The following Officers of the Association were elected from the Committee at the first meeting: Chairman - Michael Harkness; Vice Chairman – Terry Thomas; Honorary Treasurer – John Armstrong; Secretary – Fiona Balch; Hon. Solicitor – to be appointed if the need arises; Financial Reviewer – deferred; Repeater Trustee – Martin Balch.
Other members of the Committee are: Brian Chalmers, Ron Johnston, Vern Hall, Ate Heineman, John McLellan, Les McBean, Ian Milne, Keith Simon.
During the year there was a small increase in our membership: the total number now stands at approximately 200. Following up a suggestion from Keith that many recreational VHF users while owning VHF radios were not members of the Association, I visited a fishing contest at Karitane and distributed application forms to those who were not members of the Association. In fact, very few were members of the OMVHF Association although all appeared to own VHF radios. It would be in our interest for members to distribute applications forms at future fishing contests.
We have had some issues with the power cable and signal strength at Hautai. I refer you to Martin’s excellent report. As Martin mentions in his report, the cable will have to be located and re-laid in a deeper trench, and at the appropriate time we will require a working bee. This should enable us to complete the job quickly and efficiently. The incoming Committee will also need to tidy up the arrangements at Hautai with Terry who has security and Differential GPS transmitters at Hautai, and I’m am sure that we can come to an amicable agreement.
I have put a temporary hold on further developments of Hina Hina until we are sure we have sufficient funds to complete the exercise. At present the subscriptions and interest received will not meet our continuing obligations including repairs, licences and replacements. Over the next year, we will need to apply for a grant to fund our on-going developments and costs. Overall, the Association is in a good position and I think we can look forward to the productive year.
Finally, I would like to thank those who have worked on our repeaters, to our operators – John McLellan (who was honoured with a QSM for his long involvement with SAR), Kevin Hughes, Heather and Keith Simon, Martin Balch, Fiona Balch, Meri Leask (who comes up on the morning weather schedule) and Ted Gilbert, and those who have provided on-the-water weather reports. I would also like to mention that Neville Crozier resigned from the Association during the past year: Neville was member of the Association for many years and helped many sailors; and also Hamish Scott who retired from Harbour Control in December 2009.
Michael Harkness
