A thank-you for your footpath volunteers: a photo from the stile as a jigsaw, with your note at the end

Written by the team behind Puzzlify. Puzzlify is our product, so weigh what follows with that in mind. We've tried to make this useful even if you never use it. We're not affiliated with the Ramblers, ScotWays, the Open Spaces Society, the National Trust, any national park authority, AONB or National Landscape partnership, county, unitary, parish, town or community council, highway authority, footpath society, path warden scheme, conservation volunteer group, landowner, farmer or similar organisation. Nothing here is legal, rights-of-way, access, safety or privacy advice. Check the group's own rules on gifts, photos and contact with volunteers.

It's half past nine on a grey Wednesday in March, and five people in their sixties and seventies are standing in a muddy field gateway with a wheelbarrow, two bow saws, a box of waymark discs, a post driver and a flask. The old wooden stile at the end of the field has finally rotted through. Last autumn a woman with a bad knee had to turn back here, and a man with a dog had to lift it over the fence. Today the group is replacing the stile with a small metal kissing gate, paid for by the county council and agreed with the farmer after months of letters. By eleven the old stile is in pieces on a tarpaulin. By one the new posts are in, tamped and level, and the gate swings shut with a satisfying clink. One of the volunteers screws a yellow arrow onto the post, steps back, and takes a photo for the group's records. On the way back they cut back a bramble that has been snagging walkers' sleeves along the hedge since August, clear the leaves out of a drainage channel, and note a broken footbridge plank to report on Monday. Then they have their sandwiches sitting on the new gate's concrete footing, and go home. The next morning a mum with a pushchair walks through the gate without breaking stride. She has no idea it wasn't there yesterday.

That's a footpath volunteer. In England and Wales there are well over a hundred thousand miles of public footpaths, bridleways and byways, and the councils responsible for them rarely have enough staff or money to look after every stile, gate, signpost and bridge. Much of the everyday work of keeping paths open falls to volunteers: path maintenance teams from walking groups and footpath societies, parish path wardens who walk the local network and report problems, volunteer rangers in national parks and National Landscapes, conservation volunteers who build steps and boardwalks, and people who simply adopt a path near home and keep it clear. In Scotland, where access rights work differently, volunteers help look after signposts, heritage paths and routes through societies and local groups, and many other countries have trail volunteers of their own. They are not council officers and they don't make decisions about where paths run. They clear, mend, waymark, survey and report, in all weathers, so that the rest of us can go for a walk without thinking about it.

If a footpath volunteer cleared the path you walk every morning, mended the stile your dad could no longer climb, or put up the fingerpost that stopped you getting lost, or if you coordinate a team and want to thank the people who turn up with secateurs every week, this is a guide to saying thank you well. It covers the words, a few rules about gifts and good manners with landowners, timing, photos you can use without causing problems, and one small idea from us: a photo from the path, turned into a short private jigsaw, with your note appearing when the last piece goes in. We'll also be honest about when a card, a donation or simply turning up to help is the better choice.

Who we mean by footpath volunteers

"Footpath volunteer" covers a lot of muddy, quiet people. When we say it here, we mean:

• path maintenance teams who clear vegetation, replace stiles with gates, put up waymarks and fingerposts, mend steps and build small bridges;
• parish or community path wardens who walk the local network, check signs and stiles, and report problems to the council;
• volunteer rangers and wardens in national parks, National Landscapes, country parks and nature reserves who look after paths alongside other work;
• conservation volunteers who build boardwalks across bogs, drainage channels on hill paths and stone steps on eroded slopes;
• path surveyors who walk every route in a parish to record its condition, and people who research old routes so they aren't lost from the official map;
• the person who has quietly "adopted" a path near home and keeps it clear with a pair of loppers and a bin bag;
• coordinators and organisers who keep the work programme going, sort out tools, insurance and training, and spend hours on the phone and email with councils and landowners.

Most of them are retired, though not all. Many walked the same paths for decades before they decided to look after them. A good number have backs, knees and hands that object to post drivers and bow saws, and they turn up anyway.

Words first

Before any gift, think about the words, because for most footpath volunteers the words are the gift. Their work is designed to be invisible. When they do it well, nobody notices: the path is simply open, the gate simply swings, the arrow simply points the right way. They rarely hear from the people who benefit, and they hear a great deal from people who are annoyed about mud.

