Archive:Exec report - President 2009 - 2010

Most of the important stuff I just put in the general "How to run the VOC" section of the exec report. Hopefully it's useful to future years.

Ethos

In the recent past I've tried to drive the club away from policy at all levels, the idea being that it keeps people from thinking for themselves. Often, even in cases where it seems "obvious" a firm policy would be best (ie - driver reimbursement guidelines) the fundamental problem is a lack of communication and understanding between parties. A policy wouldn't really help with that at all, although having something might be a good place to start.

Note that this is substantially different from how most mountaineering clubs run. They generally have very strict rules about leadership and trips. Whether or not this makes everybody safer is certainly debatable.

We also have to think about how we manage our huts. I've driven in the policy of "there's always room for one more", and I like it. There needs to be a mix of consideration - on one hand, they are "our" huts - but on the other we are lucky to have the opportunity to have these huts, so we should remember that they need to serve the whole community. I don't think Phelix needs a wood stove. The only people who complain about it are old alumni, and the hut is plenty nice without it. It's dry now that the renos are finished, and if it had a stove it would probably be rammed full of yahoos every weekend, like Keiths - increasing maintenance responsibility and requiring us to charge more so we can afford to fly in wood every summer. It's good for the Coast Range to have a mix of huts - not every hut needs to be a carbon copy of the others, and a great big hut with no wood stove fills a good void.

How the year went

Membership

The year was pretty rad. We had lots of members, and lots of excitement. For future reference, as of the day I wrote this report:

memberships ending after 2010-04-14

• total members = 686
• regular (student) members = 500
• staff members = 24
• other members = 37
• alumni members = 125

I think this might be a record. A good spot at clubsdays, a poster campaign, and lots of trips likely helped us succeed.

Phelix

• Up at Phelix I managed to get a NRT to keep the hut legal. We probably would not have succeeded if it wasn't for all the support from the community, and the fact that it had already existed under a special use permit (MoF will not issue these anymore)
• Finished the Phelix Creek Trail all the way to the hut
• Renovated Phelix this summer

Journal

The journal editor ended up flaking out, and I took over to make sure it got done on time. It was a hard decision to make, as I generally really really like people to do things for themselves... but I don't think it would have happened otherwise.

MEC

We got things re-kindled with MEC this year. It all started when they asked us nicely to please stop dominating the gear swap. They have the potential to help us in a lot of ways, mostly money and gear.