The ARA survives

Doug Grewar, Acting Chairman, AbaQulusi Residents Association (ARA), writes:-

WE HAD a good turn out for last Thursday’s ARA revival meeting. By a unanimous vote it was decided that the ARA should continue because even if it couldn’t make any major achievements, at least by its existence it acted as a watchdog on the council. Many people present paid their 2014 membership fee of R50. These subs can also be paid at our collection agents: Keith at Sparrow Computers, Brian at Frames Unlimited, and Jan or Brigitte at Sanlam.

Jan Combrinck resigned from being chairman but remains on the committee as the farming community representative. As there were no volunteers to be chairman, Doug Grewar reluctantly came out of retirement and will be the acting chairman until the January 2015 annual general meeting.

It was decided that all committee meetings in future will be open for any interested members to attend and time will be made for them to make suggestions or lodge complaints after the normal committee business is finished. The meetings will be held on the second Monday of every month at 5:30pm in the Risen Son Academy Hall. Therefore our next meeting will be on Monday September 8.

Many positive suggestions were made from the members present. Adele is going to look into the possibility of setting up a bulk sms system so that we can contact all members and keep them updated. As Vryheid Sakekamer and Chamber of commerce have closed down we are also going to approach leading members of the business community to ask them to throw their weight behind the ARA. After all they are residents and major ratepayers.

We will continue with the FB page and with letters in the Vryheid Herald.