Chairmans Report for the Year 2005
Hello all and thank you for coming and supporting The Ramblers. Thanks to the committee, for all their hard work and thank you to the people who help but who are not on the committee – our unsung heroes - Derek and Sandy Pretorius who keep up the data base, Mike Serrurier who organises the socials and helped with the Christmas party. Ann Thompson who helped with the Christmas Party. Field Boucher and Roger Arnold who meet and greet on a Saturday. Colin Turner our tireless Auditor. Brian and Ann for help with the constitution, as well as Field.
Hats off to our Hike Leaders, we need more of them. If any of you feel you would like to have a go, we can get you trained by one of our experienced hike leaders.
Adrian Rowe has handed over the Archives. If anyone wants to help me sift through them, please volunteer. We are thinking we keep copies of the minutes of the past AGM’s , at least. Thank you Adrian for the work that you did.
We now have a GPS in the club, and Jon Stevens is currently plotting a lot of the Sunday hikes.
Hikes and weekends have gone well. We are proposing to cut the weekends to 2 in a quarter instead of three. Merle has done a most sterling job, but not all the weekends were well supported. We think it could be just that people are too busy to go every month. Please let us know how you feel about this.
The socials have gone well, with Mike finding good venues for us and we held the Christmas party in a new venue. A good time was had by all.
We are losing Merle, Steve Watson and Trevor Thompson off the committee. We will miss you guys, thank you for your help.
As you may know, I have been acting Treasurer and being Chairman at the same time. I have not been a good Chairman and want to tender my resignation. I am happy to carry on being Treasurer. I just do not have the skills required to be Chairman, nor do I have the time, as witnessed by this big boo boo that I made over the Constitution. My job is estremely demanding and it will always come first.
So, we need a Chairman, a Saturday Hike Organiser and a weekend organiser. If we all share out the work, it is not very onerous.
Finances are going well, we have cut the reserve to R70 000, and we will talk some more about this in Treasurer’s report.
Our magazine continues to inform and entertain. I like it when people read it! Publicity is regular and strong.
And a special thank you to Ingrid who is always willing to help and put in that extra mile. Thank you for being so staunch, Ingrid.
We would like to welcome the honorary life members Fred and Anne Rodwell.
FINANCIAL REPORT
We are still sound financially, and we have elected to keep the fees at the same price R50 for members, R60 for Family and R35 for Country members. Our surplus is less than last year and we will probably have to increase the fees next year. During the year we also bought a GPS . Interest rates continue to fall. Our greatest expenses are the magazine and the committee dinners. Jayne is able to use the facilities of her employer and so we keep these costs down.
Can we vote on keeping the fees the same for this year?