BCA Party Weekend 2015

damian

Active member
BCA's annual Party (and AGM) weekend, which first took place in the Peak District in 2013 and moved to the Dales in 2014, has rapidly become a must-go-to event in the annual caving calendar.

For 2015 we are pleased to announce that we will be joining with the British Cave Rescue Council for a combined event at the Dean Field Studies Centre in the heart of the Forest of Dean. The full programme of events is still being finalised, but for the time being we're encouraging people to the date in their diaries. It will be ... 12-14 June 2015. Please note that this is a change to the previously advertised dates.

(For technical reasons it has not been possible to update the BCA's website calendar, but it will be soon ... sorry!)


Damian Weare
BCA Secretary
 

damian

Active member
More details of the forthcoming joint BCA Party / BCRC Conference Weekend:

After the success of last year's event in the Yorkshire Dales, BCA is this year combining with the British Cave Rescue Council over the weekend of **12-14 June**.

The event will be based primarily at the excellent Dean Field Studies Centre, in the heart of the Forest of Dean with caving trips during the day and an unforgettable meal, bar and band in the evening, all underground at the nearby Clearwell Caves.

There will be plenty of accommodation with a choice of the centre's own bunk rooms, or on-site camping and an all-day bar, combined with guides for many of the local caving and mine trips, should keep even the hardest cavers busy!

Cost & Bookings:Advanced Bookings (by 10 May) will be available shortly and offer the whole weekend for an incredible ?25. Accommodation can be upgraded to indoor bunkhouse for a further ?10.

Any profit will go to Cave Rescue.

Bookings Forms will be available shortly. I will post again as soon as they go live.

Hope to see you all there. If you've never been to the Forest, you may well be surprised with what it has to offer ... some superb caving trips, vast quantities of mines and loads of other family-friendly non-caving activities if you'd rather.
 

damian

Active member
The Booking Form is now on the BCA website. Bookings before 10 May attract a substantial discount on the price (?24 for the weekend, including accommodation and a full meal and band in Clearwell Caves on the Saturday night).

We are not ruling out turning up on the day, but there may be limited options available by this point (and it'll cost you more), so have a look in your diaries and get your booking in as soon as possible. (y) (y)

At the moment there is only a pdf version but a word one should be alongside it soon.
 

damian

Active member
You can now download a poster advertising the BCA/BCRC Party Weekend from here. A reminder that there is a substantial discount on all bookings received before 10 May.
 

damian

Active member
Only 3 weeks left to secure the reduced price for the BCA Annual Party from 12-14 June.

The Booking Form and Guidance Notes are on the BCA website (or click these links). You can return the form and pay online, so it'll only take a few minutes.
 

damian

Active member
Two weekends to go for the reduced price for the Party Weekend ... bar, band, food, activities, caving trips ... should be a superb weekend.
 

damian

Active member
Now only a few days to go for the discounted rate for the BCA Party Weekend / BCRC Conference. Links to the forms are on my posts above and can be returned by e-mail and payments made online, so no need to worry about Royal Mail arriving before 10 May.
 

damian

Active member
I'm afraid I don't know but I do know the man who will know and am in the process of finding out and will get back to you tomorrow evening. A good question.
 

rhychydwr1

Active member
The Dean Field Study Centre was a new experience for me.  I looked up the webpage for the Centre and the first thing I noted the post code was for the centre of the City of Gloucester.  The map that went with it listed all the pubs, etc but not the Centre.  I need not have worried, when I got to Parkend there were plenty of bright yellow signs pointing the way to the Centre.  The bed rooms left a lot to be desired.  They were hot and stuffy and the windows would not open and I could not find a shaver socket anywhere in the building.  Two computers were available, but nobody knew the password and I did not want to waste valuable drinking time hacking in.  The talks were well attended and I nearly got arrested when I greeted the two policemen with "Bora da Mochen!"  Fortunately they both laughed.  There was a free bar, well free most of the time as there was a lack of staff.  The meal in the depths of Clearwell Cave was a great success.  Nobody asked for our meal tickets and I managed three meals before I had to give up.  A select few, including my good self, explored the rest of the cave.  I feel asleep and nearly got locked in.  Numerous countries were represented as well as people from Wales and Scotland and we had visitors from Lebanon, Hungary and Ireland.  I was even able to speak to them in Irish with words like eejet and Tursday.  Looking forward to next year!
 

