BCA Party Weekend 2015

[Bottlebank]

BCA hardly do much to encourage greater attendance at AGM's. I don't remember seeing anything on here about the Agenda, for example, or asking people to attend? If you go to the trouble of organising an something you want better attendance at there are plenty of easy ways of promoting it nowadays - a Facebook event is a good starting point.

Mind you the view unread posts option on here is just as unrealiable as it has been for months so I may have missed it, I've taken to using the recent topics option from the home page instead which unfortunately only goes back over the last ten posts or so.

 

[Jenny P]

With respect, you only need to look at the start of this posting, way back in January 2015 with a number of posts following on right up to the beginning of June.

The Agenda was posted on the BCA website in March and you were referred to it from UKcaving by a link Damian Weare posted.  The details of the venue and booking forms for the Party W/e were also on here, as was the notification of all the Officers' Reports being posted on the BCA website.

It has all been on UKcaving!

 

[Bottlebank]

With respect, you only need to look at the start of this posting, way back in January 2015 with a number of posts following on right up to the beginning of June.

The Agenda was posted on the BCA website in March and you were referred to it from UKcaving by a link Damian Weare posted.  The details of the venue and booking forms for the Party W/e were also on here, as was the notification of all the Officers' Reports being posted on the BCA website.

It has all been on UKcaving!

With respect Jenny, the last and only time the AGM was mentioned on this thread was on January 10th - and hardly rated one then:

"BCA's annual Party (and AGM) weekend"

Posting the AGM details under the heading "BCA Party Weekend" is hardly likely to attract a good turnout - the BCA's publicity machine has hardly been in overdrive.

I'm online a lot more than many cavers and I hadn't realised that the AGM was at the Party Weekend. I had clocked it was down South somewhere so I wouldn't be going, but I thought it was at the conference in September.

There's no point being defensive about it, the question was asked why do so few attend, I'm suggesting poor publicity isn't helping.

 

[damian]

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.

The Cambrian Rep sent a retrospective apology on Sunday evening .. his car broke down on the way to the meeting and he spent all day getting back home. The other person you refer also sent apologies.

BCA hardly do much to encourage greater attendance at AGM's. I don't remember seeing anything on here about the Agenda, for example, or asking people to attend?

I think I have to put my hands up to this one. We have tried hard to encourage people to attend the Party Weekend since we set it up and, perhaps mistakenly, I have taken the view that I need to play down the AGM. Basically we have been anxious to avoid any potential weekend attendees feeling they might be forced to attend the AGM if they come to the weekend. That's why I - perhaps wrongly - generally mention the Party Weekend without the AGM. On reflection I think this was overdone. Thanks for bringing it to my attention - it'll change for next year.

 

[Pegasus]

I think I have to put my hands up to this one. We have tried hard to encourage people to attend the Party Weekend since we set it up and, perhaps mistakenly, I have taken the view that I need to play down the AGM. Basically we have been anxious to avoid any potential weekend attendees feeling they might be forced to attend the AGM if they come to the weekend. That's why I - perhaps wrongly - generally mention the Party Weekend without the AGM. On reflection I think this was overdone. Thanks for bringing it to my attention - it'll change for next year.

Hi Damian, afraid I agree with you that it was a mistake to play down the AGM part of the weekend, having attended (and expected a boring day) I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed the meeting.

UKC will certainly work with BCA to publicise the 2016 AGM - coming up with ideas on how to encourage folks to attend is a good idea too.  For starters, why isn't the AGM held at Hidden Earth??  Makes sense to me as so many cavers are there anyway.

 

[bograt]

Don't know about anyone else, but after "unread posts" I always read and click on the top line where it says "click here for all for unread posts", seems to work for me keep up the good work Pegassus

(There have always been detractors like this within British caving, I prefer to ignore them, they soon dissappear )

 

[Cookie]

I think I have to put my hands up to this one. We have tried hard to encourage people to attend the Party Weekend since we set it up and, perhaps mistakenly, I have taken the view that I need to play down the AGM.

I agree both should be promoted however I think those who had any inclination to attend the AGM would have sought out the necessary info anyway. It's not particularly hard to find.

The low(ish) attendance could be taken as a sign that the members are generally happy with how it's all going. Other than elected representatives, my experience is that people only turn up to meetings if they are directly affected by an issue or there is a contentious issue on the agenda.  Which of course is why representatives are elected, so the rest don't have to endure the meetings. 

How many people here wanted to attend the AGM but didn't because they didn't know about it?

 

[graham]

For starters, why isn't the AGM held at Hidden Earth??  Makes sense to me as so many cavers are there anyway.

Because you have to pay to attend Hidden Earth and it is unconstitutional to charge members to attend an AGM. It can be done, but causes immense administrative headaches for the organisers.

 

[Bottlebank]

For starters, why isn't the AGM held at Hidden Earth??  Makes sense to me as so many cavers are there anyway.

Because you have to pay to attend Hidden Earth and it is unconstitutional to charge members to attend an AGM. It can be done, but causes immense administrative headaches for the organisers.

But unless I've missed something else you have to pay to attend the Party Weekend - does this mean the AGM was unconstitutional and should be reheld  :-[

I also agree the AGM should be held at Hidden Earth. If you're only going to the AGM you don't pay - no big deal.

Not sure I agree with Cookie though, if you play something down then don't be surprised if no one turns up. I'm sure from his comments Damian will start to address this next year.

