Four Wheel Drive NSW & ACT, INC
ABN: 51 879 448 402
PO Box 1371, Parramatta, NSW, 2124
Phone: 1800 646 630
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NSW-ACT 4WD Association Newsletter - November 2012

The last couple of months have seen a lot activity happening in a number of directions. Unfortunately the executive is short on numbers. Many of these activities are not implemented as quickly as we would like as most of the committee also have fulltime employment. What is needed is individuals who would like to further the cause of 4WD activities to become involved. This does not necessarily mean take on a position but who could contribute by being involved in a specific task.

Annual General Meeting November 10th 2012 - PLEASE ENSURE YOU TRY TO ATTEND!

Concord RSL Nirranda St Concord West – Start at 9.30am.

Peter Fenwick will be stepping down as President. Peter has been voted in to the position of President of the National 4wd association.

Allan Hay will be a guest speaker at this meeting. Allan is from the NSW National party and has had a keen interest in 4WDs.

Read the News Article on the Association site at the link below. Links to meeting documents and a map are in this article:

http://www.4wdnow.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=153:2012-annual-general-meeting&catid=11:latest-news&Itemid=3

ACMC (Australian Council of Motor Clubs)

The association has been very involved with the committees that have been formed to review various issues relating to vehicle modifications. The approach that is being considered is to look to the outcomes for safety of any regulations not simply enforce regulations that do not have validity to be able to improve safety.

Track management with NPWS

Over the last few months there has been some interesting involvement with NPWS. Two instances that I am aware of –

• Abercrombie River National park restoration work to assist repairing vandal damage which will need follow up work by clubs in the October or November.
• Blue mountains NPWS ranger is keen to work with Association club members to assist NPWS in monitoring and helping to make sure some of the management tracks are in good order. Two tracks have been identified – one in the Wollemi national Park past Glen Davis and one heading down from the pumping station of the Ben Bullen track.

These activities will be organised through the Sydney region and will require good organisation so that opportunity is not lost by some disorganisation or poor behaviour.

State Forests and NSW and ACT association vehicle stickers

When the annual membership fees are paid by a club they receive an association sticker that recognises the payment of fees. The number of stickers sent to each club is determined by the number of members being paid for by the club. There is one sticker per member. The stickers that were sent out had a removable part to them to indicate the year ie 2012-13. This part will be replaced each year of renewal.

These stickers are important because of an arrangement made by the association to pay upfront entry fees to state forests on behalf of affiliated clubs. Remember when 10 or more vehicles enter a State Forest we would have been paying a fee for booking an event and a fee per vehicle.

Track classification

We currently have 62 individuals trained to be assessors. The last group of trainees came from the Black Diamond club in the Illawarra. It is unlikely that there will be any new training this year with the focus now to move on to classifying some tracks to use the skills and to present to land managers.

MEMBER BENEFITS & discounts

Four Wheel Drive NSW & ACT are in the process of negotiating special prices for members of affiliated clubs on products from the various suppliers on this website. This list of discounts and special offers will grow as we extend our influence so check regularly for new offers.

The first of our discounts comes from Woodslane Boiling Billy would like to offer a special 25% discount on their titles.

Your responsibility as a member of an affiliated club is to use the special code provided by the business only for purchases by members of affiliated clubs. This will ensure that businesses can rely on us to honour our commitment to them and that the special codes are used only by club members.

Members can access these specials via our Member Benefits page.

Training track

Considerable work has been carried out by Ken Timmins and his generous band of volunteers to keep the training track presentable and make some changes to track for the 4WD Adventure Show which had about 16 different vehicles circulating on the track on the Saturday and Sunday.

Driver Training Unit

The expertise of this group was shown by the production of a video demonstrating some safe recovery techniques using a Holden Colorado. The DTU was instrumental in providing the technical expertise to make sure this video was carried out correctly .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgEC8RbKZmw