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
I attended my first BCA AGM today....

Great idea to hold the AGM in different locations every year - I've never been to The Forest of Dean before, made a weekend away of it, met up with friends, found out what Symonds Yat actually is and saw an awful lot of trees - lovely too.

Despite seeing a fair number of cavers at the AGM venue, few actually attended the meeting, maybe 25 or so - why is that? I wonder how BCA can make meetings more relevant, engaging and interesting to the cavers they represent including the 100+ who were at the party but not the meeting?? 

Great to see CHECC representatives at the meeting - they had 175 attend their AGM!!

There was much discussion on BCA e-mailing its members as currently they do not  :eek: (Surely one sure fire way of engaging with members??)

BCA have 1000's of e-mail addresses (approx. 2/3's of the membership) however it was stated on more than one occasion a number of cavers don't want to give their e-mail addresses to and do not want to receive e-mails from the BCA  I was saddened to hear this - why on earth wouldn't cavers want to receive e-mails from BCA about caving??  It's hardly PPI spam is it??  :confused:

Happily it was agreed BCA will begin communicating with it's members via e-mail - surely a good move in these days of the internet, smart phones, etc etc.

It's obvious a relatively few cavers put a great deal of time and effort in towards running BCA.  It must be disappointing to arrange an AGM and see so few cavers attend.  I'm glad I did, it was (to be honest) more interesting than I expected - okay so some of the procedural aspects could be moved along a tad quicker, however to be able to vote was great.

Thank you BCA  ;)

Pegasus







 

Filter

Member
Pegasus, I think the reason there were so many at the venue and fairly few at the AGM were that the majority were there for the BCRA rescue training over by the Clearwell Caves.
 

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
Yes it was a good idea to hold a joint event - however a turnout of 25 from the wider caving community didn't seem very many to me.  I'm nothing to do with BCA apart from being a member, just wondering that's all  :)
 

Inferus

New member
Politics. Most people can't be bothered -a quick look at an election (local or general) will always see a small turnout, a fair portion of people just don't care and are happy with the status quo no doubt thinking it doesn't matter who occupies which post as there will be little difference.. Sad, disappointing,  yes. How do we engage these people,  no idea whatsoever!
 

Jenny P

Active member
rhychydwr1 said:
The Dean Field Study Centre was a new experience for me.  I looked up the webpage for the Centre and the first thing I noted the post code was for the centre of the City of Gloucester.  The map that went with it listed all the pubs, etc but not the Centre.  I need not have worried, when I got to Parkend there were plenty of bright yellow signs pointing the way to the Centre.  The bed rooms left a lot to be desired.  They were hot and stuffy and the windows would not open and I could not find a shaver socket anywhere in the building.  Two computers were available, but nobody knew the password and I did not want to waste valuable drinking time hacking in. 

Looking forward to next year!

Sorry that Tony is a bit sniffy about the DFSC - I thought it was pretty good compared to other venues we have used.  The bedrooms were fine for what they are intended for: a Field Centre for young people.  It was actually quite easy to open the windows if you gimmicked the child safety lock; the computer password was available in the Visiting Staff Kitchen, just off the main lounge, where those of us who'd brought the makings, brewed tea and coffee to suit ourselves.  In fact several of us made good use of the Centre's free Wifi in the Lounge during the weekend and it was also in use for ad hoc meetings.

My personal view is that the arrangements were excellent, the food was good, the local cafe was well up for feeding the delegates and we were given a "Welcome Pack" which was a pleasant surprise and also made excellent bed-time reading.  Due thanks should go to Paul Taylor, the main man, and to all those involved in the weekend for both BCA and BCRC.

It was a little sad that there were only around 25 people at the BCA AGM, though some who might otherwise have come were involved in the BCRA Conference.  More sad to see that, although it was held on the borders of Wales, neither the BCA Council Club rep. who comes from a Welsh Club and lives in S. Wales, nor the BCA Council Individual Member rep. who lives in South Wales, were there at the BCA AGM.  They are the elected representatives of you, the "ordinary cavers", so one might have thought that they would have made some effort to attend.

I guess you only get back what you put in - so thanks to all those members of BCA Council and the various cavers who have been co-opted who do put in a terrific amount of effort on behalf of cavers.
 
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