From the President…in October

Spring is definitely here, along with all the trickiness of trying to plan tramping trips in very changeable weather. You might notice a few trip reports that start with “Plan A was…, but what we ended up doing was…” or that have a title like “Not Gunsight Pass”. Tash is always keen to receive trip reports for the newsletter so whether you’ve been on a Plan A or a Plan Z trip recently, it is always nice to write it up. 

Not Gunsight Pass…James and Tom tackle the ridge up to Hamilton Peak in the Craigieburn Range after our plans for Gunsight Pass were abandoned

Scholarships are open again!

We have more money in the scholarship fund thanks to the film festival fundraisers a few months back. Members are encouraged to apply to build skills in activities where the club doesn’t offer instruction. Last year we awarded scholarships for canyoning, mountaineering, packrafting and ski touring. All that we ask in return is that you commit to giving back to the club in some way with your new skills. You can find more information about how to apply here.

Vans

The two club vans have been in service for a while now, taking groups of trampers backwards and forwards to road ends across the North Island and the top of the South Island. The committee is starting to think about retirement plans for the current vans and future flexible transport options for the club. We have been using more hire vehicles recently, and the days when all weekend trips would start and finish at the same road end have passed. In the first instance, we are going to look to replace just one of the club vans with a similar 12-seater vehicle. Roger B is starting the research on this – thanks Roger! And thanks to Pete and Rene for their ongoing work to keep the current vans on the road and allocated to club trips every week.

Trip intentions and emergency contact information

The club recently ran an incident simulation exercise (thanks muchly to those who took part and keep an eye out in the newsletter for a full write up soon) to test the club’s emergency procedures. Overall the exercise went well and showed that in general the club’s emergency procedures are working as intended. What it does highlight is the importance of the trip intentions sheet. This is the information that your trip leader supplies to the club weekend emergency contact person about who’s on the trip, any relevant medical information and intended route, including alternative plans.

There’s two really important aspects to making these trip intentions sheets useful in an emergency:

  1. It relies on you supplying your trip leader with an emergency contact and any relevant medical information in advance. Please provide this promptly when asked by your leader – it is not their job to chase you for this information.
  2. It relies on your trip leader supplying a completed trip intentions sheet to the weekend emergency contact in advance. Leaders have lots of things to do when organising a trip and occasionally things can get forgotten, so you can help by checking with them early on in the journey to your destination road end that the intentions sheet has been completed.

Paua Hut

Paua Hut still needs a new maintenance person so please let me know if you would be able to take on this role. It doesn’t mean you have to do all the maintenance work yourself – we just need someone to take responsibility for organising what needs doing when. We have a working party scheduled for January 24-26th so ideally we need somebody to lead this. Thanks to Tony, Richard, Kate and maybe a few others who have facilitated gas bottle replacement recently – saving any of us having to haul in the 29kg bottles on foot!. 

That’s it from me this month as I need to get packing for the Kaimanawa-Kaweka Traverse…eight of us are extending Labour Weekend across a whole week to do this classic tramp which will take us from the club lodge at Mt Ruapehu all the way to Napier (almost). If you ask nicely maybe one of us will do a club talk about it 🙂

Emily

WTMC President

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