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+=====The Sydney Bushwalker.=====
+A monthly bulletin of matters of interest to The Sydney Bushwalkers, 14 Atchison Street, St Leonards. Postal Address: Box 4476, G.P.O. Sydney, N.S.W. 2001.
+====October 1971.====
+|Editor|Jim Brown, 103 Gipps Street, Drummoyne. Tel. 81-2675|
+|Typist|Gladys Roberts|
+|Duplication|Jim Vatiliotis|
+|Business Manager|Ramon U'brien, 7/25 Batbrook Road, Auburn Tel. 888-6444 (Business)|
+=====In This Issue.=====
+| | |Page|
+|From the Editor| | 2|
+|At the September General Meeting| | 4|
+|From Running Stream to Culoul Range|Pat Harrison| 7|
+|Poem to the Editor|Ken Ellis| 9|
+|Things are not always what they seem|M. Bacon|11|
+|Book Review and letter from...... |David Peacock|13|
+|Coming Walks|Pat Harrison|15|
+|Federation Notes| |17|
+|The position at Coolana|Ramon U'Brien|18|
+Enquiries regarding Club... Marcia Shappert Tel. 30-2028
+=====Advertisements.=====
+| |Page|
+|Mountain Equipment| 6|
+|Ausventure - Staff Required|10|
+|Paddy's|16|
+=====From the Editor.=====
+====A Constitutional Contradiction - (3) "... and Stamina?"====
+In last month's Editorial comment it was suggested the Club was on good grounds in discouraging temperamentally incompatible people from gaining membership, but it was not so easy to reconcile the Constitutional provisions demanding a certain standard of physical performance with the implied invitation to all interested in walking in the bush, as expressed in the "Objects" of the Club. This requirement of physical capacity is conveyed not only by the demand that test walks be accomplished, but is underlined by the need for a nominator to report on a prospective's "stamina". It is worth noting that the word is "stamina" - that is, staying power, not "speed" or "strength".
+In support of this requirement of physical endurance, it may be argued that, except in cases of illness or injury, a member should be capable of completing any trip undertaken without becoming a burden on the party or leader. A member, yes - but that can scarcely apply to an inexperienced newcomer, who cannot be expected to know if his physical capacity is equal to a trip of unknown proportions. In any case, the trip that proves too much early in his prospective membership may be something he will accomplish with ease a few months later.
+It may also be urged that it is desirable to exclude weaklings and cripples, yet quite a few respected members have been people of indifferent physique, and several have suffered from serious disabilities.
+If it be accepted that there is justification for demanding a measure of physical fitness, probably the best and fairest way of gauging it is by test walks, as the Club has done from its early years. It follows that there should be a wide variety of trips on the programme, allowing the __complete novice__ to make a steady progression through easy day walks where he can acclimatize; moderate day test walks to get launched on the business of qualifying without being ruined; leisurely camps so that he can get used to carrying a weekend pack, and find out what he should take; and finally, week-end test walks sensibly geared to a prospective's increasing experience and capacity. If some of these set out on a Saturday, so much the better.
+Unfortunately, in any six months' period it would be a rarety to find such a diversity of walks in a sequence that would be suitable to a beginner. If some of the quite numerous members who enjoy walks of a moderate standard would commit themselves to leading such trips it would be of immeasurable help.
+Are our test walks too severe, as some members aver? The test walks are selected by Committee from the trips available on the programme, and should be similar in scope to the Pattern Walks laid down by a General Meeting. Within those restraints a succession of Committees has, over the years, usually managed to make a fairly discreet choice, but it is not an easy task.
+To make a sound selection, it is obviously desirable that most Committee members should have actually done the Pattern Walks, and some at least should be familiar with the trips to be marked as tests. However, of the three pattern day walks, one has been led only once in the past ten years, and another has never been conducted - the route is rather illogical. Some of the week-end test walks on the various walks programmes have not appeared previously, and others are patently exploratory trips. Their choice is probably due to the fact that a few Committee members know the area concerned in a general way, although they may have only a sketchy idea of the details of the scheduled trip.
+There is, too, an understandable tendency to think of the Pattern Walks as a minimum standard, whereas the Constitution actually says test walks shall be "approximately equivalent" to the pattern trips.
+In the circumstances, perhaps it is rather remarkable that so many of the walks marked as tests have been so shrewdly chosen. There can be no doubt, however, that others have been far beyond the reasonable physical capacity of a relatively inexperienced prospective member.
+The leadership of test walks may also have a good deal of influence on their suitability for newcomers. Unless we aim to play the game of exclusion really hard, it is important that leaders of test walks be tolerant of the physical shortcomings of prospectives and make sensible allowances for the physique, age and experience of those they accept on their trips. Leaders who are not prepared to accommodate newcomers in this way would do better to ask that their trips should not be indicated as test walks, or alternatively decline to take people whose capacity is unknown to them.
+One of our most valuable member acquisitions of recent years has said to me	"On our first walk we were really ruined - but ruined. But we were lonely and in a foreign City, and the walkers were such friendly people .... so we came back."
