Advance notice
The next round of improvements to the Club Hut will include: multi-story carpark with double-size spaces for 4 wheel drives; boot-drying facility operated by heat exchange system linked to contentious argument and discussion; wall to wall off-white long-pile carpet in the lobby and kitchen; and a continuing supply of really soft loo paper patterned with flowers.
The Club has developed two strategies to fund these developments. An exclusive range of pre-ripped polypro and pre-stressed boots will be marketed, concentrating especially on the 'leisure' market of people too busy and too rich to be seen out of the office/gym/wine bar. Mud'n'bug spray to give city-based muscle-mobile vehicles that authentic hard-driven look will also be available shortly. Several club members are already employed full time wearing-in the clothing, sewing the 'Keep them up or die' logo onto the trousers, and perfecting the mud-aerosol design at a special engineering unit set up on Stewart Island.
For the second venture the club consulted a well-known business consultant who spent two years researching opportunities before delivering his verbal recommendation - "copy someone else". You've all seen the film Calendar Girls? The Club now proudly announces that in 2004 you will be able to keep track of your tramping days with our very own nudie calendar [note to editor: replace that last bit with 'good humoured artistically-tinted shots of the bits of the club that at least a few people have not seen before'). An early bush telegraph announcement resulted in a stampede of shy volunteers of every age, size, and gender-inclination - united only by an entirely mistaken impression of their own photogenic qualities and a hitherto well-sublimated desire to assist the club. These unique (thankfully) testaments to the beneficial effects of healthy living and outdoor exercise have been duly recorded, tastefully obscured (but not obliterated) with suitable natural objects (only in a few more desperate cases entirely hidden behind a mountain) by a blindfolded photographer. A calendar order form is enclosed in the colour section of this newsletter - order your copy now in time for recycling day!
Disintegrata
Go placidly amid the snow and mist and remember what peace there may be in a white out. Consider also, sudden deceleration like pride usually goes before a fall. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all beginners. Avoid intimate relationships with inanimate objects for they too will bring pain. Speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to other instructors, even the dull and ignorant, for they too have their skills. Avoid loud and aggressive gurus who wear tight and brightly coloured lycra suits and recommend Salomen bindings to novices for they are vexatious to the spirit. Do not compare yourself with others lest you give up in disgust; you may become vain and bitter, for always there are greater and lesser skiers than yourself. Enjoy your snowplough turns as well as your telemarks as each has its place. Keep interested in cornices and cliffs, however humble, for they are a real danger and verily they can be great letdowns. Exercise great caution in ski shops for they are full of expensive and useless gadgets. Be yourself and especially do not feign great knowledge or experience. Neither be cynical about yourself or your gifts. Take not kindly the counsel of the years; age not gracefully; surrender not the things of youth for all these can be enjoyed in old age. Nurture strength of spirit as well as your tent to shelter you. But do not distress yourself with useless imaginings; your worst fears will come true by themselves. You are a child of the slopes no less than the trees and, be it clear to you or not, no doubt a blizzard is brewing. Whatever your labours or aspirations, in the muddled confusion of trip organisation keep peace in your soul. With all its bruises and broken bones it is still a natural high. Be cheerful, strive to be happy and remember, do not stab your skis in the snow for they may delaminate.
Publication By Earley-Birds (Thanks to Barry and Glenys Earle)