The experience of the first weekend has caused me to make a few minor changes to how things are organised.

• With such a good turnout it is difficult to plan two days since so much might be achieved ahead of schedule.  My plans is to schedule just a single day with overflow tasks on the second day.
• My main challenge is getting all the materials organised for people to work efficiently, hence single days will give me more “breathing room”
• I have planned another “big build” weekend on the 28/29 March. This will be reduced to one day and there is a chance it might get shifted to the following weekend depending on suppliers. If you have already made plans there will still be work to do on the original days.
• Yes, yummy treats did arrive. Please keep them coming!

For the coming build day there are three main task areas:

Tanks – position the tanks, cut door and window holes into them, position the floors, attach the door and window jambs, weld on ceiling lugs

Wood work – more routing, sanding and polyurethaning. We are about 65% through this job.

Sewing / fabric – I have all the fabric required for the mattresses and also the foam. Hopefully I will have some of the ceiling fabric.

It will work very similar to last Saturday with me explaining what to do, people gravitating towards were they feel comfortable and me providing more detailed instruction as necessary.

Lunch will work in the same way with a few BBQs onsite. The club spent $90 to feed 50 people which I though was mighty good value for money.

Fly in the ointment

I have mentioned in a previous newsletter that I thought the LINZ recreation permit would be a rubber stamping issue. My assumption was that after the exhaustive Resource Consent process what more was there to do?

As it turns out, my expectation that the world follows practical reasoning was misplaced. It appears we need to do another round of site visits with a DOC representative evaluating environmental impact for LINZ. Hopefully they can do some copy and pasting from the other consent application to save some work and not delay the project.

A few other notes

Emails – I try and respond to everyone but as you can imagine my email is a bit overwhelming and I tend to prioritise organising project planning over correspondence.  If you haven’t heard from me and are expecting a reply please send it again.

The Club is amateur and human powered – A Turk builder asked about the club policy towards helicopter access and the use of the Turks by commercial guides. These are addressed both informally by the culture of the club and formally by the agreements for the positioning of the Turks and the club’s constitution

• The Club’s constitution state we are an amateur club and that use of the Turks is not for personal gain. Professional use of the Turks would require a change in the constitution.
• The agreement with the Mahu Whenua Covenants and QEII Trust is for the Turks to be non-commercial and for human-powered access only. Professional guiding would require agreement from these two bodies and helicopters are out.
• The application for the Resource Consent stated the huts were for non-commercial use, hence there was legislation we were exempt from (such as bed tax).
• The LINZ recreation permit application is for non-commercial use.

The most important issue is that people are donating time and money and enthusiasm and it would be inappropriate and wrong if this energy was “re-purposed” for private gain.
There are edge case situations such as a group wanting to do the traverse in winter but not feeling they can do it safely without assistance and wanting to employ a guide. This is a situation we will need to develop a policy for as a club.

All for now. See you on Saturday if you can make it!

Erik Bradshaw
027 241 8571

Thursday 12 March 2020