In the eye of the beholder, 2023 competition entry. Photo (c) Jacob Clere, Golden Bay Alpine and Tramping Club.

There is still plenty of time to run your club's photo competition this year - it is a perfect thing to do on a club night during the long cold winter evenings. The winning images of a club's competition are eligible to be entered by the club into the FMC competition. FMC individual supporters can also enter and are pre-judged by FMC with the top shots gaining entry to the overall competition.

Information on how to enter is on our website and we have put together resources for clubs running a competition, including tips on how to run a photo competition for your club, both in person and online.

Entries close on 1 September 2024 for individual supporters and 15 September 2024 for clubs. If you have any questions, please contact photocomp@fmc.org.nz.

Christchurch Tramping Club were awarded a 2023 training grant to run an Outdoor First Aid Course.

FMC is proud to offer Youth Expedition Scholarships for the 14th year and the Simon Bell Memorial Scholarship for the ninth consecutive year. For information on how to apply and to check your eligibility criteria, see www.fmc.org.nz/scholarship/

Check out the poster to promote the scholarships. You can download it from our website.

We are also offering Training Grants for the fifth year to support FMC clubs by making training opportunities more accessible: https://fmc.org.nz/members-area/fmc-training-grant/

Applications for both Expedition Scholarships and Training Grants close at the end of the day on Sunday 15 September 2024. For any queries, e-mail eo@fmc.org.nz.

Is there a hut you always wanted to visit but never got to? One you haven’t visited for a long time, but it holds a special place in your heart? One that’s part of a long traverse you’ve been planning to do for years?

This November is a great opportunity to turn your plans into reality and join FMC's Love Our Public Huts and Tracks campaign. We would love as many people as possible to get involved by visiting one or more of 951 public huts. Let's give every public hut in Aotearoa a spring clean, and do a simple health check on its use and status, including the bridges and tracks along the way.

Registration to join is now open! All you need to do is get a group together and go to www.fmc.org.nz/loveourhuts and sign up to give some love to a hut or two! Be in quick, so you can show some love to your favorite huts!

Keep an eye out for a special edition of our newsletter shortly, where we'll keep you posted about the campaign and share your stories. You can also follow what's happening by joining our FB group Love our Huts.

Together, let's protect and strengthen our world-leading backcountry network.

We still have spaces left at next week's Club kōrero. Our Club kōrero has been going for over a year and is proving very popular. To be more closely connected with our member clubs, we have been hosting quarterly online catch-ups, where clubs can dial in for an hour to get an update on FMC happenings and ask questions of the Executive.

There are still a few places available to join us for our fifth kōrero on Wednesday, 7 August 2024, 7-8 pm. If you would like to attend, please RSVP to communications@fmc.org.nz.

If there are items you would like to see on the agenda for discussion, please let us know so we can ensure we have the right information in front of us to answer your questions.

Raymond is gaining a reputation among the FMC Board for writing excellent submissions.

Kia ora koutou,

Most of my time this month has been taken up with advocacy. Recently, tramping clubs, the NZ Deerstalkers Association and Te Herenga a Nuku/ Outdoor Access Commission and FMC expressed concern at the restrictions on public access across OneFortyOne NZ Ltd’s plantation forests on the periphery of Mt Richmond Forest Park. With an upcoming audit of the forestry company’s operations for Forest Stewardship Council certification, I wrote a submission pointing out that the access restrictions were inconsistent with the certification principles and suggested ways that it might be resolved.

The new government, as we foresaw, has brought in a host of new changes. Of particular concern to FMC was the Fast Track Approval Bill, and the implications for the stewardship land managed by the Department of Conservation. I wrote FMC’s draft submission, which my colleagues on the FMC Executive reviewed before it went to the Environment Select Committee. Megan and I appeared before the Committee last month to present our case.  

The Executive has also spent a bit of time thinking about the FMC’s work over the next few years. This culminated in FMC’s new strategy. I prepared a paper recommending changes to the FMC’s Executive subcommittees to support the strategy. Both the new strategy and the new subcommittees were adopted by the Executive at our June meeting in Wellington.

Ngā mihi nui,

Raymond

Pakituhi paragliding. Photo (c) Dan Clearwater.

There are many ways to explore and engage with the backcountry and nature. Often when we think of the backcountry, we think of the land. But what about all that space above us – the sky?

Among all the possible ways we venture into the great outdoors, exploring the backcountry from a bird's eye view is truly and utterly unique, and moving through the body of the sky is exhilarating to imagine.

So, to celebrate this extraordinary activity, FMC is dedicating this year to paragliding and hang gliding. The NZ Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association was established 50 years ago to support free fliers to become safer and better pilots and to build a strong sense of community.

This is an opportunity for FMC to introduce the sport to the wider outdoors community, explore the issues that paragliding and hang gliding communities are facing and try to alleviate them, where possible.

We have a series of articles in mind, but please get in touch with your questions and suggestions: communications@fmc.org.nz

Each year, the NZ Mountain Film Festival aims to showcase films from high-octane sports such as skiing, climbing, kayaking and mountain biking. It also features increasingly topical environmental and mountain culture films to inform and entertain.

Federated Mountain Clubs is proudly supporting the NZ Mountain Film Festival by offering a selection of films which can be shown free of charge to school students and Scout groups. Any school or Scout group can register by emailing programme@mountainfilm.nz. Click here for more information.

Based in Nelson, MD Outdoors is an outdoor gear and equipment shop, which is 100% locally owned and operated. They have recently joined the FMC member benefits scheme, offering 15% off to FMC members for in-store purchases with a current FMC card, or see the FMC website for an online code that can be used in conjunction with your FMC card if buying online.

MD Outdoors love adventures and are passionate about providing outdoors community with top-quality gear, great advice and excellent customer service; and because of this, they don’t stock brands they wouldn’t use themselves! They have all your outdoor needs covered, for rock climbing, tramping, mountaineering, canyoning, camping, trail running, disc golf, caving and more.

Graham at the top of Mt Taranaki.

We are excited to welcome Graham Pomeroy to our Executive Board. Some of you may know Graham from his varied and dedicated work with LandSAR and as a Golden Bay based farmer and tramper, passionate about access issues and building sustainable relationships between landowners and the tramping community.

We feel especially fortunate to have Graham join us as we work through several access issues and wilding pines at the top of the South Island.
Graham brings a fresh energy to the board and he already got stuck in a few projects.

Graham, welcome to our FMC whānau!

“We must closely guard the welfare of our National Parks and Reserves. These should not be regarded as the property of our minister or the government. They belong to the people of today and tomorrow. We must fight for their protection if necessary.” Fred Vosseler – Inaugural FMC President (1932)

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