Dec
4
Written by:
Southern Trails
4/12/2010 10:55 AM
With the addition of some new Members for 2011 we have finally reached 250 Members, comprising 3 Life Members, 231 Owner Members, 4 Associate Members and 12 Competition Members. With the inclusion of 198 Partners and 8 Family Members the grand total of our club ‘community’ is 456. Although we had 31 Members fall by the wayside from 2009, the addition of 36 new members more than made up for their loss and we look forward to even more gains in 2011.
This month we welcome 4 new memberships as our first for 2011:
- Roger Booth, Bredbo, Nissan DX Tray Back
- Boris Djurkovic, Ngunnawal, Jeep Wrangler
- Michael & Virginia Eimer, Wanniassa, Suzuki Vitara, along with son Stephen
- Steve King, Fraser, Toyota 4 Runner (Competition Member)
Please make these new members welcome.
Membership Renewal
The ST4WDC Membership year runs from 1 Jan to 31 Dec. Renewals are Due by 31 Dec 2010 for all except Life Members and those (very few) who have already paid in advance.
As occurred last year, all those (including Life Members and those already renewed) for whom we have an Email address will receive an electronic copy of a prefilled Membership Renewal Form containing most of the data held in the Membership Database in respect of your membership. Those without an email address will receive a letter. These emails and letters will have been issued by the time you are reading this so if you did not receive one, please advise the Membership Secretary.
PLEASE check what the Form contains and let me know of errors and omissions by return Email marking changes in a different colour.
The simplest way to complete your renewal is to make the appropriate payment by Bank Transfer (BSB and Account details are on the form). However when making Bank Transfers, PLEASE include a reference that permits the Membership Secretary to identify who you are – references such as ‘2011 Renewal’ do not help and it takes some time to identify who has actually made such payments. The best reference to use is the surname and initials of the first person mentioned on the Southern Trails address label. It is of considerable assistance to the Membership Secretary if you also send an Email to advise that you have made the payment.
Early renewals will be greatly appreciated due to the change of Membership Secretary from 1 January (See below)
Training Records
As explained in Membership Matters last Month, this renewal period is being used to endeavour to correct many errors and anomalies in our training records
To this end, details of training records currently held will be included on your pre-filled Membership Renewal form (see above). While reading what appears on your form, please note the following:
The intention is that the date recorded in the database is the date on which a particular course was completed. If you did not ‘complete’ a course (e.g. you did the Basic Driver Training Course but did not participate in the mandatory follow-up day), there will be no record.
Dates of 1 Jan indicate qualifications which were drawn from old membership records which recorded only the year during which the qualification was held. In many cases, I have found that it was actually obtained in an earlier year but not recorded. If you can more closely identify the actual date, please let me know.
Similar courses have been known by different names. ‘Advanced Recovery’ and ‘Very Difficult Terrain’ courses are all recorded as ‘Advanced Driver Training’. Courses identified as ‘Water Crossing’ and ‘Sand Driving’ are artefacts from the days when separate courses were conducted, or reflect those few occasions where a Member has completed only one day of the current 2 day combined ‘River Crossing and Sand Driving’ course.
Please be careful of the training skills recorded on the new Web Site as although these were drawn from the Membership Database in the first instance, they usually do not reflect a considerable number of changes which have been made since. Updating of the Web Site will ultimately follow the updating of the ‘Official Record’ in the Membership Database. In the meantime, if you are concerned about the accuracy of what is on the web site, first check with the Membership Secretary to clarify what the official record contains.
In your feedback:
If you are unsure of the actual date on which your course completed, let me know the month, or even just the year, as I am probably able to identify course dates from Trip Calendars in old copies of Southern Trails.
If you happen to have a Certificate, let me have the date recorded on it.
If you can remember the names of other members who were on the same course, this can have 2 benefits – it may help me to pinpoint your date from existing records, or it may assist in identifying when another member completed a course that remains unrecorded.
As with any change made to your membership data, after an update has occurred, a confirming email will be sent to you to ensure that we got it right. These same emails also serve to inform the Webmaster of changes.
Membership Secretary
Unfortunately this will be my last Membership Matters as I am unable to continue as Membership Secretary after 1 January. I am pleased to advise however that Greg Taylor has kindly volunteered to take on the role. This change should be seamless to members as emails to Membership@ST4WDC.Org will always go to the correct person.
From my perspective I have enjoyed my time as Membership Secretary, in particular the opportunity to further refine and develop the Membership Database, but also the opportunity to undertake research through archived copies of Southern Trails all the way back to the creation of the club. These magazines proved to be a treasure trove of information and served us well in allowing us to record much of the club’s history in the Membership Database.
Thank you everyone for giving me so much support and so making an enjoyable position even easier.
Jane and I will certainly be continuing as club members and we look forward to staying in touch on trips and at monthly meetings.