Sharron Came, President
We live in strange times. The warmest winter on record, a pink trip schedule and tramping for yoga – spring must be here! On Wednesday 9 October we are hosting a New Member’s Night to celebrate and welcome prospective trampers into our world. It would be great if you could spread the word. We will provide a great slideshow showcasing what we’re about, plenty of E and EM trips for people to sign up for and we have a post New Member’s Night gear evening the following Wednesday. Also relevant for newbies is the Bushcraft course the weekend of 1-3 November to be run by Alan Higgins and helpers. If you want to be part of New Member’s Night please contact David Heffernan . We need sexy trampers to meet and greet on the night, put posters up around town and generally promote the event. Also see the Editor’s blurb below for details about a WTMC members in-store night at Bivouac on 26 September featuring a special 20% discount.
Big thanks to Donna Maher who has taken on the role of checking that trip money is being deposited into the Club account as required. Checking that people have paid for trips they plan to go on is an important job. You can make Donna’s job easier by paying on time and clearly identifying who you are and the name of your trip when you pay. Thanks also to Brendan Eckhart who is going to help with the banking of Wednesday night door takings and gear hire money and to Nicky Shields who is assisting with our website development. Shout out to Mike Gilbert as well. Meet Up Mike is doing great work behind the scenes getting more groups up to the Lodge. He is looking for like-minded souls who don’t mind driving punters north, doing a bit of skiing or boarding, then returning to Welly. Sound like you?
Hopefully you have had a chance to get along to some of the superb talks Sue has been hosting on Wednesday nights. We are in the process of adding some resources to the website that should be useful for those of you looking to broaden your outdoor skills base. The presentation from the talk on 21 August is already up on the website under “trips and training” and we hope to add more resources in the future. If you know of some useful resource material that we should have on our website please let Megan know .
For those of you who missed the 21 August talk, Nina Sawicki and Lorraine Johns gave a presentation on ideas for transitioning from novice tramper/climber to trip leader. Some of the themes will, I hope, have resonated with those of you who have done our Snowcraft and Leadership courses. A few ideas that bear repeating include:
- Treat outdoor adventures as a lifelong learning opportunity;
- Take personal responsibility for your tramping, kayaking, cycling or climbing;
- Learn from mistakes and share experiences;
- Safety first, friends second, summit third;
- Consider what you have to offer on a trip – everyone can make a contribution whether it is helping with the navigation or managing group dynamics or cooking; and
- Consider whether you can mentor less experienced trampers.
WTMC is an outdoor community, for us it is crucial that the trips we offer constitute a safe, enjoyable outdoor experience. This doesn’t just happen, as with all aspects of Club life, a team effort is required.
Snowcraft 2013 has been and gone. I’ve been involved in this course for a few years now and the experience is always hugely rewarding. This year I was assisted by Marie Henderson and Mike Phethean whose support and skills were crucial to the success of the course. We had a real mix of participants, weather and snow conditions. This was fantastic in terms of wringing the most out of NZ’s fickle alpine environment. On the first weekend we learnt about group decision making, risk management, walking without crampons and built a kick arse igloo. The second weekend saw us practice self-arrest, cramponing and navigation as well as undertaking a big trip to the elusive Mt Minger (2600m). For a change I got thrashed playing poker instead of 500. Watch out for Nicky’s trip report in this issue.
Amanda Wells and helpers ran a Leadership course in early August. This was well attended with half the participants already signed up to lead trips. Big thanks to Amanda, Richard Lardner and David Heffernan for giving part of their weekend to run the course.
As we head towards the final third of the financial year, it is great to see the club in good heart with good levels of participation/engagement. Look forward to seeing you in the hills.