Life Members 2024
Five members have been awarded Life Membership in 2024.
Jocelyn Douglas
Jocelyn Douglas is one of many unsung heroes of this volunteer organisation. She operates with quiet professionalism, fulfilling one of the more important, yet lesser appreciated roles that keeps the machinery of governance at all levels operating – that of committee or board secretary.
Jocelyn joined the NZAC in 1968, soon after leaving university and took the office of Canterbury Westland Section secretary in 1971. She held this role for 14 years and during that time also served as section representative on the club committee and become an accomplished mountaineer, climbing, “Cook, Aspiring – you know, the usual ones”, including 4 routes on Mount Rolleston in Arthur’s pass, her local mountain playground. The memories of climbing another dozen well known challenging Canterbury peaks flowed throughout our conversation.
Later, when the national office moved to Christchurch Jocelyn became secretary of the Headquarters committee and later the NZAC Board, a role she dutifully performs today. Jocelyn’s contribution as a member, climbing partner and her effortless adaptability to the changing needs of the secretary role at multiple levels of club governance role during the last 43 years is highly prized.
Richard Wesley
Richard joined the Club in 1992 as a Canterbury Westland Section member. He was an Auckland Section representative on the Club committee in 1999 and chair in 2000-2001.
In 2001, Richard was appointed the Club’s executive officer, a position he held until 2006. During this term, he was honorary treasurer in 2004 and 2005.
He was appointed Shelter Business Manager (now Accommodation Committee Convenor) in 2010, a position he still holds.
Richard has a degree in electrical engineering and practiced in this field until becoming the Club’s executive officer. After this he worked overseas, including the Sudan, Ethiopia, and Cameroon, before returning to New Zealand in 2010.
Richard is an active climber, having climbed throughout New Zealand and overseas, including expeditions to the Tien Shan in Kazakhstan and the Karakorum in Pakistan.
Regulatory requirements and risk management practice have continued to increase the challenges for the Club and managing its accommodation facilities. The Club has benefited from Richard’s knowledge and experience as an engineer and project manager, passion for the mountains, and commitment in sustaining the Club’s accommodation assets in responding to these challenges.
During Richard’s time as the Accommodation Committee Convenor, the Club has completed significant projects: the Unwin Lodge upgrade, the mid Tasman hut project, and the Aspiring Hut Refurbishment project.
Stuart Gray
Stuart Gray has been a member of NZAC since the late 1970s, active in the Auckland and Wellington Sections. He served on the Club Committee in 1986-87 as the Wellington Section representative and was Chair of the Wellington Section in the early '80s, and in 2011-2012 served as NZAC President (with associated terms as President-elect and past-President). For many years he has represented NZAC on the UIAA (Global Mountain Network), including travel to annual general assemblies (with partial contributions from NZAC but much of the travel at his own expense). For the last several years Stu has been one of the NZAC representatives on the FMC Executive.
Stu’s climbing career has been broad, varied and sustained. Like many Aucklanders, he learned his basic skills in the North Island with forays to the Southern Alps for transalpine tramping and alpinism. He has a solid and notable record of alpine ascents including a Tasman-Torres traverse and the East Ridge of Aoraki. He also climbed extensively overseas in Europe, South America and the Himalayas. Together with a selection of fellow renegades (Geoff Spearpoint, Nick Shearer, Stu Gray, John Nankervis, John Cocks, David Ellis, Dave Bamford) he participated in several expeditions to remote objectives, for example in 2006 the Kharta Valley and Nyonno Ri Range in Tibet. He is still active with transalpine adventures and the occasional ascent.
Stuart Gray’s nomination to Life Membership of NZAC is made on the basis of his exemplary service to the Club in many capacities over a long period, and a sustained record of notable alpinism in NZ and abroad.
- Club Committee 1986-87: Wellington Section
- NZAC President 2011-2012
- NZAJ proofreading 1984
- Contributor to NZAJ 1986 (photos), Article 2006 (A Journey to the Kharta Valley and Nyonno Ri Range).
- UIAA Representative (attends international events largely at own cost)
Pat Prendergast
Pat Prendergast joined the Club in 1968 and has been an active participant in the mountains ever since, with many fine climbs and trips under her belt.
In 2003, Pat set up the Canterbury Westland Section’s Midweek Mountaineers group which, on Wednesdays, weather permitting, can be found somewhere in the hills, summer and winter. She started the group as there were no regular trips scheduled midweek. “Midweek Mountaineers” caught on and continues to be enjoyed by enthusiastic and active climbers.
Each week for the past 21 years, Pat has researched routes, coordinated transport and kept a close eye on the weather for hundreds of trips. She has a dead-eye for predicting the weather so trips are rarely caught out. Pat is also a great pathfinder. Wednesday objectives have included many worthy peaks in the Craigieburns, Arthur’s and Lewis Pass areas, the Canterbury foothills and Banks Peninsula. Further afield annual multiday summer climbing trips and, during winter, skiing and ski-touring trips, are also run. Pat’s extensive botanical knowledge adds much to the experience, with alpine vegetation being readily identified at 50 paces.
Pat has led a number of wilding-pine extermination trips on Ferintosh Station, with whom the Club has a long association, as a result of the station donating the larch timber used in the Unwin Hut common room. Recently Pat donated a number of water colour artworks to the Club to decorate the bunkroom extensions at Unwin for all to enjoy.
Richard Thomson
Richard became an NZAC member in 1986 and has contributed widely to the club and to climbing during the ensuing 38 years. The principal area where Richard has contributed is NZAC publications. Richard is a fantastic writer and skilled in design and layout work. He edited New Zealand Alpine Journal in 1995, edited The Climber issues 14–22, edited Tongariro a guide for climbers and ski-mountaineers published by NZAC in 2006. He completed design and layout on Moirs South 2007 ed., contributed to ‘design, layout and other drudgery’ on Rock Deluxe North 2014, has been a member of Publications Committee since the mid-1990s was convener 2011-2016 and in 2022 commenced his second term as convener of that committee.
On top of these official roles, as a long-standing member of the Publications Committee Richard has provided continual assistance and advice to multiple NZAC Publications Editors. His guidance was especially helpful and well-considered through the publications change process when deciding on new ways to present climbing media through the website and a revised format of NZAJ.
Richard is an innovative, thinking climber and saw the need a decade ago for an online database to record and make freely available, up-to-date information on New Zealand climbs. www.climbnz.org.nz provides route information, sometimes with topos and photos for 14,350 New Zealand rock and alpine climbs. New route information is crowd-sourced, but Richard oversees, is a principal contributor, and leads teams planning developments of the database. After careful investigation of options, work commenced two years ago on a major upgrade of the site to ensure it is stable, provides increased functionality for users, has mobile device compatibility and enables NZAC to move forward with digital information provision. Stage three of that multi-year project is now near to completion, and the site attracts increasing usage as more climbers recognise how valuable it is.
Richard has also been the protagonist in finding new ways for the Club to efficiently produce guidebooks, suggesting a ClimbNZ-sourced select guidebook project which has evolved into the highly-anticipated Alpine Scrambles and Snow Climbs book, currently under production.
Richard has also compiled a very impressive climbing record – there are few crags or mountain areas in New Zealand where Richard has not climbed, often completing new ascents. Scan of the www.climbnz database reveals that Richard has completed over seventy first ascents in New Zealand, including more than 30 in the Darran Mountains.
Richard’s sustained contributions to NZAC and to New Zealand climbing make him a very worthy nominee for Life Membership.