Newsletter
January 2004
News
AGM
Notice
It is usual in this newsletter to give notice
of the AGM, which will be held in April at Hill House Christian Centre,
Otterhampton,
Club
Tithe
Every year the Club allocates money to
charitable causes. If you have any ideas of organisations or people that you
are involved with that could benefit, please do contact Julie as soon as
possible. The next committee meeting is in early February.
Booking with GRO
We are sorry that we forgot to explain in
the last Newsletter why the deadline for booking events has had to change from
four weeks to six weeks. This is because
the staff at the Group Reservations Office (GRO) are unable to process the
information quickly enough. At a meeting
with them, we could not agree with their proposal or they with ours on how to
deal with this, hence the compromise of the event deadline.
The committee is undertaking some research
to see if our proposal is workable and, if it is we will be able to present
this at our next meeting with the GRO staff. We would ask you to bear with us
during this time, and please book events as early as possible if you are able
to commit yourself.
Julie
Points
to Ponder
USE
IT OR LOSE IT
The club has made losses on some
of the bigger events last year, so please be a bit more forward thinking and
book as soon as you can.
The Event Booker’s Report
I recently helped to lead an
event for the first time, taking on the bookings among other things. It
involved a lot more work than I had anticipated and the stress levels were not
helped by a number of incidents.
The weekend was a bank holiday
and proved to be very popular, so that I had to turn away at least twenty
people (several within days of the holiday).
Spaces on these events are limited not only by accommodation, but also
by numbers on walks. The CRC do strongly
recommend that for health and safety issues walks should be limited to 15
people per leader. Thus when planning an
event and taking bookings, even if people insist that they can stay somewhere
other than the hostel, it is sometimes necessary to say no to potential
participants.
The crux of the matter is that
YOU MUST BOOK EARLY to ensure a place, and don't take it out on the one
organising things if you can't plan ahead for whatever reason. (N.B. I have to say that nine out of ten I
spoke to were very reasonable and pleasant, but the others did make life more
difficult than it need have been).
Don’t forget that the club is entirely run by
volunteers in their spare time, and don’t make life more difficult for
them - everyone should enjoy events including the leader and the event booker!!
Short
newsletter
This edition of the newsletter is shorter
than usual as three events in the autumn were cancelled because there were
insufficient people booked one month in advance to make them viable.
Could I also encourage you to think about
writing an article on matters relating to walking or Christian issues that
might be of interest to others reading the newsletter? Apart from event reports and items relating
to club business I receive very few other possible articles for inclusion in
the newsletter.
Ann
The Gift of Friends
Think back to writing those Christmas cards
- why do I not contact friends between Christmases? The Bible says that friends are a gift -
maybe we do not allow ourselves this blessing; the continuity, the mutual acceptance
….. Why do I not pick up the phone or send a postcard/letter/e-mail to
that person? Our friends: married, some with families, single friends, married
friends who have become single… those who have gone further in life than
ourselves…, our peers with whom we can share life notes, and discover
they are going through the same experiences…, our younger friends who
want to get into life… new friends who are waiting for us….
“Thank
you Lord for my friends - for these who you have given me as a gift. Thank you
for their interest and their maintenance of friendship, and the timely word and
different perspective they bring. Forgive me for my lack of contact and
planning to spend time together, but thank you for the times when we have.
Thank you for their comments and feedback on various situations, which has been
so valuable to me and has often checked or encouraged me in my path. Thank you
that you are a friend and had friends when you walked this earth. Please help
me to listen and be a positive friend too”.
For those
for whom my offer of friendship could lift a burden at this time
“Lord you know who needs
encouragement. Help me to be available to them. I pray for particular friends,
lifting them to you, you know their needs at this time…..”
Cross-cultural friendships bring difference,
and are welcomed, especially if someone is newly arrived or friends seem
distant or left-behind in another country.
“Thank you Lord for the
diversity and variety of our lives and cultures, and that people of every tribe
and tongue will be worshipping you in the end times. Help me to enjoy
opportunities for sharing in this fellowship now, with people you have brought
alongside who have a different background to me. And help us learn and receive
from each other”.
“Thank
you for the friendship that comes from the CRC, but also from our wider
lives. Please help us to realise what
You want for us through those who you have given us, as part of this richness
for our lives”.
Amen.
A Munro1 Compleater2
We are pleased to report that Pat Lonergan,
a member of the CRC, compleated his Munros on Saturday 9th August on
1For those who are not aware - a Munro is a
mountain in
2There is a strange convention that when you
finish them you start to spell complete in a more archaic form, hence compleat
and it indicates that you have climbed them all.
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