Dear .......,

Congratulations with your new jobs; you'll
have something to do every Sunday for 
the coming year. I hope that some of the
remarks below will be useful for you.
Generally the hikes for the inexperienced
walkers are the most difficult. You don't
want them to be back hours before the others,
but on the other hand you don't want to
exhaust them on a long walk. Also their
shoes are often not waterproof, and you 
don't want them to have wet feet all the way.
So, have a walk between 12 and 14km, with no
more than 300m ascent, and avoid boggy areas
in this route. If the ascent is more the walk
has to be shorter, but then they are back too
early.
On the other side of the scale are the veterans
and the maniacs, who are quite particular about
what they want to do; I think it is good to give
them some say in advance, but avoid confusion
by being more strict on the day. Also be strict 
about the length of the route and the arrival 
time: I find it quite inconsidered if a large
group has to wait for a couple of walkers, who
decided to go off and extend their walk. (Also
people might sign up for a walk, but do not 
expect it to be much longer.)
Not all the maps are the same, so if you hand
people maps, make sure the same paths are on
it as on the ones you planned the route.
I used a couple of books to plan routes, 
especially  in the lakes and wales, just to make 
sure the routes are not too hard.
Generally one should be a bit considerate with
the drivers; make sure they still can do the
walks they like. I found that it saves quite 
a lot of time if people are put off the bus 
earlier, than when everbody starts from the same 
point (especially if the longer walks start
earlier).
Different people have different ideas about 
how to lead a walk. There is no problem with
that. Only a couple of basic requirements must 
be met. On the harder walks the leader must be 
confident, and willing to give up if the weather
is too bad, or to be precise:  if people in the 
group seem uncomfortable with the weather, wind,
or scramble. I found the splitting of groups
generally, a bad idea, the slow ones tend to 
come back very late, people get lost because since
they split up they don't feel they should stick
to a route. A single person going off on his
own is something different; as long as this person
is capable and not the group leader. It is all a
matter of "we are in it together", which seems to
fade away if groups (can) split up.
Anyway,  there are many things I can say, I don't
know how trivial they are, so I leave it to you;
you have any questions, just ask me.

Norbert