Presidents Report : May 2015
20 May 2015
Hello Members
Here we are well into the month of May…. It’s going to be another quick year!
The winter calendar will be available the last week of May and to cater for all the people doing hill runs, e.g City2Surf and Mt Arthur Challenge, you should find the calendar to your liking. As for the rest of us, we will just have to keep puffing and blowing our way around the different courses.
We had 19 members undertake the NSW Athletes training clinic held at Elephant Park on 16th May. Billy and I watched for an hour to see everyone put through their paces. Connor had Lisa Corrigan hotly on his heels, however the training must have paid off as he fronted up to the Northparkes Rotary Fun Run and did the 5 kms in 18:00 placing him first. I previously advised that Michael Sharp had re-donated his winnings ($250) from the Department of Sport and Recreation from the time he won Volunteer of the Year (2012) to ORC to be used for the training clinic. In view of the number of people who attended the clinic, and as some had previously entered the Parkes Fun Run they enjoyed a further discounted price for the clinic, so we have decided to reimburse all our members who attended the clinic. If you have not collected your money please see Billy as soon as possible.
Sadly this month we said our farewells to ex-member Jordan Cheney who passed away on 7th May 2015. Gary Williams attended our Sunday run at the Botanic Gardens and spoke briefly of his association with Jordan. Older members of the club will vividly remember Jordan running around the countryside. He was inspirational in growing the club to what it is today and was Gary’s Vice President for many years. A few of us attended his funeral and wake and as per the request of Jordan’s wife, Leanne, we all wore our old Westruss ORC tops.
Since the AGM the timing system has been the main topic of conversation for the committee. I would like to thank Michael Sharp, John Hannan and Anthony Daintith for the time and effort they have put into this. Personally, it has been a very big issue and to be honest I had no idea what was what with some of the systems presented to us, thank goodness for Michael who was able to get his head around things and has decided upon a system that should work well for Orange Runners Club. The good news is that we are in a financial position to purchase our own system. In relation to the current timing system, as it belongs to a consortium consisting of us, Triathlon Club, Orange Bike Club and The Great Volcanic Run all the equipment will have to be returned to them. The new timing system we are looking at is “user friendly” and we want members to get themselves involved and learn how to use it. Apparently you can download the instructions and practice at home! Before we go ahead with this expense I call upon you, the members of ORC, to put forward your agreement, or otherwise, to this proposal. Please email me at….. wjfairgrieve@hotmail.com
If I do not receive much of a response from ORC members the committee will assume we have your authority to proceed accordingly.
Thank you to Julie and Mark Chapman for doing the mats for April. For the months of May and June, Billy and I are sharing with Brian Sharp. I only received one response from last month’s President’s Report for carrying the mats (thank you Amanda) however I still need volunteers for 3 months, so if you can help out please let me know. Please consider giving something back to your club and help us out.
Brian Rix has sold up and is moving to Bathurst next month. However, Brian has said he will be coming to our Sunday runs as he wants to keep in touch with us all, and of course he does like a bit of a chat!
Many thanks to Daryl and Kinisha for their newspaper reports each week. The articles are very well presented and very informative. It is a very big job week after week and if you have any news you would like to share with everyone, please see either Daryl or Kinisha.
Another big thank you goes to Renai – what a trooper! We have a great website and FaceBook page all thanks to Renai. Like her predecessor (Joel), nothing seems to be of any trouble, and Renai and is more than obliging in getting things done.
Registrations are up for this time of the year and already we have had 400 members pay their fees, so the committee is very happy with this.
Remember if you have any issue you wish to discuss with the committee please feel free to contact myself, Graham or Billy.
Happy running.