This past year has certainly been an eventful one for the CTARC. We started off the year with Paul / ZS1S and Nick / ZS1ZD joining us on the committee.
Events:
During the year we have had quite a few interesting talks at the club house including Dennis / ZS1AU on propagation, Paul / ZS1S on Trista da Cunah, Colin / ZS1RS on fox hunting, Mike / VK2UCTY on hamming in Australia, Nick / ZS1ZD on batteries, and our SARL representative Johann Marais / ZS1JM discussing our questions about the SARL Headquarters building, to name a few of our regular meeting events.We have had our usual bumper flea market in March, a visit to the Observatory, a very successful Lighthouse operation, a club house work party and the always popular end of year function. Incidentally, our Green Point Lighthouse use on 15 / 16 August has been confirmed by Transnet. They are charging us a small user fee for their facilities this year which the club will pay next week.
Membership:
Anne has informed me we have 31 paid up Members as of yesterday 24th July when this report was written. As of yesterday there were 34 still to pay their 2015 / 16 Subs. If you have not paid your subs yet please see Anne or Danny.We have also had 11 new members join us last year. New members are most welcomed and having new members join us gives your committee the feeling that things are going well with our club.
This year we sadly said goodbye to some of our members who passed away. Alan / ZS1AAX, Harold / ZS1VW and Paul / ZS1GE.
Repeaters:
The saga of the narrow banding issue continues and your committee is doing what it can to maintain our 145.750 repeater on wide band. Dave Perry / ZS1SG remains the sole person who can access that site and if it were not for this fact our 145.750 would have been converted to narrow band also.I have been told that the WCRWG has set some of the repeater receivers on wide band and the transmitters on narrow band without any discussion with the either ourselves or the Oakdale club. As you can appreciate, at this point any donations that we have for repeater support are now being made available only for our 145.750 repeater and we will continue with this policy until the WCRWG once again consults and takes recommendations from the two largest clubs and supporters in the area.
We have recently purchased batteries for power back up for our 145.750 repeater which Dave has installed. We feel these funds were well spent in light of the load shedding taking place and will ensure our repeater has power to run when Eskom performs it’s load shedding in that area.
On a lighter note, Barry / ZS1FJ has agreed to finance a remotely controlled HF station at the club house. You committee is gathering information on what hardware will be required and the best way to get an internet link into the club house. I have no doubt that once this system is up and running we will see many of our members making use of the system and new members joining the club in order to use it from their home QTHs. Shaun /ZS1RA has undertaken to head up this interesting project.
Finances:
Our finances are still healthy and Danny / ZS1BL keeps excellent watch over them and our expenditures to ensure they stay that way, thank you Danny. Also a big thank you to Anne, our secretary, caterer and Ragchew editor and of courses my dear wife, for all she does for the club. Anne keeps us all on our toes and ensures the club runs smoothly.Committee:
Deon / ZS1ZL started on the committee at the beginning of the year but due to unexpected work and home commitments he has been unable to attend committee meetings and most other club functions. We thank Deon for the things he was able to assist us with before his work and family commitments prevented him from doing so.Paul / ZS1S keeps a watchful eye over the goings on at the WCRWG meetings and advises the committee accordingly.
Nick / ZS1ZD ably runs our website and keeps the CTARC BlogSpot up to date with many interesting articles and reports.
Paul / ZS1PXK ensures there are tea and snacks for us at our meetings and also assists with our major events such as the flea market and lighthouse events.
Tony / ZS1TM, our bulletin coordinator ensures the Sunday bulletin is read out each week and schedules the readers.
Noel / ZS1FW as our chairman of vice and my mentor during my first year as chairman has been instrumental in keeping the club house ship shape and in good order.
Shaun / ZS1RA is responsible for or public relations but you will see him involved in many other important functions of the club.
In fact the entire committee rolls up their sleeves whenever required to ensure the necessary is always taken care of, regardless of their formal designations on the committee. I would like to thank all of the committee for their work and dedication to this fine club.
And finally I would like to thank you, the members for supporting us and attending our events. Together we will ensure that the CTARC continues to be Cape Town’s finest radio club and I look forward to serving you in the coming year.