Murray Valley Bushwalkers Inc Newsletter Number 2 September 2011

The MVB Official Launch

Yes its happening this Sunday September 18th - bring along your friends and plan for a self catered BBQ in Hovell Tree Park after the walk

We meet at the Botanical Gardens in Albury at 10am - click here for further details

To help things go smoothly the more people who register for the walk prior to the day the better.

To that end we have created an online booking form.and encourage you to complete and submit if you intend joining us

Recent Developments

• We have successfully applied for affiliation and insurance coverage with the Confederation of Bushwalking Clubs NSW - this means members and guests are covered for personal accident and the club for public liability insurance while participating in an official club activity.
• The second Committee meeting was heldon Aug 24 at the Commercial Club - minutes are available here
• An application for funding  was made to the NSW Dept of Sport and Recreation for the provision of safety equipment and training to enable our club to deliver safely a range of outdoor activities on week
  days after normal 9-5 work hours particularly during the daylight savings period as well as for mid week and weekends. Further details on the items included in the proposed budget are available upon request from Tony Marsh.
• We have now become eligible with our website hosting service WebHosts Australia for free hosting due to our not for profit status. The club acknowledges the generous and timely support we (and many other not for profit associations) receive from this organisation.
• We have paid for a Pro Flickr account which provides us with unlimited storage of photos and video for $25 per year - there are now 19 sets of photos available and there is also a page on the website under News which displays the most recent 20 photos that have been uploaded to our Flickr site.
• We now have a Paypal account which enables us to receive paypal / credit card membership fee payments and donations in addition to electronic funds transfer (internet banking)
• Event management - further revision of nomenclature for event bookings on the website has hopefully made this more intuitive to follow.

Acknowledgement of risks form

Members are required to lodge this form once a year - usually at the time of membership renewal. In case you need reminding of the document you accepted the terms and conditons of when you first registered it is now available under the Join menu item on the website. There is no need to complete this form again until membership renewals are imminent (end of June 2012)

However visitors on club events are required to complete a risk form for every club event they participate in (and pay $5) preferably before the day of the event.

The Program

The event calendar under the program menu is where all the action is. As mentioned in the previous newsletter club events are often scheduled (and postponed) at short notice due as leaders and members respond to changes in availability, weather and enthusiasm! One of the ways to keep informed about developments in the program is to use RSS - this is a tool which automates the notification of changes to a website to those who subscribe. Notifications can be by email and/or an RSS reader. On the top right of the List of Events page is an orange and white RSS icon which you can use to generate this feed as it is known as. If you need any help getting this up and running contact Tony.

The committee will be exploring options for mid week after work events in the upcoming daylight savings period. If you have any ideas on this we would like to hear from you.

As mentioned in the first newsletter we would love to see other members propose an event. Did you know that when logged in to the website you can go to the Program menu item and choose Add Event? You just need to fill out the mandatory fields (marked with an asterisk) then press the next button and write a description and finally choose Save and Trish will pick up from where you left off. It doesn't even have to be you who leads the event you can nominate another club member and Trish can do the negotiations!.

Club membership

The club now has 32 paid up and registered members.  You can always check and update your membership details (including when you are financial to and if you have accepted the acknowledgment of risks statement) by logging in to the website with your username and password and choosing Members, My Profile and exploring the contact info and membership info tabs. Most (but not all) fields can be updated and saved by you.

We encourage members to upload their photos to the clubs Flickr site for the purpose of sharing the experience and to assist in the generation of reports of club events. You can email Tony for instructions and login information and help if you get stuck.

Feedback

Please note that you are encouraged to fill out the Feedback form - accessible under the Home main menu entry - to suggest changes, report problems or comment about just about anything you like. We would love to hear from you.

regards

Tony Marsh

Secretary Murray Valley Bushwalkers Inc