President's Report 2011 – 2012
Waimea Tramping Club AGM - Wednesday 2nd May 2012
It feels like I am coming to the end of my second year as WTC president but on looking back it is the end of my first year. I can’t believe how much we fit into 12 months. My involvement with WTC began in 1995, some 16 years ago when my children were teenagers. It was a great way to get them out and into areas I didn’t know, in the safety of others who knew.
There have been some changes since then. The use of beacons for one, and in the last year the revision of our trip gradings, the setting up of the new website – thanks Oliver and Robert, the TV screen replaced the data projector, the club’s first DVD - a collection of photos and videos of our trips - was released, thanks to Oliver.
We have also been involved in the “20 Summits” walks.
Val and Geoff Trow became life members.
The combined trips with other clubs are good value - even if we walked most of the day in rain on one such trip - the networking between people was good.
There were some extreme weather events, such as the floods, and apart from affecting some of our members adversely, it meant some trips had to be changed. Thanks to the leaders for managing this so smoothly.
Club nights have been varied and interesting, slide shows, first aid, speakers etc. Social activities, such as damper cooking, swimming, ten pin bowling, potluck meals and fun events were enjoyed by the participants.
In spring, our photo of the albino snail hit the world headlines and created some correspondence.
Looking back over the last couple of years, our membership has remained fairly stable. The several new members made up for the half dozen that left. Participation rates on trips remains about 60%.
We had an average of about 11 people on trips, with day trips (6 to 26, average 12) being more popular than overnighters (3 to 15, average 7 or 8). Base Camp trips were well attended with 12 to 23 people. The number of trips over the last year was 41.
Thanks to everyone for their participation and working together to get things organised and done. May we look forward to another busy year with many more trips and events to enjoy.
Maria Brooks
Editor's Report December 2012
The awesome forces of nature have been at work recently in the Nelson backcountry. At Labour Weekend a 30 metre wide landslip in the Wangapeka Valley formed a one kilometre long lake. While landslip lakes are not uncommon in a mountainous country like New Zealand, not many of us would have ever seen such a newly formed lake. Kahurangi National Park has about 30 named lakes, some of which are formed by landslips, most notably Lake Matiri and Lake Stanley.
Some much less awesome forces of nature have been at work during spring, like wet weather, disrupting some tramps that have been keenly anticipated. Despite this, plans for other trips have been made, and to start the year off in January some easy day trips have been planned to encourage more people to get out there. See you out tramping!
Robert Wopereis