 

[kay]

For starters, why isn't the AGM held at Hidden Earth??  Makes sense to me as so many cavers are there anyway.

Many cavers attend Hidden Earth, but equally, many cavers do not. In particular, I believe proportionally fewer northern cavers attend HE. BCRA used to hold its AGM at HE and struggled to attain a quorum. I prefer the party idea - the AGM is a more significant part of it. An AGM at HE would get lost amongst all the other attractions (and I doubt whetehr "I'd like to go to the BCA AGM" would feature highly in anyone's decision whether or not to go to HE)

But unless I've missed something else you have to pay to attend the Party Weekend - does this mean the AGM was unconstitutional and should be reheld  :-[

I looked at the party weekend page on the BCA website quite late in the process, and there was a message saying that booking had finished for the party weekend (I think it actually said the weekend was now fully booked). First reaction was "does that mean I can't now go to the AGM" but then logic prevailed and I reasoned that I'd be able to travel down to the AGM, but I'd have to sort my own accommodation if needed and wouldn't be able to participate in any of the other activities.

Mods - please could you disentangle this thread and cream off all the forum related stuff elsewhere? There's two conversations happening at once and they're both interesting.


[gmod]Done. See http://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=18557.msg240305#msg240305 for Forum-related bits[/gmod]

 

[Bob Mehew]

For what it is worth, BCRA used to hold its AGM late in the day when people were allowed into Hidden Earth for free if they wanted to attend the AGM.  (As I recall there were a few who did.)  The charges for the BCRC Conference and BCA Party Weekend were all clearly related to accommodation and / or food and not attending the day's worth of lectures or the practice rescue or even the AGM, see the booking form. 

Indeed some what irritatingly as I was driving, there was even free beer at the AGM (a part barrel needed drinking up).  Now I wonder if that will set a precedent?

 

[graham]

For what it is worth, BCRA used to hold its AGM late in the day when people were allowed into Hidden Earth for free if they wanted to attend the AGM.

Actually Robert, me & the dear lady wife attended the BCRA AGM during a conference in Bristol without paying, surprised most of the then BCRA officers by insisting on doing so and had to swear a solemn oath that we wouldn't attend any lectures. I'm not sure anybody had ever asked before then.

 

[Jenny P]

It is noticeable that having the AGM on a Party Weekend has upped the attendance at the AGM.  This particular AGM was different in that it was combined with the BCRA Conference, meaning there were two separate events going on at the same time which did mean some people had a difficult choice to make.

Worth noting that BCRA has now moved its AGM away from Hidden Earth to coincide with one of its science symposium weekends and achieves much better attendance as a result.  BCRA AGM's never used to include much discussion and was timed to occur between the end of lectures and the start of the meal on Saturday; so it was always severely time-limited and was once completed in the record time of 2 minutes some years ago!  Hidden Earth is always busy and has umpteen attractive talks all at the same time so the choice is already tricky.  Trying to have a BCA AGM lasting several hours during the same weekend is not really a goer as it would be impossible to fit it in.

The BCA AGM on the BCA Party Weekend is always held on the Sunday morning after the party on the Saturday - so you pay to attend the Party on Saturday and for accommodation & food but the AGM is, of course, free of charge.  If you want to come and party the day before and make use of the accommodation you can do but you don't have to.  The point is that this is almost the only chance for ordinary cavers to have their say in the organisation which represents them nationally so BCA is going to great lengths to ensure that they can do so but that they also have the opportunity of an enjoyable weekend with a party and caving if they wish to take advantage of this.

 

[prahja]

I think Damian is being hard on himself - the feedback from the attendees was overwhelmingly positive (apart from possibly people who missed the food as others had multiple helpings).
Many of the younger cavers would not have attended if the party wasn't emphasised.
I thought it was a great weekend - thanks to all the organisers!
I suspect the poor attendance at the AGM is more a reflection of people's lack of interest in AGMs rather than if it was descibed as a party plus AGM or AGM plus party.
I certainly only went for the rescue side of things and the party....
Just my thoughts.... thanks again to all the organisers - excellent venue, lectures, sessions and party - cheers!

 

[bograt]

Do I remember correctly that the 'party' idea was introduced to promote more interest in the AGM?
I also seem to recall it worked very well the first time in Castleton, maybe the problem is introducing too many alternative activities to what is essentially the AGM weekend?

 

[Jenny P]

I think the problem here was there were a limited number of weekends in June when we could hold the AGM and almost all the original suggestions clashed with something important.  The other limitation was that it needed to be towards Wales/Forest  of Dean area to fit in with the idea of moving the AGM round the regions.  In the end the only possible solution was to hold it on the same weekend and at the same venue as the BCRC Annual Conference, which was already planned for the Forest of Dean.  The Forest of Dean folks did astonishingly well to organise such a varied weekend and most of us who were there appreciated this and enjoyed ourselves.

The first BCA AGM Party Weekend, 2013 in Derbyshire (at Castleton) and the second, 2014 in Yorkshire (at Dalesbridge) worked well and were arranged without clashing with another event and both AGMs attracted record numbers.  Next year's AGM will be down south on the Mendips and, again, it's a case of fitting in a suitable date with other things already arranged for weekends in June.

On the whole I think the Party Weekend idea does work and does get people involved, given that there are always those who want to "party" but don't want to attend a meeting.

 

[moorebooks]

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?? 

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

Why not use Social media like Facebook and in fact this forum as well?

Mike