Rod started rogaining in 1998 and very quickly became involved in event organisation. He has been the lead organiser of 6 events, these are 2001 Me’an, 2003 Bangor Revisited, 2007 Picturegaine, 2010 Picturegaine, 2012 August Amble and 2013 Mt Murray. For the Mt Murray event he did the landowner contacts, the majority of the field work and drew the map as well.
Rogaine Tasmania stalwarts Ross Kelly, Rod Bilson and Adele Winslow at a frosty RT shed clean out in July 2017
He developed an event administration and scoring system for the 2003 Australian Rogaining Championship. This was used for all Rogaining Tasmania events until the introduction of the NavLight scoring system, first used in Tasmania in 2011 when we again hosted the Australian Rogaining Championship. Rod managed the NavLight scoring system for this event.
For nearly all our events since then he has been the lead NavLight operator, as well as carrying out administrative tasks such as designing and printing our certificates and wine labels. It is usually Rod who prints up the team lists we all refer to at registration at the start of an event.
It is thanks to Rod’s initiative and project-management skills that we now have an equipment shed at New Town. He obtained all the necessary permissions and approvals and supervised its construction. He personally built all the internal shelves used for storing the equipment. When this was all completed he took on the job of Equipment Officer and the responsibility of keeping all our equipment in good order.
Ill-health has prevented Rod from competing for a number of years but he has continued to serve on Committee helping whenever he can. He maintains our membership database which provides an invaluable record of our events.
Rods involvement in rogaining goes way beyond the normal call of duty. He has certainly helped Rogaining Tasmania become the successful organisation it is today and contributed to our enjoyment of a wide variety of events.
By Nick Bowden.