Nomination
Motion: That Meg McKone be elected Honorary Life Member.
We propose that consideration be given to awarding Honorary Life Membership to Meg McKone for her meritorious service to the Club. For 42 years Meg has been a CBC member leading her first walk for the Club in February 1974. Since then, according to Club statistics, she has led 148 walks over 547 days. These have been mostly multi-day walks and since 2003 (when these particular statistics first started to be collected) have comprised 1532 person days. Meg leads exploratory walks with a particular emphasis on the Blue Mountains and the MacDonnell Ranges in the Northern Territory. Meg is acknowledged as an expert on routes in the MacDonnells because of her unique exploration of this area, including the discovery (apart from probable Indigenous knowledge) of two exceptional canyons in the Chewings Range: Portals Canyon and Canyon of Defiance. She is one of CBC’s iconic walk leaders. She has been leading adventurous and exploratory walks for decades and is well-known in the bushwalking fraternity well beyond Canberra. Meg first started walking as a teenager with a group of peers from the Coast and Mountain Walkers (CMW). She went on to be the first woman to complete the 3 Peaks Blue Mountains walk. She maintains her membership of CMW and many of her walks are joint CBC/CMW walks. CBC members who go on her walks are introduced to some of the splendid and wild country that Meg has become familiar with over the years, especially in the Blue Mountains and the MacDonnell Ranges, and they appreciate Meg’s qualities of leadership, meticulous planning, interesting walking routes, her navigation, rock climbing and survival skills, and her wide knowledge of local geographic and botanical features.
Meg’s skills as a writer and photographer have led to the production of her beautiful books detailing her exploration of the MacDonnell Ranges, and her illustrated articles on CBC walks have appeared in several magazines, including Wild and our newsletter, it. Her commitment to accuracy and excellence in these published works promotes bushwalking more widely and reflects well on the CBC. To share her knowledge about the areas she has visited with CBC members, Meg has given a number of outstanding presentations on Club nights. These showcase the areas she’s walked in, her explorations and discoveries and her photographic skills.
Meg has served on the CBC committee as editor and Walks Secretary over the years. Meg has committed a major part of her life to bushwalking and the outdoors and to sharing her passion with others through her long and continuing contribution to the life of the CBC.
It is for the reasons outlined that we strongly support the nomination of Meg for Honorary Life Membership.
Nominated by Jenny Horsfield, seconded Rob Horsfield. Published in It, October 2016.