President's  Report

With the release of our Winter Program, I hope you will find an activity suitable for you all and a big thank you to all those leaders who volunteered their time to help us put it together.

Here is some information on what we have planned for club in the near future and what we hope to achieve for YHA Bushwalking to run smoothly.

You may know by now that there is a new bushwalking committee on hand for 2010/11. I would like to welcome Romaine Fawcett and Anne Donaldson; it's great to see that we have a strong female presence on the committee, joining Tamie, Cynthia and the boys. I would also like to thank David Sisson, our past President and committee member, for his tireless work and organisation of trips over the years for the club.

We are always looking for new leaders for our upcoming programs; if you are interested and would like to run a walk for the club, then we are always eager to hear from you. We will be organising the Spring Program shortly and will be again contacting leaders for their support.

You may have heard through the grapevine that the club is in the process of revamping its sign its in sheets and booking forms. This is to help us with information required for overnight and remote trips away and also to help keep an up to date record of our finances. My apologies that these forms have not been forthcoming earlier - there are possibly one or two drafts in use at the moment, but when they do arrive they will be a standard form that will enable us to run our walks and events more smoothly.

We will also be looking at other areas thatcan help make the club better for all and will be putting in place an emergency contact system for all our overnight and extended trips. This will put us in line with what all other clubs are doing.

It's been a little while since the club has put on a first aid course. We will be looking at running one of these again towards the end of the year and we encourage our current and would-be leaders to participate. The club will subsidise those who have lead or are willing to lead a walk for the club.

There will be a Walks Sub-Committee shortly to help organise and coordinatethe clubs walks and events for the near future and beyond. If you have any suggestions for the club or think that there is an area we have not been to for a while please let Ken Sussex, our Walks Secretary, know.

Our Clubnights at the Hub in Docklands are gaining in popularity; this is great to see and a great way to come along and find out about the club if you have not walked with us before. If you unfortunately missed the well-attended BSAR (Bush Search and Rescue) talk about their role in search and rescue situations and how not to get lost in the bush (and first-hand experience of the Tim Holding search), then coming up: Jason Foote will be showing some photography from his trekking trip to Ladakh in Northern India and Birds Australia will be talking about their import work with the DSE for Regent Honey Eater Project (see details).

The Photo competition is on again with some great prizes, so get your cameras out and start snapping. This time there will be a special category for the best fungal photo to go along with the usual Landscape, Wildlife and People categories.

Looking forward to seeing you all on a walk in the near future.

Regards,
Andrew Stevenson
President YHA Bushwalking