A few things make a thank-you land:

• Be specific about the place. "The new gate at the bottom of Long Meadow" means more than "the paths."
• Say what it made possible. "My mum can walk to the church again now the stile has gone" or "I take the kids to school across the fields instead of along the main road."
• Name the effort, if you saw it. The brambles, the rain, the post hole that hit a rock, the bridge they carried in on their shoulders.
• Mention the people behind them: the coordinator, the farmer who agreed to the gate, the council officer who found the money.
• Don't add a request. Keep the thank-you separate from a report about another broken stile; send that through the council's proper reporting route.
• Keep it short. A few sincere sentences beat a long letter that never gets written.

If you only do one thing, write those few sentences and send them to the group. Everything else here is optional.

Who it suits

A thank-you like this can come from many directions:

• a walker, runner or dog owner who uses a path every day and has noticed it getting better;
• someone with limited mobility, a pushchair, a wheelchair or a mobility scooter, for whom a stile replaced with a gate turned a no into a yes;
• a family who found their way home in fog thanks to a new fingerpost;
• a school, care home or walking-for-health group that uses the local paths;
• a farmer or landowner who has worked with the team and appreciates the care they take with livestock, crops and boundaries;
• a parish council, community council or council rights-of-way officer who relies on volunteers to keep the network open;
• fellow volunteers saying goodbye to someone who is hanging up their loppers after many years;
• a coordinator thanking the whole team at the end of a season.

Gift rules, landowners and good manners

Footpath volunteers are usually part of a walking group, footpath society, conservation charity, park authority or parish scheme, and those come with their own rules. They vary, so take what follows as general guidance and check with the coordinator.

• Gifts are usually small or shared. Many groups are happy to receive a card, biscuits for the tea break or a donation towards tools. Some ask volunteers not to accept personal gifts of real value, especially when they work with a council or park authority. A card, a message or a small token is almost always fine.
• Send it through the group. Most teams have a public email address, a page or a coordinator who can pass a message on. Volunteers don't always want their names or addresses shared, so send it through the organiser rather than tracking someone down.
• Be kind to the landowner, too. Most paths cross private land. If your photo shows a farm, a field gate or a yard, ask before you take it, stay on the path, and don't include anything that looks like a complaint about the landowner in a thank-you.
• Never present a personal gift as official. Don't use the council's crest, the national park logo or the group's badge in your puzzle as if it came from them.
• Keep donations separate. If you'd like to give money, give it to the group or charity through its proper route, and keep your personal thank-you separate.
• Don't take sides in a dispute. Some paths are the subject of disagreements between walkers, landowners and councils. A thank-you is not the place for those; keep it about the volunteers and the work.

None of this makes saying thank you complicated. It just means sending your message through the group, keeping it small and leaving out anything that could cause trouble for the people who have to keep working with the landowner next week.

When to send it

There's no wrong time to say thank you, but some moments are natural:

• soon after a job you noticed, like a new gate, a cleared path, a mended bridge or fresh waymarks;
• at the end of the summer, when the team has spent months cutting back nettles and brambles that grow faster than anyone can clear them;
• at the end of the winter work season, when the big jobs, such as steps, drainage and bridges, are usually done;
• at the group's annual meeting, social or volunteer celebration, where a coordinator can read messages aloud;
• when a long-serving volunteer steps back, after years of mud and good humour;
• during a national volunteers' week or a local walking festival, if the group takes part;
• on the anniversary of a walk that mattered to you, such as the first time you walked a path again after an illness.

Why a jigsaw can fit

Most thank-yous are read once and put away. A short jigsaw takes a few minutes to solve, and in those minutes the person is looking closely at a picture you chose, piece by piece, before your note appears at the end. For a footpath volunteer, a photo of the very gate they hung, the bridge they mended or the view at the end of the path they cleared is a reminder that the invisible work was seen. It also travels well: a coordinator can forward one link to everyone on the team.

It isn't a replacement for words. It's a way of wrapping them, so they get a moment of attention before they're read.

