such a policy. The NBATC has also always taken the opportunity to remind event organizers that as per New Brunswick’s Smoke-Free Places Act, smoking and vaping (tobacco, cannabis or any substance that creates smoke and second-hand smoke) is prohibited in all beaches, playgrounds, sports fields (including the spectators stand), parks, trails and in other public spaces.
The NBATC, as well as the entire Parks & Trails Day NB Committee, were thus very proud to see that organizers for all the 2018 events held last June indicated that their event would be smoke-free. New Brunswickers are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of smoke-free spaces. Deciding that a public outdoor event will be smoke-free is a great way to ensure the well-being of event attendees while promoting healthy tobacco-free lifestyles.
The Town of Quispamis provides an excellent example of such leadership.
“When we have family-focused public events, we make sure they are safe and fun for the children and thus tobacco-free,” explains Patrick Butler, Summer Events and Active Transportation Coordinator for the Town of Quispamsis, who worked with supervisor Megan Lucas, Director of Programming, to organize Quispamsis’ 2018 Parks & Trails Day event. “We have a copy of the NBATC’s Making My Outdoor Event Smoke-Free guide. We made sure to include the words ‘tobacco-free’ in the description of our event and everywhere we promoted it, such as social media, websites, etc. We had signs at our event saying it was a tobacco-free event. Smoking at our event was not an issue, no one smoked or had cigarettes with them. We did not need to intervene. We had mostly families and children in attendance, so most people were non-smokers already, or some of them might have been smokers, but they already understood the importance of not smoking around children.”
The Town of Quispamsis held a successful Parks & Trails Day event, which included a guided nature walk. The Town of Quispamsis makes an effort to ensure its family-focused events are tobacco-free and promoted as such.
The Town of Quispamsis’s Parks & Trails Day event had over 75 participants. The day included exploring an accessible interpretative trail as well as a scavenger hunt surrounding the qplex, the town’s multipurpose recreation and conference centre. Patrick says: “The kids loved the guided nature walk along the trail. Our guide talked about and pointed out various trees and plant species, birds, etc. We also had prizes that people could win after completing the scavenger hunt. We had promoted our event on Facebook and in the local media, and we had sent out special invitations to local schools and daycares. We were pleased with the turnout.”
Nature NB, who organized a Festival of Nature in Bathurst this year, offering participants a wide variety of field trips, workshops, and experiences during Parks & Trails Day 2018 celebrations, says their events are always smoke-free due to the type of people who tend to participate. “I have never seen anyone smoke during one of our outdoor activities, so this is not a problem nor an issue that has crossed our minds much,” admits Melissa Fulton, Programs Coordinator at Nature NB. “I don’t think there are many smokers among our participants. They are mostly people who love outdoor activities and want to lead healthy active lives.” She adds that even if exposure to second-hand smoke has never been an issue during Nature NB events, the organization could still easily start promoting their events as such and enforcing a smoke-free policy.
Indeed, organizations can take that extra step and show their membership or community just how much they care about their health and well-being by simply adding that an event is “tobacco-free” or “smoke-free” to print promotional materials and descriptions on websites and social media. Ensuring that there is smoke-free signage at the event location is another thing they should check or mark off their list. In most cases, there will already be no ‘No Smoking’ signs at the venue, if the event is held in one of New Brunswick’s designated smoke-free public outdoor spaces (Smoke-Free Spaces Act). Event organizers can thus take a moment to mention and point out the sign at the beginning of the event.
If there is no signage already on the premises because the event is held in a space that is not designated as smoke-free by law, event organizers can still decide to make an outdoor space smoke-free and enforce this policy for the duration of their event. Signs, as well as handy scripts for staff and volunteers on explaining the smoke-free nature of an event, are available on the NBATC’s website.
Congratulations to all Parks & Trails Day NB event organizers and keep up the good work! Let’s all make the effort to promote the tobacco-free and smoke-free nature of our outdoor public spaces and events all year long!
Story and photos used with permission from the NB Trails Council, the Town of Quispmasis and Nature NB.
Published in October 2018
Author: Nathalie Landry – NBATC Communications Coordinator.