CHAIRMAN’S REPORT - 2013/2014 – 84TH Year
VOORSITTERVERSLAG - 2013/2014 – 84ste Jaar
On behalf of the committee I would like to present this report about the past year.
I must say that it had indeed been a great privilege and honour for me to have been the Chairman of the biggest and most prestigious amateur radio club in the country, namely the Pretoria Amateur Radio Club, for the past year.
I would like to start off by thanking every member of my committee for their wisdom, support and tremendous effort during the year. As you all know, this is definitely not a one man show but a team effort to keep everything on track as well as to constantly resolve the admin challenges that come up from day to day. Thank you Jean ZS6ARA for a tremendous job well done.
During the past year the keys of Dave Larson, ZS6DN and Dr Joe van der Lingen, ZS6AIC went silent. We will remember you.
During the past year, the membership of our club has increased. We currently have 109 paid-up members making us one of the biggest clubs in the country. And we even have two members who are on the committee of the SARL. The rest of the committee and I would like to thank those members who so regularly renew their subscriptions and who actively participate in club activities like attending the meetings presenting at these meetings, participating during contests, report in on weekly bulletins, contributing to Watts, the best club newsletter in the country, and our website, which can certainly still be improved, keeping our VHF and UHF repeaters going, making sure that Echolink, IRLP and DSTAR is working, doing the swopshop, arranging flea-markets, broadcasting the SARL bulletin, in both Afrikaans and English, organising communications at rallies, training new amateurs and so much more.
Monthly meetings
The matter of club meetings is of great concern to the committee. Attendance of the monthly meetings of late have been quite poorly, please let the committee know what you would like from the monthly meeting.
Club activities.
Repeater
Thanks to the dedication of Craig ZS6RH, the repeater network is operating very well. Craig please rest assured that we all appreciate your efforts in maintaining and defending the repeater network so diligently. A big thank you, to all who assisted Craig in the past year. ZS6JPL, Johan Lehman, thank you very much for keeping our Echolink and IRLP working.
Watts
To Hans ZS6KR , editor of Watts. What can we say? A huge thank you for regularly putting the Watts together every month. Hans you are doing a sterling job! And produced the best Club newsletter in the country. Once again thank you very much.
Rallies
Johan ZS6JHB, thank you very much for all the hours that you put into Rallies. Another big thank you, to all of our members who assist Johan so regularly and their SWs for allowing them to. During the past year they provided communication on four national and seven regional rallies.
Clubhouse
Thank you to Pieter, ZS6CN who so regularly makes sure that the lecture hall and liquid refreshments at Tukkies are ready for our meetings there. Johan ZS6JHB for arranging PMC for the alternate events.
Treasurer
Andre, Thank you for all your efforts in keeping our finances in order. Especially well done on getting the SARS clearance sorted out. I believe that we are the first club in the country to have been successful in this.
Flea-markets
It really looks the idea to move our flea-markets at PMC had been a very good one. Throughout the year the flea-markets were well attended. To Almero ZS6LDP for organising these events, Johan ZS6JHB for taking on the catering role, It certainly went very well. Hans ZS6KR that is always there with the odd connectors and plenty of other useful goodies. And to one and all of our regular and not so regular sellers from other clubs, your will always be welcome at our flea-markets and other club events.
Bulletins
ZS6BTY, Vince, to you and your team of presenters and regular contributors, HUGE congratulations and thank you for a job very well done. The hours spend in collecting and recording this information and so regularly keeping us all informed is appreciated by everybody. Thank you to one and all for taking a turn. Hans ZS6KR what can I say, well done with your weekly swop-shop on the air and our website.
Website
ZS6GJR, Graham Reid, thank you very much for all the hard work put into the website and our sincere thanks to CMC Networks for hosting our website and providing maintenance. I know that it had not been an easy road up to now but currently our website is of such a standard that we have discontinued the offline database completely. If a birthday or anniversary announcement is missed, please update your online record or send the correction to any member of the committee.
Contests
Last year has not been the best of years for us as a club on the contest front. Regardless of that, thank you all very much for your contribution during the past year’s contests. Currently we have two new members who are very keen on doing contests. Thank you for your enthusiasm and let us all support them in their future endeavours. If you know of somebody else that is prepared to assist us, especially on the CW side, please let us know, it will be greatly appreciated.
RAE
This is the third year that PARC is again assisting with preparing candidates for the RAE. I do notice a few of the recent attendees among us. Thank you very much to Vince Harrison ZS6BTY for taking the lead with this. Hopefully we will be able to keep this up and draw some young blood into our club. If you are aware of anybody in our area that is interested in becoming a radio amateur, please get his or her contact details to Vince, Fritz or any member of the committee.
A big apology if I did not mention your name in this list. And if you have any idea on how to improve on what we are currently doing, please do not hesitate to inform the committee. All suggestions will be listened too and feedback will be provided.
Thanks again to each and everyone who in some way made a contribution to our club and in doing so ensuring that our hobby is still going strong.
Be radio-active; 73’s and 88’s
Pierre ZS6PJH