Normally I have a good idea what I need to put in this article but this time I don’t have any burning issue to raise. That is good from a club perspective but not so good from me having to fill the space!
I hope everybody had a good Christmas and managed to dodge enough of the rain to get some good tramping in. The club trips down to the South Island seemed to be a great success and I certainly enjoyed the one I was on. I hope we can run a few more next year and encourage more people out onto trips where the wild things are. There are a number of longer trips on the summer schedule (PDF 26kb) running over the public holidays and I would encourage you to get signed up for them.
This year we have been focusing on developing new leaders and have had a good number of people step forward to have a go. I will be shortly emailing a few people to see if there are things we could improve but I am happy to receive feedback from anybody at . If you haven’t started leading yet and would like to, please contact me to discuss any concerns you may have. We offer lots of support to new leaders.
If leading is not your thing, there are other opportunities to help out with running the club. We are looking for people to assist with monitoring the trip money and also with running the emergency contact system. Please get in touch if these interest you.
We have just purchased two additional PLBs for use on club tramping trips. These were purchased as there have been a number of weekends over the last year when we have had a demand for more PLBs than the club has. PLBs form an important part of our club safety strategy so this is an important addition to the stores. I would encourage all trip leaders to take one with them when they know they will not be in cell phone range. This is also a good reminder to check out the club’s policy on PLBs (PDF 30kb).
Lastly, congratulations to Sharron Came our President who recently completed one of her mountaineering ambitions by standing on the top of Mt Aspiring. Not only did she manage to summit but she did so in a very quick time. Well done Sharron!