PRESIDENTS REPORT FOR YEAR 2009
Welcome to the Autosport Club’s Annual General Meeting for the year ended 2009.
This has been my second year as President and I am pleased with the progress the Club has made during the past year. Leigh it is still good to have you as my immediate Past President
A couple of office bearers leaving us this year are Brent Tiney and Fred Merkin.
Fred and Brent – thank you for your contributions – Fred this year and Brent for the past two years.
I have had a very good working Committee this year in the form of Lynne as Secretary; Andrea, Treasurer; Barney, Club Captain along with Chris Herdman, John Weir, Tony Witheridge, Brent Tiney and Fred Merkin. You have made my job a lot easier and I thank you for your support and the time you have given to the Club.
We have had some great events again this year with sprints, Autocross’s and the Canterbury Rally.
Many thanks to the Canterbury Rally Committee and of course, Dave McCahon whose wisdom and knowledge keeps us on the right track.
My thanks must also go to the other unnamed helpers like the Rangiora Rotary Club, St Johns, recovery, timing people and set up people. Without these people it is difficult to run club events successfully.
This year we are again paying marshalling people as we found that it is getting harder to obtain enough Rotary volunteers. This year we will be paying people to be Marshalls so if you want to register as a helper then please see me.
With our great set of communication radios and repeater etc. we have had other Clubs asking us for help with their events and we have been hiring out our equipment to make better use of the equipment and also give us some extra money in the system to help with any repairs needed making the communication gear self funding.
With regards to the New Transit van – there have been many comments on our better profile out in the Community with its good looks.
Over the Xmas period we had some rust cut out of the van and a new windscreen fitted. Most of the cost of the repairs were donated to us by Straight and Paint so it is a very noble gesture and we thank Shane very much for his support of our Club.
Last year the Committee agreed to have the web site upgraded and a new format done. I am pleased to say that this is finally up and running and we hope you will look at it and we look forward to your comments. We can change the system ourselves and hopefully this will help with quicker more efficient results with events.
Special thanks must go to Tony Witheridge for operating the computer at our events. We need one or two people to learn this trade to allow Tony to compete in some events. We have a couple of people helping in this area and hopefully they will become good at it like Tony is.
Of special mention is Paul Bradshaw. He has taken over looking after the Bulletin and I think he has done a wonderful job. I always look forward with interest to a new issue coming out. Especially with those questions he puts in them – I bet not many get them all right. Thanks Paul for a commendable effort.
In finishing I wish that everyone enjoys this coming season of events. Be sure to give us any feedback so that we can run events smoothly.
Once again thank you to everyone who has made my year an enjoyable one and look forward to seeing as many as possible at the first event . – the Autocross on march 14th and the first sprint at Coalgate on march 28th. We follow with the AGM elections and I hope we have a few new additions to the Committee to enable us to provide the same array of events as last year.
Graham Wilson
President
February 24th, 2010.