Murray Valley Bushwalkers

Committee Meeting 6

Date: Friday Aug 3 2012

Location: Thurgoona Community Centre 1-15pm

Attendance Hans Kaspers, Tony Marsh, Peter Presutti, Tracey Barkley Apologies : Neil Brown, Nicole Stephens

 Minutes of Meeting 5

Friday May 11 2012

The minutes of the previous meeting accessible here were reviewed and accepted as a true and accurate record of that meeting

Moved: Peter

Seconded:Hans

The motion was carried

Business Arising from Previous Meeting

1. Further discussion ensued re the meeting with Rob Newman meeting and lack of outcomes at this stage. Members are encouraged to visit the VicHealth Everyone Wins website which provides practical tools and resources to help Victorian community sports clubs become more inclusive and welcoming of everyone in their community
2. Discussion about rescheduling of the AGM and invitation of a guest speaker from Parklands Albury Wodonga - a decision was made to go for Thursday August 23 7-30pm as Sherylyne indicated a facility was available at TCC - Tony confirmed PAW agreed to provide a guest speaker
3. Leadership training weekend - wide ranging discussion took place - see agenda item
4. Car pooling policy - policy was further discussed and ratified as offiial club policy - read it here

 Correspondence 

In

A summary of approximately 100 email messages received to the secretary account since last meeting

Out

A summary of approx 100 email messages sent as the secretary since last committee meeting

Reports

Event Management

1. Evening walks - Peter has been running a series of night walk either preceded by a bbq or followed by dinner at a local pub - 5 events to date have all been successful and well attended.
2. Weekend walks update  - a great program continues with a range of leaders and activities - the committee expressed its thanks to Hans for the extraordinary program of accessible walks he has prepared
3. Snow activities - there have now been 4 skiing events held at Falls Creek - no snowshoeing activities have happend this winter yet but there is still plenty of time - a snow camping weekend is happening on aug 18/19 and the Hoppet on the following weekend.

4. Team MVB is the designated name of the geocaching arm of our club - we have 4 caches in the bush and every one of both peter and hans walks seem to have a geocache or two which adds a lot of interest. Hans volunteered to write an article to go in the next community newsletter of the TCC - due by Aug 20.

Website Report - Blogs - the blogging component on the website is now fully functional with the capacity for all members to  addd comments, thoughts, feedback etc on club events. When posting to any of the blogs there is an option to post at the same time to the clubs Facebook site. However there is an issue preventing this from working properly probably to do with the type of site we have on facebook. The Facebook site is in dire need of updating and we may decide that its too much trying to maintain all four sites (MVB, Facebook, Flickr and Ecoportal) - to be discussed at the next committeee meeting.

Security

The club's duty of care in relation to the privacy of members information was discussed. Tony reported that ongoing strategies to prevent unauthorised access to the administrative area of the website by use of the RSFirewall software is proving successful. There have been no breaches of privacy at this point in time.

Tony also reported that the "add to cart" Paypal feature has failed twice now and has had to be re-programmed - this is easy to do and Tony will develop help steps on how to achieve this in the event of it happening again in his absence.

Tony also reported on the implications of changing the schedule of membership fees - this requires updating the online registration, list of fees payable, paypal shopping carts and the membership fees schedule - the cumbersome nature of all these changes resulted in a plea for membership fees to be set in concrete henceforth! But this is an issue that will need to be addressed to make the club sustainable.

Treasurers Report

Peter tabled the treasurers report which again indicated a very healthy balance. Accounts for payment were tabled and included:

$1034 for insurance based on a membership of 65 for the 2012/2013 financial year

$135 for purchase of annual subscription fee for the Spot device to be refunded to Peter

Motion was put by Peter and seconded by Tony that the treasurers report and accounts for payment be passed - motion was carried 

Membership report

Membership numbers are rapidly recovering to the pre-end of financial year - at the time of writing we have 61 financial members (max has been 75) - Tracey volunteered to contact unfinancial members to encourage them o renew membership. Tony reported that Paypal was proving extrememly popular and was the method chosen by 80 to 90 percent of new and renewing members.

Presidents summary - to be tabled at the AGM on Thursday August 23 at the TCC

Agenda

1. Leadership training - Tony reported that arrangements have been made with the volunteers of the Victorian National Parks association to run the leadership training weekend on October 20 /21 - location has been agreed upon and further details of the program of activities to be developed soon. Expressions of interest from club members/guests are being solicited from the club website.
2. Ecoportal - the Ecoportal website is a new way of obtaining publicity for our club - however it requires manual addition of event details and on top of maintenance of the MVB, Facebook and flickr sites is difficult to find time to do. Rationalisation of our web presence is required and will be discussed at the next committee meeting
3. Funding submissions We submittted an application to the Volunteer Grants 2012 program for funding of about $1300 to help cover the costs associated with the leadership training weekend to be held October 20/21. Another funding opportunity has arisen with the NSW Dept of Sport and Recreation known as the Participation and Facility  Program - we applied unsuessfully last year but will try again - due in the first week of September 2012.
4. Insurance fees - disussion took place about the premium which is about $1034 and the fact that its about 3 times last years premium. However that amount was based on a membership of 27 so we did rather well given that we were fully insured for membership of much more than that in our first year.
5. Program Acitvities - Peter / Tracey - discussion took place about the need for a forward planning capability with the intention of alleviating conflicting activities / dates. It was decided that this is only reallly an issue when you have two events of the same type scheduled for the same day. In fact co-activities such as walk and a ride finishing at the same venue are great idea. It was agreed that where clashes of same activities occur that the leaders communicate and work out a satisfactory solution with the involvement of the events coordinator if required.
6. AGM definition of "Eligible Members"
7. Schedule AGM - to be held on august 23 at the TCC - guest speaker from PAW
8. Social nights - proving successful and more are encouraged - next one is Friday aug 17 at the german austrian club again - a byo casserole dinner was proposed to be held at the TCC date to be confirmed
9. Bulletin - Tracey offered to manage creation and distribution of the weekly bulletin

General Business

First Aid discussion took place - again and policy decision of last meeting reiterated

First aid policy

That each person on a club activity bring along an appropriate first aid kit for their own usage which may include their own medications. A suggested list to include bandaids, bandage, panadol, swabst, mobile phone - kits can be bought from aldi at times for $10

Moved peter sec tony carried

Next meeting : location and time to be determined after the AGM

There being no further business to discuss the meetng was closed at 4:30 pm