Annual Report: Pajero Club 2019
A focus for this year has been to re-enforce three values that characterise the Pajero Club:
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making visitors and members welcome,
providing value in our meetings, and
organising 4WD trips.
We welcome those who have joined since our last AGM and hope you have made friendships
and found activities that you enjoy. Also welcome back to those renewing with the Club.
The meeting structure has been modified to allow a mid-evening break for socialising, shop
sales, supper and to discuss future activities. External talks are being kept to 5-15 minutes
length on the basis that members who are interested have avenues for further questions and
those who are not will be able to find other value in each evening with the Club.
We have an enviable array of trips on offer from one-day and weekend to the week trips
around Victoria and extended trips to the Centre, the West, the Cape and overseas. We should
not forget the significant number of less formal trips led and joined by our members that are
facilitated by the 4WD training, member networks and pool of ideas arising from
membership of the Pajero Club.
A significant proportion of our trips end up being full and turning members away. Apart from
apologising if this has happened to you, I can make some positive suggestions beyond
waiting at your computer until a trip is advertised and being first in. Talk to any of the trip
leaders and especially the Trip & Social co-ordinator so that they become aware of your
interest; find a mentor to co-lead a trip with you; or simply do some planning and enquiring
before advertising an easy day trip that you will lead. Once you elevate yourself to a trip
leader for the Club, you can ask the question each weekend “where would I like to go next?”
The Committee held a Strategy Planning Weekend in February with Grant Cavanagh as our
facilitator. The outcomes from the meeting were communicated to all Members via summary
notes and through the General meetings.
The Rules and Policies sub-committee have been working through policies that will replace
the former By Laws and provide more comprehensive guidance for anyone involved in
Pajero Club leadership in future. Beneath the Policies will be Procedures outlining how we
go about many roles.
We have a significant project underway to upgrade our membership and financial digital
systems. The outcome will be better support for key Committee persons as they complete
their roles, more accurate and accessible records, and reduced loss of members by eliminating
some past errors. The archiving sub-committee complements this record updating by storing
and making our past records more accessible. A major effort will be on training and
educating so everyone receives the support necessary to fully participate in communications
and activities with any new systems. One important decision has been to use off-the-shelf
software system(s) rather than try to build our own.