If they cleared the path you walk

If you're a regular walker, you probably know the path better than most, and you've seen the changes: the overgrown section that became walkable, the stile that became a gate, the bog that grew a boardwalk. Take a photo of the place on a good day, from the path itself, without people or houses in the frame unless they've agreed. Write a sentence about what it means to you, and send it to the group. If the volunteers worked on a path you use for something important, such as getting to school, walking to a grave or getting outside after an illness, say so. That's the kind of thing they rarely hear.

If you work alongside the group

Council rights-of-way officers, rangers, landowners and farm managers see the volunteers' work up close. If you've watched a team rebuild a footbridge in a day, or found that the problem you logged has quietly been fixed by Friday, a thank-you from you means a great deal. A photo for your message could be the finished bridge, the tool trailer at the field gate, or the stack of new waymark posts at the depot, taken with permission and within your organisation's own rules on photos.

For fellow volunteers and coordinators

Coordinators and team leaders hold everything together: the work programme, the tool store, the risk assessments, the training on brushcutters, the endless emails with councils and landowners. A thank-you for one of them, or from them to the whole team, might use a photo of the tool trailer, the tea flask on a gatepost, or the team's muddy boots lined up on a bench. For someone stepping back after many years, a larger, slower puzzle of their favourite path, with notes from the people they've worked with, makes a lovely send-off. Make sure the whole team is comfortable with any photo of them before it goes into a puzzle.

Photo consent and choosing the picture

The best photos for a footpath volunteer thank-you are usually of places and things, not people. A few ideas:

• the new kissing gate, stile or footbridge, from the path, on a bright day;
• a fingerpost or waymark arrow against a hedge or a blue sky;
• a path that was overgrown and is now clear, ideally with a "before" photo for the note;
• the view from the top of a stretch of steps they built, or from a bench at the end of the walk;
• a boardwalk across a wet meadow, or stepping stones across a stream;
• the team's tools laid out on a tarpaulin, or the tea flask balanced on a gatepost;
• a child's drawing of the walk, the gate or the cows in the field.

A few kindnesses keep it comfortable and safe:

• ask volunteers before using a photo of them; some are happy to be pictured, others prefer to stay out of the frame;
• don't photograph other walkers or children without permission, even in the background;
• ask before photographing a farmyard, a house or a garden, and keep house numbers, car number plates and anything that pinpoints someone's home out of the frame;
• don't include livestock in a way that might upset a farmer, such as a photo taken from inside a field you shouldn't be in;
• avoid the council's or the group's logo as the focus, so it doesn't look official;
• if in doubt, use the waymark arrow on the new gate post. Every footpath volunteer recognises it, and it says "thank you" without showing anyone at all.

Getting a good JPG

Paths, fields and woods can be green, brown and grey all at once, so a few things help:

• Colourful or high-contrast things make satisfying puzzles: a yellow waymark arrow, a red fingerpost, autumn leaves, bluebells, a bright metal gate, a blue sky over a hedge.
• Big areas of plain grass, grey sky or brown mud are hard to solve, so crop in on the interesting part, or go lower on pieces.
• Take the photo on a bright, overcast day or in soft morning or evening light; avoid shooting straight into a low winter sun.
• If there's writing you want people to read, like a place name on a fingerpost or "thank you" on a card, take the photo straight on and pick a higher piece count.
• Save the original JPG straight from your phone or camera rather than a copy from a messaging app, which compresses it. If your photo is in another format, save it as a JPG first.

Privacy, an optional PIN, and saying it's from you

The puzzle sits behind a private link, so only people you send it to can open it. If you'd like an extra layer, add a short PIN and share it separately, for example in a card handed to the coordinator at the next work party.

Volunteer groups and parish councils are rightly careful about links from people they don't know. Tell them clearly that the link is from you and that it's a thank-you, not a request. A one-line message helps: "This is a thank-you puzzle for the footpath team from a walker who uses the path by the river every morning. It's not a request for anything. The PIN is in the card." If you'd rather stay anonymous, say so: "from a regular walker who would rather not say who".

How many pieces?

Times vary with the photo. For a thank-you, finishing beats difficulty; 48 or 80 is a gentle middle. Grass, sky and mud are harder, so go lower if most of the picture is one colour.

