Presidents Report - AGM 2024
27th March 2024
By Andrew Gay
What a year it has been. My first year in this role and it’s certainly been busier than I expected. Amazing how quickly you forget what has been done in the past 12 months, however when I started to go back over the year, I was surprised at what we have done as a club.
Being only a newer member, I have also found this year quite a learning curve not only in learning the committee processes and procedures but in general Club operations.
So let’s have a quick look at some of the things the club has covered this year include:
Trips.
John O’Daly’ s monthly tag along trips continues to be popular with the members and a valuable addition to the club’s calendar. Really pleased to see a couple of members are stepping up to assist John this year when he is unavailable to host these trips.
John also hosted a long trip along the great ocean road to the Otway’s National Park. This was a great trip and if you attend one of these you will appreciate the work put in by those hosting the trip.
We also had the trip led by Gordon Frith along the Old Ghan and Oodnadatta track to central Australia however sadly poor weather conditions impacted this trip. Hopefully, Gordon will consider hosting this trip again in the future.
Training events, Derek, Stephen Pearson along with Colin and Mike hosted training weekends at Peake, Dorado Downs, Bendelby and Morgan over the year which all those attending thoroughly enjoyed the camaraderie, learning new skills, and having fun testing our vehicles and our ability.
Lance once again hosted trips to the Limestone Coast and finally he got back to the Victorian High Country, which I understand was hugely successful.
And of course we can’t forget the important social weekend of Polish Hill River and the Club Christmas party.
Caravan and camping plus 4WD Shows.
The club exhibited at the Caravan and Camping Show and the 4WD, fishing and boating show as part of the club’s membership and recruitment process and managed to gain new members from both events. Thank you to both Derek and John O’Daly for spending the time getting this organised. Now we have these new members, we just need to ensure that we meet their expectations, and they remain members.
Meetings:
MIG Meetings were a little quiet last year as Lachlan Peters found it hard to juggle work commitments and arrange these meetings. Derek has stepped in temporarily to arrange some this year and if any members are keen to be involved in arranging future meetings please speak to Derek or myself as your support would be greatly appreciated.
This year we visited Redarc and had a talk on tyres by Coopers Tyres.
Long Trips meetings continue to be popular with many members happy to share their stories of trips both recently and in the past. I thank the Long Trips Committee and Lance in particular for doing this work and, in particular, locating speakers.
Historical Car Registration
After 2 SGM’s and lots of paperwork, the club was finally approved to offer conditional registration, which has also been a positive for membership growth and we currently have 10 vehicles listed with historical car registration. More members are enquiring and no doubt this number will increase. Whilst this is some extra work if it generates new members then I consider it worthwhile.
Member Jungle Software
The introduction of the Member Jungle software is one of the biggest things tackled by the committee as we all know how change can be a challenge to members used to doing things a certain way. However, for the majority of members the change has been a real positive and certainly behind the scenes in membership and events the streamlining of the software has had a very positive impact. The ability for membership renewals and for new members to join with minimal volunteer time has been a real plus and I think makes us appear to be a more progressive club.
There are other features to the software that we have deferred rolling out until everyone gets comfortable with what we are currently doing, however you will see these later in the year.
I would like to thank Alan Pettigrew for his support during this process in helping me get the website going and giving me much needed background on the previous site when we were looking at migrating the site over.
Like any software you learn as you use the software more regularly and we are still fine-tuning the registration processes for events and the best method to distribute Catchat.
As I have mentioned many times, if members are having challenges with the software please speak to me so I can assist you in accessing the features that it offers.
Of course clubs need a number of good volunteers doing a range of jobs in the background to be successful and I would like to thank these people.
Club helpers
Brian Cosh – our membership officer which is a very important job and I certainly think Brian has found the introduction of Member Jungle has greatly reduced his workload.
Christine Galbraith – on the welcome table each social meeting and our social event coordinator and Christmas function organizer.
Julie Paley recording of the attendance at events.
Committee
Stephen Pearson – Vice President and a great right-hand man
Bob Powell – secretary has assisted where he can whilst tackling a challenging year personally and I look forward to working with him again this year.
Peter Stock – Treasurer safely holding and spending the club’s funds wisely.
John O'Daly – Trips coordinator and chief new member recruiter through his work with the caravan and camping show.
Col Price – Many years as Trainer is now slowly stepping back after long service.
Derek Mikolaj – Training and Temporary MIG Coordinator.
Helen Mikolaj – Catchat Editor, turning out our high-quality magazine each month.
Lance Boagey – Life Member, Long Trips Meeting conveyer and tireless worker for the club.
Thanks to leaving Committee members:
Steve Broker - has only been on the Committee for 1 year which was unfortunately interrupted by illness to his wife and Steve has now sadly resigned from the club.
Jon Gilbert – resigns from the committee after serving for 2 years and I thank Jon for his support with getting Member Jungle approved and in particular the great work he has undertaken in finding guest speakers. Guest Speakers are possibly the hardest thing to find however are important in helping make the social meetings interesting and entertaining. As always if you know of someone suitable please let me know.
Des Leach - joined the committee in late 2013 and became President in 2015 until handing over the reins in 2021. During his tenure, he has also served on our Environment and Clean Up Australia Committees, he was the club’s delegate on 4WDSA and Natural Resources Advisory Unit plus our Insurance Officer.
Des has been a great supporter and tireless worker for the club and on behalf of the club I thank him for what he has contributed.
Conclusion
With club member involvement strong and 126 memberships taken up so far this year all looks good for the future. We have some other exciting initiatives in the pipeline which hopefully come to fruition, and we will elaborate if this occurs.
New members meetings have unfortunately slipped since COVID and are something we wish to reintroduce, just finding time in our busy calendars is the challenge.
In closing, I would like to thank all members for their ongoing support of the club and look forward to seeing you all at meetings, on days trip, weekend trips or long trips.
Andrew Gay
President
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