+That's not a bad image in one way, but maybe it could be improved if we concentrated a little more on being "those friendly people" and didn't make quite such a fe_tish about physical achievement. Of course, we don't subscribe to W.C.Fields' dictum "Never give a sucker a break", but we don't really go very far out of our way to "amalgamate those who esteem walking" or to "help others appreciate our natural gifts".
+=====The Half-Yearly (September) General Meeting.=====
+If one excludes the rather abortive gathering of September 1st, when ingress to the new Club Rooms was somewhat retarded, the half-yearly meeting was the first opportunity for most people to view the new premises. About sixty people were present when Spiro and Don mounted the pulpit - sorry, dais, to open proceedings with a welcome to new member Peter Chorley. Four other admissions of recent months were still too shy to claim their badge.
+The August minutes were O.K'd, and in Correspondence appeared the Annual Report and Notice of the Annual Meeting of the Nature Conservation Council of N.S.W. There was also an opinion by the Club's Hon. Solicitor that the tentative agreement with the owners of the new Club Room was satisfactory.
+The Treasurer reported finances in August as holding their own, income and expenditure almost equal, and the closing balance $716 in the working kitty. Pat Harrison then presented the August Walks' Report, starting with a trip led by John Holly in lieu of David Ingram in the Woolwash area, and attended by 19; despite Army "Keep Out" notices, a satisfactory trip was conducted.
+Over the week-end 6-8 August Max Crisp had a party totalling 14 in the territory around Gudgenby, south of Canberra. Some snow fell during the Saturday night. Also on that week-end Phil Butt had one of his cross-country skiing instructionals, while in the absence Peter Franks, his programmed Wolgan Valley jaunt was cancelled. The day walk was again a Holly production, out from Waterfall, where the growth was reported denser than in the past for the party of 16.
+Dot Noble was up an over the Guouogang ranges with 14 folk on the 13-15 week-end - night camp on Saturday was made on a ridge, and breakfast Sunday was taken on Kanangra River. An Instructional week-end set down for Moorabinda under Betty and Ernie Farquhar was instead organised by David Ingram, while the Sunday trip, Jack Gentle's test walk over Woronora Trig and Scouters Mt. again found the growth quite thick.
+The third week-end was severe weather-wise - the famous Sydney hail-storm occurred Saturday morning - and Alan Round's party of 4 spent all day holed up in the cave at Kanangra Walls before abandoning the trip on Sunday morning. Bill Gillam's snow instructional had three people, and was laconically described as "terrible". Peter Franks was still away, so no-one languished in the misery around Coricudgy, but Jim Callaway who had a Sunday trip combined with the C.B.C. took out two others and sloshed around east of Waterfall. The other day walk, Jack Perry's from Brooklyn, was cancelled.
+So to the final week-end, when Bob Younger's team of 16 at Coolana were busily correcting erosion scars and planting trees, as well as hearing about the night of Owen's infamy. Unhappily some of their good work will have been undone by the fire that struck the Kangaroo Valley a week or so later. On the same weekend Alan Hedstrom with 12 people looked over the attractions of the Myall Lakes area, and there were two day walks - one led by Meryl Watman out along the Uloola track, where evidence of trail bikes was found, and the other, Jim Brown's team of 27 bush-pushing through superb wildflowers between Cowan and Brooklyn.
+The September Federation Report was published in the previous magazine but during the discussion of it Pat Harrison mentioned a report that Clutha Organisation was understood to be seeking coal mining leases near the main Blue Mountains ridge between Valley Heights and Wentworth Falls. Also inspired by Federation Report was an official recording in the Club minutes of appreciation for the work of Elsie Bruggy and Heather White as S & R Contacts when an alarm was sounded.
+Dot Butler mentioned a trip to Coolana when the newly planted trees were watered: some had been "slightly chewed by rabbits" but most were in good shape (at that time ... the fire came later).
+The main affair of the evening was the discussion about the Club Rooms. Because it was regarded as a matter of immediate interest, and time permitted, a summary of the debate was given in the September issue. The resolution adopted means that we stay at St. Leonards for a period of 12 months, see how attendance and membership are affected, and then review the situation. One got the feeling that some people who came prepared to vote against a move from the City decided, after seeing the place, to support the motion, or, alternatively, to refrain from voting. As a matter of interest, after the taking of the vote, a show of hands was held to determine the residential background of those present. Whilst northsiders were more numerous than others, there was a good western suburban representation, and a reasonable group from each eastern and southern areas.
+Spiro now said that Barbara Bruce had resigned as Membership Secretary - presumably the first casualty of the new location, which certainly could have problems for a Kirrawee resident. Geoff Mattingley was elected in her stead after saying he would need more effective assistance than the old Membership panel had provided (sometimes, he said, "as useful as pockets in a singlet").
+Before winding up, a vote was taken on the site of the 1972 Reunion, which went to Macarthur's Flat on the Nattai River after the various supporters of Woods Creek and Coolana had split the "closer to transport" vote. Then it was time to call it a night for the first time in our latest abode.
 =====From Running Stream To Culoul Range.=====