The Club

Shoalhaven Bushwalkers Inc. (SBW) started as a meeting of eleven people in the Village Hall at Tomerong on 24th April 1975. In 1988 the President of SBW - Stuart Leslie - investigated the club becoming incorporated - primarily for insurance reasons. The club was eventually incorporated on December 19th, 1989".

Rule 13 (5) of the 1989 SBW constitution - which will become significant later in this story - says "A president shall not hold office for a period of more than two full consecutive years". A couple of years ago Stuart Leslie was asked why this rule had been included, and he said it was to prevent cliques from forming to entrench an otherwise unwanted president in the office forever. There were no similar limitations placed on any other committee positions.

For the next 22 years the club had a succession of eleven presidents with two year terms. Many club members, including Peter Dalton - the club president from 2009-10 (and a current SBW life member) - thought that this rule was an unnecessary restriction. During his presidency, Peter worked on updating the constitution, including changing the term of the President to ensure that good presidents were not needlessly removed from office, while still honouring the intent of the original rule.

The new rule stated ...

"A president shall not hold office for a period of more than three full consecutive years, unless no other nominations for president are received" - so after a President had been in office for three years, they had to step down if anyone nominated against them. This eventually became Rule 18 (5) of the 2011 constitution.

Unfortunately for Peter, the new constitution was adopted two months after his presidential term expired. Sandra Kelley became president for one year, before Karen Davis (also a life member of SBW) was elected in 2012. Karen held office for eight years, standing down in 2020. Mary Furness succeeded Karen.

If you are following this story sequentially, please click on the SAFETY link.

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