2022-05 Haratua Pānuitanga a te Tumuaki
Tēnā koutou e ngā iwi e pānui ana i tenei karere.
Mā mua ka kite a muri, mā muri ka ora a mua
Those who lead give sight to those who follow, those who follow give life to those who lead.
This whakataukī speaks to the importance of working together. It acknowledges and values the importance of both the leader and the followers, for both are essential and codependent.
The Tararua Tramping Club is a community. I have previously in my kōrero discussed how volunteering gives life to our club. As a community, we support our members and I see this happening on trips and in the personal actions club members carry out for each other.
As President I am often asked ‘why isn’t some aspect of the club like this, or like that.’ And the answer is fairly straightforward. As a club we are a cooperative; everyone has the opportunity to contribute to the club and with the consensus of other members improve an aspect of the club that motivates them.
In general this means that ‘the way we do things’ has to continue to be sustainable. That is, it must be capable of continuing with the resources and skills of the club in the future. It mustn't commit other volunteers to more time and effort or, preferably, the club to more cost, or if it does, there needs to be wide acceptance of the change.
As a club we focus on keeping membership fees reasonable and ensuring that volunteers’ work is as easy as possible. I imagine that many volunteers would prefer to be on trips. One of our roles on the General Committee is to account for appropriate and the best expenditure of your membership fees. And by the way, ensure that the work volunteers do is appropriate and supported by tools and resources such as our Google Workspace.
What does this mean in practice? It means we operate the club on a high trust model. Whether it be the library, gear room, use of our huts, or our health and safety policy, we trust members to do the right thing. We have a lot of information, be it in policy or guidelines, all publicly available on the website, to allow members to discover ‘how we do things round here’, and to ensure the things we need to do as a club get done and done beneficially to minimise reinvention of the wheel.
We ask our sub-committee and activity coordinators (see our TTC/WhosWho? on the website) to define, describe, plan, budget, and own their own scope of work. They work hard to support their pool of volunteers to continue the processes that are the club. This means don’t wait until you are tapped on the shoulder. Reach out and offer your services.
With the new financial year coming up, and then the AGM, please have a think about how you could get involved in the club.
I enjoy our club and the care we share with each other. Long may it last.
Ngā mihi nui
Simon
Tumuaki o te rōpū hīkoi Tararua