Goto Chockstone Home

  Guide
  Gallery
  Tech Tips
  Articles
  Reviews
  Dictionary
  Links
  Forum
  Search
  About

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

  Shop
Chockstone Photography
Australian Landscape Photography by Michael Boniwell
Australian Landscape Prints





Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User
VCC and ACAV, together on the sand??? 19-Sep-2019 At 8:52:41 PM Crepuscular
Message
I've been a paid up member of the VCC for the past nearly 3 years (& was previously for several years in the past). I've gotta say I'm pretty fed up with the club's inertia, not just on the critical access issue, but just about everything. The whole culture of the club seems to be completely stuck in the last century.

Let me preface this by saying I am not associated with the new ACAV body in any way, I'm just wanting to see a good outcome for climbing, plus I'm sick to death of being denigrated by people who've spent most of their career working for very large corporations and appear to have no idea about or concern for the environment whatsoever.

When I rejoined the VCC it was mainly to be generally supportive of the club and cliffcare generally. I wasn't expecting to get too much out of it personally. However last year the club was charging $74 for an individual membership. For what you might ask. Well a quick perusal of the club's accounts from the last AGM suggests about half of my membership fee for the previous year didn't go anywhere.

The club appears to be just squirreling money away for no justified reason - i.e. they could be charging members less than half what they do and still be in the black. Why? The previous year there was an even bigger surplus. I don't seem to have the accounts for years prior to that so I'm not sure how long this has been going on, but the club now has well over $100K hoarded away that was apparently mostly collected from membership fees from just a couple of hundred members. How do they justify this??

Most of the rest of the money appears to have been to support the role of the access / environmental officer. However that person has now quit the position. I accept that was a useful role and a benefit to the climbing community as a whole. No complaints about the person who was doing it, and I understand she'd been doing it for a while so she was of course entitled to relinquish it, but there was obviously no succession plan. Apparently nobody has been filling this role for some months now but we VCC mugs keep paying for it even though it should benefit the whole climbing community.

Now the VCC apparently want to INCREASE membership fees to $88 and this evening I get an email from the current VCC president asking for support to stand again. Huh? As far as I recall, when all the access stuff blew up in the media and climbers were being portrayed as environmental vandals the VCC president was completely MIA. I understand this is a voluntary role (unlike the VCC treasurer who apparently gets a $2400 honorarium - apparently just for putting some basic accounts together) but I really find this a bit rich.

Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to get along to the VCC AGM next week, but I really hope something changes as it's pretty obvious to me the VCC is an outfit now in serious and very overdue need of significant reform.

There are 55 replies to this topic.

 

Home | Guide | Gallery | Tech Tips | Articles | Reviews | Dictionary | Forum | Links | About | Search
Chockstone Photography | Landscape Photography Australia | Australian Landscape Photography | Landscape Photos Australia

Please read the full disclaimer before using any information contained on these pages.



Australian Panoramic | Australian Coast | Australian Mountains | Australian Countryside | Australian Waterfalls | Australian Lakes | Australian Cities | Australian Macro | Australian Wildlife
Landscape Photo | Landscape Photography | Landscape Photography Australia | Fine Art Photography | Wilderness Photography | Nature Photo | Australian Landscape Photo | Stock Photography Australia | Landscape Photos | Panoramic Photos | Panoramic Photography Australia | Australian Landscape Photography | High Country Mountain Huts | Mothers Day Gifts | Gifts for Mothers Day | Mothers Day Gift Ideas | Ideas for Mothers Day | Wedding Gift Ideas | Christmas Gift Ideas | Fathers Day Gifts | Gifts for Fathers Day | Fathers Day Gift Ideas | Ideas for Fathers Day | Landscape Prints | Landscape Poster | Limited Edition Prints | Panoramic Photo | Buy Posters | Poster Prints