Suggestion for policy to not burden leaders

From: Brett Davis To: info@shoalhavenbushwalkers.com Subject: Suggestion for policy to not burden leaders Date sent: April 2, 2025

Hi SBW committee, In the good old days of the club prior to 2020 the committee understood that without leaders the club would fall apart so it had an unwritten policy that stopped any committee decision from adding to the workload of leaders unless that addition was absolutely necessary. Sadly, that policy has not been put into practice over the past few years with the committee making at least two decisions that have significantly added to the workload of leaders with little to no benefit to the club or its members. The first of those decisions was the requirement for leaders to fill out attendance sheets with the names, contact numbers, emergency contact names and numbers for everyone on their walk, and to send an electronic copy of the sheet to the club prior to the commencement of their walk. This administrative task was supposedly imposed for reasons of safety, but it does nothing at all to improve the safety of the people on the walk. The second unfortunate decision was to allow children to attend walks. Leaders have been given the option of refusing to allow children on their walks, but even if they exercise this option, they are still put in the position where their refusal would offend the person making the request. Additionally, if the leader does allow a child on his or her walk and the child's supervising adult is incapacitated, responsibility for the child inevitably falls to the leader. To prevent further additions to the workload of our leaders, I suggest we return to the policy that stopped any committee decision from adding to the workload of leaders unless that addition could not be avoided – i.e. for legal or genuine safety reasons - but instead of the policy being understood or unwritten, the committee should make the policy concrete by passing a resolution to that effect and adding it to the club’s standing resolutions. Also, if the committee decides not to create such a policy, could they please explain to the club their reasons? Regards, Brett TOP

This page shows one of the 35 suggestions to improve the club and its procedures sent by the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers webmaster to the SBW committee in 2025. The Shoalhaven Bushwalkers webmaster would have his membership cancelled for sending in these suggestions, although the real reason was probably because of two disputes he raised with the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers committee which they seemingly did not want to deal with. The cancellation of the webmaster's membership was arguably illegal under NSW law and could lead to the club being taken to court.