The leaderboard: only for a group of volunteers

If you're thanking a whole footpath team, you can turn on the leaderboard so everyone solves the same photo. Ask the coordinator first; some groups would rather keep things simple. For one volunteer, or a puzzle in memory of a volunteer or a walking companion, leave the leaderboard off.

A few note ideas

The note appears when the last piece goes in, so keep it short and warm:

• "My dad couldn't climb the old stile any more. Last Sunday he walked to the church through your new gate. Thank you."
• "To the Wednesday team: you cleared the brambles on the river path in the rain. My dog and my sleeves thank you."
• "From the council rights-of-way team: you fixed in a month what would have taken us a year. Thank you from all of us."
• "To our coordinator, stepping back after fifteen years: hundreds of gates, thousands of arrows, and not one grumpy farmer. Thank you."
• "We got lost in the fog last winter, and your new fingerpost brought us home. Thank you for putting it there."
• "From a walker who would rather not say who: I walk your path every morning. It's the best part of my day."

How to make one (about a minute of setup)

1. Open Puzzlify's puzzle maker in a browser: https://puzzlify.app/en/puzzle-maker/
2. Upload the photo (JPG works best).
3. Choose a piece count for how much time they might have and how detailed the photo is.
4. Add your thank-you note and, if you like, a PIN and a leaderboard (for a group of volunteers only).
5. Preview for free. When you're happy, publish the link with one credit and send it with a message, a card, or through the group's official email address or the parish or town council.

Honest pricing and notes

The preview is free, so you can see exactly what the puzzle looks like before paying anything. You only pay when you publish the link: one credit is €3.99, three credits are €8.99, and Plus is €14.99 a year for ten credits. If you're thanking several people (the coordinator, your parish path warden and the person who built the bridge, say), three credits works out cheaper per puzzle; for one thank-you, one credit is enough. If money is tight, a card, a message or a few kind words cost nothing and are a perfectly good choice. If you'd like to see it first, the free preview is here: https://puzzlify.app/en/puzzle-maker/

The person who receives the link doesn't need an account, an app or a printer; it opens in a normal web browser. Photos are not used to train AI and are not shared with third parties.

This is a digital jigsaw you play on a screen. It isn't a cardboard puzzle in the post, a printed product or a public puzzle board, and it isn't connected to any walking group, footpath society, council or national park. It's also not puzzlify.io (a chess site), Puzzlit, Puzzly or Puzzify, which are different things with similar names. A message in your own words is often what people remember, so the puzzle works best alongside one rather than instead of one.

Keep the gift small and separate from any donation. Never present a personal gift as if it came from the council, a national park or a walking organisation unless they've asked you to send it on their behalf, and never use an organisation's logo in your puzzle as if it were official.

Other ways to say thank you (no Puzzlify needed)

1. Volunteering yourself: on a work party, as a path warden or as a path surveyor, if you have the time and pass the group's training. Most teams would love an extra pair of hands, especially younger ones.
2. A donation to your local footpath group, rather than a national body alone, so it stays in your area; or buying something they need, like loppers, gloves, waymark discs or a new wheelbarrow. Check first.
3. Reporting problems properly, through the council's online reporting system, with a photo and a grid reference, so the volunteers and the council can fix them quickly.
4. Being a good walker: shutting gates, keeping dogs under control near livestock, staying on the path and taking litter home, which makes it easier for volunteers to keep landowners on side.
5. A short, kind note in the parish newsletter or on the group's own page, saying what a path or a gate means to you, without anyone's personal details.
6. For a long-serving volunteer stepping back, a small book of thank-you notes from walkers, landowners, council officers and fellow volunteers, collected with permission, alongside one from the group.

Whatever you send, the most important part is the sentence that sounds like you, written to the people who carry gateposts across wet fields, cut back brambles that grow back by August, screw yellow arrows onto oak posts in the drizzle, and go home knowing that most of the people who walk through their gates will never know their names — so that a path across the fields to the church is still open when the next generation wants to walk it.

Written by the team behind Puzzlify. Not affiliated with the Ramblers, ScotWays, the Open Spaces Society, the National Trust, any national park authority, National Landscape, council, highway authority, footpath society, path warden scheme, conservation volunteer group or landowner. Not legal, rights-of-way, access, safety or privacy advice. Check the group's own rules on gifts, photos and contact with volunteers.