Chair’s Report 2021.

The following is my report as presented at our AGM which was held at Kalpowar. Many thanks to the Kalpowar Hall Committee for hosting us.

I should have posted this after the AGM for the benefit of members unable to attend.

Some times things get missed, my apologies.

three sitting at table at bbirt agm

It gives me great pleasure to present this report.

Your association has had a remarkable year. 

It would be quite normal to review each month’s activities and combine them into a report.  I would like to follow a different path if I may.

I believe the role of chair is to facilitate the conventions of meetings without exerting influence on the meeting.  The latter can be difficult, but I try to keep it front of mind. The views and decisions of our members must be paramount.

The management committee is charged with making decisions and taking the association forward between meetings, with the main imperative to report to the members regularly and respect any directions from general meetings.

I believe we have, as a committee, worked through the year with this in mind.  My thanks to the committee for their dedication.

Our organisation has had a remarkable growth in membership, with a wide geographic spread, approaching a couple of hundred financial members.

We also have considerable funds in our account to manage.  The next couple of months will demonstrate just how quickly those funds can be spent with the upcoming opening of the section of trail between Kalpowar and Builyan, followed later by the opening of the Burnett River Bridges section, and considerable work happening in other parts of the trail.

The power of community to get things done is remarkable.

As a committee we have completed a system which will enable a smooth transition to new office holders and preserve security of our data. 

The executive officers have email addresses – secretary, treasurer, chair – at boyneburnettinlandrailtrail.org.au, which can be passed on to new officers. Each of the other management committee members has an email @BBIRT address, a personal storage drive and all access a well-structured shared drive with all association documents stored there.  This has the advantage of enabling sharing to members.

Each of the executive has administrative governance powers to manage this.  We, the management committee, are in the process of setting up “Lastpass” (to store passwords) and 2  factor logins to secure our data.

We are working to ensure that several people on management always have access & administrative control of all association information.

I have set up an independent database of all key passwords for the association and have yet to share the login to at least 2 others.  At best 3 of the executive will need to do this at the same time in the same place with their phones.  It is a job yet to be done, and the entire process I have outlined is not yet complete, but is well on the way.

Finance: 

The Bradley Wolf bequest of $80,000 to us will enable cornerstone work to be done. 

The GRC has made application for matching funds from the State which I hope will be forthcoming. We had considerable input into this, with meetings with GRC staff.

I need to report that as part off their risk management GRC Legal felt they needed to have the $80,000 bequest deposited with them.  We (MC) met over Google video and had some hard conversations about this. We decided that we were unable to comply with the request.  It was possible that GRC would not have proceeded with the application, however, they agreed to proceed.

I have to say that MC video meetings have robust discussion, great input and respect shown.

We also have funds through

  • Ken O’Dowd  – Federal member – ($16,500)
  • The grant from GCBF for development work at Gayndah about $20,000
  • Funds from multiple raffles run and membership dues
  • $10,500 from TMR maintenance with another round due shortly.

Association Activities

It has been a busy 8 months since the last AGM, and a long list of activities –

  • Pedal in the Park
  • Markets attended
  • Raffles run
  • Visits to the  Gayndah (Orange Festival) – and to all points north.

The essence of the activity is this community is just taking it on and doing it.

  • Vicki Mackay has done a big job as secretary and has produced a wonderful document which will be centre to approval to run the trail. 
  • Ross McClure has done a great job providing a Risk Management Plan.
  • Mick Colyer has designed, had plans drawn and now has placed orders for our first grid set-up.
  • Lyndal Slater has been wonderful as our new treasurer since the end of the last year. All our books are now on XERO.  She also took on the mammoth task of pulling our membership list together and in order.  Lyndal took this on as she deals with the payments as treasurer.  Over 170 of about 250 (?) possible memberships have renewed or just joined, all done with XERO.
  • Mike Goebel continues doing a mountain of work at Gayndah.
  • Sue has slashing organised at Mundubbera.
  • Mike Whitty is going gangbusters at Eidsvold – report to come later.
  • Megan Ellerton is getting things rolling at Kalpowar.
  • A lot of people are coming forward this weekend to help at the working bee at the tunnels. 
  • Jon Wriede has done a great job in planning & supplying timber.
  • Gregor Philips undertook that incredible job shifting gravel at the tunnels.
  • Preston Hunt has offered free use of machinery.

I will have missed several, but the point is, community has come together and is working.

Now,  who have I missed? 

Desley is at the very heart of this.  Her dedication, leadership & efforts every week are amazing.  It is too much to list, just be assured her passion for this project will see it done.

The report was accepted by the meeting.

2 Replies to “Chair’s Report 2021.”

  1. Hello Mark and others

    I spoke to you, Mark, before our group from Tin Can Bay rode the trail. We have now ridden it and what a great time we had! Following is the story. Although I, personally, do not use Facebook, my husband has a Facebook page but never posts. So a friend helped me to put something (the same as what is below) plus 4 photos on the BVRT Facebook. She hash-tagged the BBIRT but I don’t know if you will be able to see it so I am sending this e-mail as well.

    A group of us (10) from Tin Can Bay rode the Boyne Burnett Inland Rail Trail on Wednesday, 27th October. What a wonderful trail!! We started out from Gregor’s Kalpower Barracks at 7.30 but that was a bit late, as the day soon heated up. Kirsten at Kirsten’s Cottage had kindly offered to open for us and after 28 km and some delicious refreshments (Kirsten’s own organic egg sandwiches on light rye were a favourite), we were ready for the return journey, another 28/30 km back to The Barracks for some of us and Kalpower State Forest Campground for others. It was a great day!

    Our group has ridden the whole of the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail and the Kilkivan to Kingaroy Rail Trail as well as the Link Trail from Yarraman through Nanango to Kingaroy. This trail compares more than favourably with any of the sections of those trails. I’m sure it has a great future. Come the cooler months next year, our group is considering doing it again.

    Thanks for all the work your team has done on the trail.

    Kind regards
    June Grimmett

    1. Thank you for your kind remarks.
      It is a true reward to hear you have had a good time.
      I hope we have more sections of the trail open next year.

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