The official 2018 CHECC committee forum report

Hall2501

Member
The 2018?s CHECC Forum was hosted at Hope Valley College in the peak district between the 23rd ? 25th of November 2018. The committee was slightly apprehensive about holding one of the wildest caving events of the year in a high school, especially given the headmaster would be present for the entire event, so we braced ourselves for a stressful but fun weekend.

It turns out the school was an almost perfect venue for CHECC, it had a sports hall for the socialising, the SRT challenge and the knot tying competition. There was a large hall for the stomp/AGM and a canteen with some impressive commercial cooking facilities. Outside the school, there was a car park and two tennis courts, plenty of space for everyone?s cars. Finally, an athletics pitch gave everyone a place to camp.

Unfortunately, rain was forecast meaning everyone?s shoes would become very muddy after coming off the field. Because of this Botch was had enforced a no shoes indoors rule. Everyone was asked to bring slippers or sandals for walking around in the school, I thought this would never work but it turns out slippers CHECC was indeed a thing and the school stayed relatively clean. In fact, 2018 saw the most well-behaved CHECC in history: nothing got broken, there were no noise complaints, the fire alarm didn?t go off and we might even be allowed back. I?m not sure if this is because we are all just conditioned to behave themselves in high schools or because generation sensible is upon us.

Unfortunately, I was too hung over to provide a decent Treasurers report on Sunday, so here?s some info on the event finances for those interested. In short, I?ve tried to simplify things as much as possible. Tickets were a flat rate of ?24, I abandoned the early bird system adopted by other treasurers. This year was also the first year of the online ticket request form, I hope this saved everyone a bit of faff with ticket request spreadsheets. I?ve decided to also stop asking for deposits, this was because I felt that we would be able to agree on a reasonable amount for clubs/individuals/CHECC to pay towards the repair of any serious damages after the event, fortunately, there weren?t any. 

As always the food was great and the training workshops went well. In the evening we had a showing of all the UKCaving video competition entries, there was an impressive amount of effort that went into this year?s videos, they are very entertaining to watch. There were some interesting talks by some rescuers and rescuees. I don?t remember much from Saturday night, but I do remember the stomp was very fun. I decided to take the risk of deploying a smoke machine in the stomp hall, these have a history of setting fire alarms off at CHECC, in 2015 the fire brigade was called out to the forum after a smoke alarm set the fire alarm off in the dance hall, but fortunately, that didn?t happen.

On Sunday morning, the 2018 CHECC AGM was the most efficient ever, clocking an impressive 50 minutes from start to finish including the grand prize, this year the grand prize was won by Lancaster with a mighty 70 points awarded to them from other clubs. Lancaster has come a long way in the past 2 years and it?s good to see the student caving community being so supportive of them, also a huge thanks to UKCaving for all the time and effort they put into the grand prize!

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Bratchley

New member
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The SRT wall was just ideal for the training. On the school grounds, and in the same building which removed the need for transport!  ;)

CHECC 2018 had over 70 training places filled, with almost complete attendance (hangovers being our biggest enemy!). It's great to see so many people taking advantage of the opportunities, thank you to those who attended training.

A massive thanks to all the trainers who assisted at CHECC this year, along with the cooks, presenters and all those who helped clean up and assist in any other way!

Looking forward to Northern CHECC.

Josh
 
Looking at the callout sheets, there were around 116 attendees underground on Saturday. Pretty impressive, probably around half of the total attendance. No wonder the venue was so quiet!

Just imagine, hidden somewhere under the hills and fells of the Peak, over a hundred cavers. Quite a nice thought
 

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
Big Bad Botch said:
Just imagine, hidden somewhere under the hills and fells of the Peak, over a hundred cavers. Quite a nice thought

Just imagine, hidden somewhere under the hills and fells of the Peak, over a hundred cavers - many of them new to the sport, encouraged, trained and helped by their fellow students cavers - an even better thought.  Well done to CHECC for introducing new folks to our sport and in such a fun way  (y) (y)
 

Benfool

Member
I was certainly rather sceptic when Botch first told me CHECC was to be in a high school, very close to a residential area - I was convinced it would end up with Botch being arrested. I'll be the first to admit I got it wrong, you guys have done amazingly and it looks like it was a really good event. Bit sad I missed it really!

We started to rebrand checc about 6 years ago, trying to make it more focused on training and support than simply getting pissed. We somewhat succeeded in this, but there was still a couple of bad years where things got out of hand, stuff was damaged and venues were so annoyed they wouldn't have us back. You guys have taken things to a new level - we've now had 3 or 4 years of well organised events, with happy venue owners and very little getting damaged. Added to this the amount of training events, talks and other activities going on during the forum, you've changed it from simply just a party, with a bit of training, to a fully fledged training event. So in short, thanks to Botch, Laura, Bratch, Brendan, Adam H, Thom S and everybody else whose been involved, you've managed to achieve what we wanted to a long time ago, but somewhat failed!

B
 

2xw

Active member
I was very entertained to see on Saturday night, when folks were in various stages of undress, the headmaster when having to leave his office became suddenly fascinated by the ceiling!

I think MUSC deserve some massive props this year, whilst coming in second in the big prize, they put a colossal amount of energy into the competitions. It's really good to see Manchester bouncing back a bit from previous years. Well done Todd et al
 

Maddoghouse

Member
Hello! Here's my slightly belated introduction..!


Firstly, a massive thanks to everyone who was involved over the weekend! It was great weekend as always, was great seeing so many faces ? old and new! A big cheers especially to those who helped cook, train, clean up and deal with call outs etc  ;)

Huge congratulations to Lancaster University Speleological Society for winning the Grand Prize! Especially touching as you guys were caving at the time when it was announced..! Look forward to seeing your new kit not being so shinny the next time I see you guys.

For those who don't know me, I?m Jacob, and I?m the new CHECC Secretary. Thanks to my predecessor Laura Benn, hope Vietnam is treating you well =P

Thank you for given me the opportunity to have this role for the next few years. I look forward to diving straight into committee life and interacting with student cavers and clubs and (hopefully!) help to continue to keep this already great organisation ticking over nicely.
 

Bratchley

New member
Our eyes are on helping Birmingham Uni cavers get as much support as they need in the coming year, and seeing if we can get something off the ground in Swansea...

Josh
 
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