Committee

Some news from the HRA Committee meeting held in October 2024

President’s Report

• The safety and first aid training program has been postponed due to lack of numbers. The sessions will be moved to February 22nd and 23rd.
• The Licence & Equipment proposal has been forwarded to State Council and MA staff for comment and feedback prior to being formally submitted to ARCOM.
• The Rally in the Valley which was to run in April next year has been postponed to 2026 due to a number of issues in securing the roads that we want. Hopefully these issues will be sorted in the next few months.

New Club Website

Work continues on developing the new website. We’ve created a draft version of the new site and this is undergoing review and testing, especially the Member Self-Service functions. Looking very good for this site to go live before Christmas. Watch your email inboxes.

Club Permit Scheme

All club members who have a vehicle on the club Permit Scheme are being asked to participate in an audit to ensure that we have all the correct details of those people and the cars that they have on the scheme.

This will help us in a number of ways, not least of which, will be to kick off the club membership system with information that is as accurate as possible. If you have a club permit car and have not received this survey, please contact Tim Shepherd as soon as possible.

HRA Youth Program

The HRA is working on ways to attract more younger people to the club and our sport. Tim Shepherd, Alan Chambers and Jess Pigot are working on a couple of exciting initiatives around youth and developing a specific youth program.

Update from Competition Secretary – Peter Canals

The Victorian Rally Season Launch and Presentation is confirmed for February 8th at the Manningham Hotel in Bulleen. Bigger room than last time. Tickets will be $60/head including food and a drink on arrival. Possibility of a couple of the winning cars being on display. More news as it comes to hand.

Owen Polanski
President, HRA

President’s Report

• Alex Kovacevic and Joel Wald managed to get 20 minute meeting with the Victorian Minister for the Environment, Steve Dimopoulos regarding the Great Forest National Park proposal. They got a good hearing and a positive response from the Minister.

• The safety and first aid training program is progressing. We have received some funding from MA towards the cost of the workshop. We have a venue booked for November 16 and 17 and need to start promoting it.

• The Licence & Equipment proposal has been drafted and committee comments have been incorporated. We have written support from 11 clubs across Australia so far. This proposal seeks to have Motorsport Australia re-introduce a Club Level Rally Licence and, in conjunction with that licence level, to re-introduce/maintain the 5 year extension on expiry dates for harnesses and helmets. I expect this proposal to be formally submitted to MA staff and ARCOM early in October.

New Membership Management System and website

Work continues on implementing a new Membership Management System and website. We have created a draft version of the new site and we’re currently review and updating content, as well as testing the membership and member-self-service transactions. This coming along nicely and we anticipate rollout of the first elements of this new system later this year.

Update from Competition Secretary – Peter Canals

• Calendar for 2025 should be finalised at next VRAP meeting
• 6 round VRC confirmed Mitta, Akademos, (4 joint with VCRS)
• 6 round VRCS confirmed – Mitta, Rally in the Valley, Ada, Nissan, Valley Stages and Bog a Duck.
• Dates are not yet final as people have asked for similar.
• Looks like a busy year finishing with Alpine.
• HRA is leading the VCRS

Promotion

There was two great promotional events organised by Rob Cranston over the last couple of months.

The first and by far the biggest was Maling Road Autoclassico. HRA had 10 quality cars and was only just pipped for best display by a whisker. Organisers estimated an attendance number of 20,000 people which is how it felt on the day.

The other event was Coffee with the Cars at Assetini Café. A smaller affair but still one that created some interest from the public.

Review of the HRA Rules/Constitution

Kerril has made some significant progress with the review and update project of the HRA Rules of Association.

We expect a draft of the new document to be available in the near future for all members to inspect. Keep an eye out for a notice of Special Resolution outlining changes soon. This will require a Special General Meeting of members to vote on the changes.

Owen Polanski
President HRA

Presidents Report

Owen reported that he managed to get a meeting with his local member of parliament who expressed strong support for the position of car clubs not losing access to current state forest areas. It was also suggested that any legislation regarding National parks would not be forthcoming in this term of government.

An update to this since the committee meeting is that we have now secured a meeting with the Minister for the Environment to put our case for retaining rallying in all the current state forest areas. Stay tuned for a report from that meeting over the coming weeks.

Other Items of Business Discussed.

• The committee approved the release of a new Information Privacy Policy and Procedures document. This document will be published on the club website in the very near future.

• Vice President Tim Shepherd reported on the final motorsport meeting at the Ballarat Light Car Club autocross venue which is about to be re-developed into an industrial estate. There was a large turnout of both competitors and spectators with a healthy contingent of HRA members on hand to farewell what has been a long-term and fondly remembered facility.

