What constitutes a 'Caving Club'?

Quote from: Simon Wilson on Today at 07:23:07 pm
The constitution needs rewriting to stop one man and his dog calling themselves a caving club.

Click to expand...

So what constitutes a 'Caving Club'? 

I don't see a definition on the BCA web site just a list of clubs.

I think I have said somewhere that BCA did produce a set of criteria to determine this.  My vague memory is a written constitution, several officers and an aim / objective / what ever which links it to caving.  I guess some one could ask the BCA Secretary for a copy.  May be it is in an early set of minutes of BCA Council.

I am confident that as a point of law it has to be more than one person.  But a person can include an incorporated body (that is a limited company to use simple but inaccurate language).  Whether it could include one or more unincorporated bodies (that is a typical club) is a point worthy of a 'angels on a pin head' type debate.

It took some finding but it is on the website.

http://british-caving.org.uk/wiki3/doku.php?id=membership:club_criteria

Membership - Club Criteria

Group Membership is available to bonafide caving clubs.

A club wishing to apply for club membership of the British Caving Association should be aware that the guidelines used by BCA to determine suitability for club membership are:

    The club has a major aim or objective that is in support of the sport of caving, mine exploration, cave science, cave & mine conservation or caver training.
    The club consists primarily of individual members (BCA would normally expect there to be at least 4 members).
    The club annually elects at least two officers.
    The club is controlled by its members.

To demonstrate these points the club should submit a copy of its constitution which will, typically, include:

    A statement of the aims of the club.
    Provision for holding general meetings together with mention of a quorum and of voting fractions required to pass motions and amend the constitution.
    A system for election of at least two officers.

Click to expand...

There are plenty of club members who could be described as "unincorporated bodies" late on Saturday nights! 

Good question, but you could also ask 'what constitutes a caving club', and 'according to whom', and 'for what purpose'.

Basically a caving club can be almost any kind of group - large or small.  The point that was being made about the CNCC member clubs, (which is where this thread came from), was one of scale and voting power.  A small club such as the Dent House Speleological Society has only 2-3 members left, but are still a club never the less.  However, they have the same voting power as does a club like the Bradford or Craven which has several hundred members, or even clubs with 20-50 members for that matter.  This is then a question of caver representation.  In theory five mirco-clubs with no more than twenty members between them can out vote four large clubs with over five hundred members.  This was the problem alluded to in the threads about CNCC representation and fairness.

A club can be anything, it is how the regional and national bodies see those clubs that really counts.

Interesting  :-\
Black Sheep Diggers is not a bona-fide club oh well we don't know our way out of Nidderdale anyway 

Goydenman said:

Interesting  :-\
Black Sheep Diggers is not a bona-fide club oh well we don't know our way out of Nidderdale anyway 

Click to expand...

You will once you get that DistoX working, hopefully!

Thank you Les,  your a wonderful person    if you don't know the answer you know where to find it 

Badlad, I wanted to start at basics before getting into proportional representation which even our own government has voted against (if my memory serves me right)

This site isn't too bad http://www.netlawman.co.uk/ia/unincorporated-associations. (don't ask about the "can't enter into a contract)

Les W said:

It took some finding but it is on the website.
http://british-caving.org.uk/wiki3/doku.php?id=membership:club_criteria

Click to expand...

It doesnt take any finding, Les, if you trust Google Just type "definition of a caving club"  and the fourth-listed entry is the definition used on the BCA membership forms, at http://caves.org.uk/payments/bca/forms/D1.html#clubdef. If you restrict that to "definition of a BCA caving club" its the top-listed entry!