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The Bulletin, September 2017

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

I remember attending the AGM as a

junior member when Julian Temm was

President and the AGM was held in the

lounge of the RSC Lodge.

Every time someone rose to speak they

would cause ripples in the streams of

cigarette smoke that meandered throughout

the room.

I was in total awe of the eminence of the

occasion but had no idea that I could one

day be elected to the position of President.

I certainly feel like I’m following in the

footprints of a succession of ﬁne presidents

leading all the way back to our Patron and

beyond. The attendance of so many past

presidents at the Annual General Meeting

gave me the feeling of being very junior.

I would like to make special mention of

our previous President, Adrian Adriaansen.

During his term as President, he has been a

real mentor to me. Thanks to Adrian for his

guidance and continued support.

For those of you who do not know me, I

have been a member of RSC since 1969 and

was introduced to the Club by my parents,

Allen and Judy.

We came to the mountain during school

holidays for many years and as a teenager

I also spent most weekends of the winter

season at Ruapehu.

I had the good fortune to participate in

various race training programs and later

trained as a ski instructor with the Chateau

Ski School.

I was away from the Club for several

years, living in Europe, but returned in

the early 1990s with my own family,

once again coming to RSC during school

holidays, though this time as a parent. It

was great seeing so many old faces from

my teenage years but also meeting so many

new families.

Ross Campbell asked me to stand for

Committee in the mid-1990s and I was

promptly put to work computerising the

membership records and building the

membership and booking systems. I’ve

been a Vice-President since the early 2000s.

I think there are two crucial aspects of

RSC as a value proposition; the ﬁrst is our

sense of community.

We can bring our children and

grandchildren here knowing they will not

be in harm’s way, despite being in an alpine

environment. Knowing they will be in a

milieu that nurtures cooperation, tolerance,

collaboration and friendship.

Membership of our Club means being a

co-owner, a share-holder. We need to treat

the Club buildings as though they were our

own holiday homes.

We need to treat our environment, our

mountain and the national park it resides

in with respect and stewardship. And,

above all else, we need to treat each other

as though we were a single huge family.

Another leading feature is our size and

momentum. We are one of the largest

non-afﬁliated sporting organisations in the

country and deﬁnitely the largest club on

Mount Ruapehu. That size gives us great

resilience against many factors outside our

immediate control.

But we need a constant trickle of

new members to maintain that size and

momentum. I would like to see each

and every member take on the role of

ambassador for our ski Club, seeking new

members.

The landscape around us is changing

and with that change comes opportunities

and also challenges. The dedicated and

enthusiastic Committee will be doing all we

can to grasp the opportunities and mitigate

the challenges.

Richard Nelson

President