In 2018 the UNSWOC Beanie Grant was introduced into the club to provide financial support for members to go on awesome and inspiring adventures! Shout out to the 2017/18 exec for all the groundwork to set up the grant! As with most aspects of the club, the grant is constantly developing – this year two application rounds have been established (AGM and Awards Night) and the available funding has been capped to $500 per applicant.
Existence of the beanie grant encouraged us to follow our dream of becoming mountaineers and reinstating mountaineering as an UNSWOC discipline. Here are some of the key points we wanted to get across in our application:
- aiming to bring mountaineering back into the club; the beanie grant will make this possible
- the applicants are active in the club, skilled and highly committed
- details of the course we intend to complete (NZAC High Alpine Skills Course)
- post course aims to consolidate what we learn on the course (Mount Brewster)
- how the club will benefit from our trip (sharing of skills and knowledge gained and trips to the snow!)
After an intense AGM, we gave our beanie grant presentation. It was then in the hands of the members who voted on the night and the remaining exec who would were not involved in any of the other Beanie Grant applications to decide whether we would be awarded the grant.
Awesome news!!
Thanks to everyone who voted for our trip and for sharing your enthusiasm for mountaineering, hope to see you on a snow trip next year 🙂
The next round of beanie grant applications close tomorrow – really looking forward to seeing the entries! I’d also encourage you to start dreaming big now for the rounds next year 🙂
Having been awarded the beanie grant, here are some considerations that you may find useful when applying for the beanie grant:
- Is your trip ‘out there’ or adventurous enough?
- How committed are the participants? It’s unlikely that the grant will be awarded to someone who hasn’t contributed/demonstrated that they will contribute much to the club.
- How much effort have you put into the application?
- How organised are you, are the logistics feasible?
- How many club members will the trip benefit?
The beanie grant was confirmation that the mountaineering course was actually going to happen 😀 That meant it was time for our first meeting, find out how it went in the next post!