There was a full house at the annual loyalty awards ceremony held in our Clubhouse on Friday 26 July. It was a joyous celebration, with friends and family members present to witness long-standing members of the Cape Town Section receiving their certificates acknowledging 50, 60 and 70 years of membership respectively from hosts Lester Coelen (Treasurer) and Martin Hutton-Squire (Chairman).
The audience was regaled with tales of various mountaineering exploits, achievements, mishaps and comical incidents, as the recipients each reflected on what mountains, and the Club, have meant to them over the years.
This year also saw a special award being given: Honorary Life Membership was conferred on Aleck McKirdy “in recognition of outstanding service to the Section”. Aleck’s involvement in Club activities over his 44 years of membership spans the areas of rock climbing, search and rescue, property maintenance, fire protection and plant conservation. As well as serving on the Rock Climbing and Search & Rescue Subcommittees for consecutive decades from the mid-seventies to the mid-nineties, Aleck is also a past member of the Conservation Subcommittee. In more recent years he has been the property convenor of both our Steenboksberg and Waaihoeksberg properties, where his input has extended to path and road maintenance. He continues to be actively involved in various initiatives to clear alien invasive vegetation from the most inaccessible areas of our own properties and others in the Western Cape mountains.
The awards recipients were:
Honorary Life Membership
- Aleck McKirdy
Seventy years
- Noreen Browne *
- Gordon Evans
- Barry Fletcher
- Stanley Harper *
Sixty years
- Jill Blignaut
- Bob Reinecke
- Edward (‘Ted’) Oliver
- Duncan Woolley
Fifty years
- Paul Andersen *
- Sally Argent
- Peter Blignaut
- Jenny Coelen
- Maaike Duk *
- Leon Kaimowitz
- Ann King *
- Val King *
- Fay Linder
- Charles Merry
- Greg Moseley
- Anthony Ryan
[ * Denotes members who were not able to attend.]
Photos supplied by Mike Scott