• Progress on the new membership management system is now ‘full steam ahead’. Steve Hollowood is well advanced on the new website component and will start work on trialling the membership module within the next few weeks in conjunction with membership secretary Kate Officer.

• 2025 event calendar. The VRAP opened applications for events for inclusion in the 2025 calendar. Unfortunately, the online form they used malfunctioned so there is a bit of work to ensure they captured all the applications that were actually submitted.
  
  If anyone is planning on running an event next year and has not yet let Matt DeVaus know about it, please do that ASAP.

• The committee is currently working on a proposal to MA regarding the current rally licence structure and dates for equipment and apparel. This is a response to recent concerns raised by a number of HRA members about the spiralling costs and difficulty in compliance which is forcing some members to review their ability and willingness to continue as competitors.
  
  The committee completed a draft proposal which it will continue to develop with the support of HRA members Dave McAdam and Gerry Bashford. This will then be distributed to other rally clubs in an effort to raise further support for the proposal before submitting it to MA later this year.

Owen Polanski
President

Updates from the HRA Committee’s July meeting.

Continue reading HRA Committee News – July 2024

Here’s a summary of the things that the HRA committee is working on from the last Committee meeting.

Update on the new membership system

The committee voted to implement a new membership management system from Australian based tech company, Member Jungle. Steve Hollowood has been evaluating the system as well as comparing it to a couple of competitor offerings and recommended the Member Jungle system.

Club members can expect to see more information in the coming months about how this system will be implemented and the positive impacts it will have on how we both manage our memberships and communicate with our members. The first step for now though will be a re-launch of the club website within this new system.

This is a big project and will take a lot of work to implement but it will be well worth the effort. Have a look at some info from Member Jungle here:
https://www.memberjungle.com.au/carclubmembership

HRA Constitution

The committee has started a review process of the constitution of both the HRA Inc and HRA Special Events Inc, this review will be led by our treasurer Kerril Maloney. This review was prompted by a number of changes that were required by the ATO as well as the Victorian Government.

We are taking this opportunity to also review the whole of the constitution to modernise it as this hasn’t been looked at since the club’s inauguration. Once the process is complete we will distribute a new draft for members to review and then it will be put to the membership to accept at the next AGM in February 2025.

HRA Magazine

The future of the HRA magazine was discussed in some detail as to it’s ongoing viability both in a financial sense as well as it’s relevance to members. Current editor Jeff Cameron is feeling frustrated at what he sees as a lack of interest from members both in feedback and in the fact he is not getting any articles. There is also the issue of social media rapidly replacing the relevance of a club magazine.

There are a number of options being looked at currently for the magazine and this will be an ongoing topic of both discussion and research over coming months.

In the meantime I would encourage any member who feels like writing an article for the magazine to please do so and send it to editor@hra.org.au

HRA Events for 2025

The Committee is still trying to finalise a list of events and the people who are running them for 2025. If you are planning on putting an event together for next year please let Matt DeVaus know as soon as possible.

Social Media Review

The HRA Committee has instituted a review of how we communicate with the community and our members and in particular how we use social media.

This review, led by Jess Pigot, will look at how we use social media, what platforms we use and how we create content that is both relevant and useful. This review will take into account the new membership management system and how that will add to the communication landscape for our members.

Championship Scores

The current competition season is well underway and club championship scores are about to be published but one issue is the very low number of club members who have registered for the championship, particularly navigators.

Please register if haven’t already, here’s the link to the registration form https://form.jotform.com/233439035265860

Owen Polanski
President HRA

Summary of HRA Committee Meeting held on April 18th 2024. There is a lot happening on the HRA committee at the moment. Here’s a summary of the meeting from April.

Continue reading HRA Committee News – 18 April 2024

The HRA has developed the attached document, Forest Access Discussion Points, as a guide to advocating for the rally community in Victoria against the implementation of the Great Forest National Park.

The so-called “Great Forest National Park” proposal would see around 300,000ha of forest in the Victorian Central Highlands locked up in a National Park. The proposal received a boost just before Christmas with the release of an interim report from the Victorian Environment Assessment Council (VEAC).

Continue reading Advocating for Ongoing Forest Access

This is a new initiative from the HRA Committee to ensure that members are kept up to date on issues that affect the club and how the Committee is dealing with them. We will publish a summary of the proceedings of each meeting as soon as possible so members can see what their Committee is working on and where our club is heading.

If members want further information or wish to table items for the Committee to consider in the future please send an email to president@hra.org.au

Continue reading HRA Committee News – 15 February 2024