'Our Club' CHECC 2017

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
Post your qualifying entries for the 2017 CHECC Grand Prize on this thread - looking forward to reading them  :coffee:

Details of the prize and how to enter, here: https://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=22692.msg286420;topicseen#new

Cheers, Pegasus
 

aricooperdavis

Moderator
First up it's Ari with your annual update from Exeter University Speleological Society!

We've been up to a lot since this time last year, and some of that has even been caving! The most notable caving exploits from our members include a 3 day camping trip to Daren Cilau, a summer trip to Yorkshire to teach rigging, and getting involved with the Austrian Dachstein expedition.

The Daren trip was a fantastic and novel experience for the 6 of us who chose to spend our long Easter weekend at The Hard Rock Cafe. We saw some truly beautiful formations, and wondered at the amazing volume of the Time Machine, but what stuck with us most was the sheer madness of spending that long underground. As we dragged our battered and broken carcasses out of the entrance crawl and into the light Welsh mizzle we could barely contain our euphoric laughter at the sound of birds tweeting and sheep baa-ing.

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The summer trip to Yorkshire was an altogether more civilised experience - the 5 of us got some great SRT rigging training done so that some of our new committee can start to lead SRT trips, and we also went on some good sporting trips for fun (Lost Johns, and a very wet Yordas and Rowten were particularly fun). We also found out that Ed, our social sec, has a great propensity to throw carabiners down big holes, so he's no longer allowed any.

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The Austrian Dachstein expedition was a completely life altering experience for me. Andrew and I met so many cavers from different backgrounds, and my eyes were really opened to what there is beyond our little uni club. I got deeper underground than I ever thought I would, and even got to push about 100m of unexplored vertical alpine cave with some amazing new friends. I cannot recommend this expedition enough to the student cavers out there, or thank the organisers enough for all their hard work!

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Caving aside the club is doing well. We have weekly Tuesday socials, weekly SRT training sessions, and fortnightly weekend trips. The university is very proud of it's trees (it boasts a student to squirrel ratio of almost 1:1), but this year we finally managed to negotiate the use of a lovely oak for our SRT training! We can have about 3 "routes" rigged up there, with rebelays, deviations, and knot passes - and yesterday we discovered a perfect ground anchor so that we can teach prussiking without novices having to deal with the awkward ascending/descending change over at the top. We recieved funding from the University last year that allowed us to refresh our SRT arrangements, so we now have 6 full kits (in pretty, colour-coded bags) and some rope that we actually know the age of!

We've struggled once again for keen members this year, which seems to be a bit of a recurring theme for us at the moment. We work hard in Fresher's week to recruit as many new people as we can, but as joining the club has got easier (you can now join and pay online without ever having to meet our desperate pleading gaze) we seem to have fewer and fewer sign ups. We ran two full days of taster trips during freshers week, and loads more as term began, but they seemed to be popular mainly with students who never intended to join the club but wanted to try something weird before they graduated. That being said, we did start charging ?3 for them this year (they were free last year) and that did improve the conversion ratio considerably!

On the plus side, the freshers we have managed to recruit this year are keen and competent, and we hope to groom them into committee positions before too long! We've already got enough skill and experience within the club to be able to keep trips running after the committee change-over at the end of the year, but fingers crossed for lots more outgoing and enthusiastic Exeter students next year.

If you're ever in Exeter/Devon, or staying in a hut with us (you can see what we're up to on our calendar) then say hello - we're a friendly bunch!
 

Alex Noot

New member
Adventure + Expo successes and difficulties


Hi here?s an annual update since the last entry :)


Training:
Adventure and expo used have four disciplines under different names (See last years CHECC entry for details).
Being a split club there is difficulties in training in those four areas. There is only one Caving role on the committee, this makes it increasingly difficult each year to provide training due to the lack of committee experience and the lack of time due to the university degree. However, Alumini and Shepton Mallett members have helped with leading caves and offering training this year, their support has been invaluable! Thank you! 
Despite difficulties in training, there has been the success of 56 people going underground out of the 136 people who have signed up since 21/09/17. Each time this has captivated people?s enthusiasm of caving, with the majority of people keen to learn more skills including belaying and route finding, which they?ve had the opportunity in certain caves. Expanding on training opportunities, we try and utilise the training available at CHECC with 13 people enrolled on training so far, this might increase with my Spam. Thank you CHECC committee and volunteers for these opportunities!


Trips
Caving trips this year have seen a rise in Fresher?s getting involved and taking part in a mixture of trips. Our first trip of the academic year saw us exploring the local caves of Dartmoor on the weekend of October 7th. Caving secretary, Alex Noot was joined by Manny and Mirela to introduce Prid and Bakers pit to some never-before cavers. Obviously, they had to stop for a quick pint and a pasty before descending. Tim, a master?s geology student, was in awe of the mineral veins and faults found in the open cavities.
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We headed to Chedder on October 27th for a Halloween themed party at the hut, with games and pumpkins as prizes for winners of the best costumes. One of them being an improvised ghost busters suit made out of a hoover, bag and janitors outfit. The next day some of the group headed out the Gorge to go climbing and walking with a large group caving. Freddie Kanisius, adventure and expo secretary went down with ex-president, Jack Porteous, into Eastwater for some thrutchy caving! A contrast in the scenery above and below the ground made for an exciting adventure with some new friends of the Adventure and Expedition society.
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The following weekend a small group of willing cavers headed back to enjoy a fireworks night at Shepton Mallet along with plenty of other activities. The caving trips that weekend were Charterhouse, Swildons and hunter hole. Later in the evening there was a talk given by a member from a joint society about an expedition to Thailand. We then headed to the renowned Belfry to hear about a Philippines expedition, thing got wild, standard! Sunday consisted of a few keen beans going into Swildons to find the black Hole series, this knackered a few of the freshers out, but they had a fantastic time.
We look forward to seeing what CHECC will bring! 


Recruiting and Funding:
Consistently getting around 100 members every year meant it was a success to get 136 sign-ups this time at freshers fair. Considering less people have joined universities this year, it should be highlighted how hard this was to achieve. This year we?ve changed sponsors with a few organizations, for clothing merchandise and getting discounts for our members. Because of the new brand we are selling T-shirts and hoodies through, we expect to gain a better profit than last year. Unfortunately, due to less funding from our student union, we have had to raise our sign-up fee from ?30 to ?35. Some of our weekend trips have also risen by ?5 for us to break even. This price also covers increase in cost of SV?s and mini buses, which is becoming harder to rent when we have no large vehicles to own. Asking for more drivers and caving leaders has been an occasional struggle but manageable. However, there I still issues with funding SRT kits and having enough experienced members/ alumini with the time to help train them. Recruiting a whole new committee for next year will be an issue as most secretaries in the society are in their last year of education so support or advice for this would be much appreciated. To conclude, some of the losses outweigh the success but we?ve managed to still run successful trips and events within the society. Some more support in finance and human resources would allow a steady continuation of the society into next year. We are very proud of the fact that our members still return to join in with new members of the society every year, including alumni members that help out as well. In 2015, Adventure and Expo was voted as best society at Plymouth University and we want to reach the heights of that again so we can show students how important it is to explore the underground and push themselves in the unknown. With your support, which we are very grateful for, we can get more students out into awesome locations that require learning new skills - along with a committee that love what they do.
Contributers: Alex Noot and Freddie Kanisius Pocock.
 

frawleyh

New member
Update from UBSS!

Since last CHECC we have been busy with a variety of trips. New Year was spent at our delightful hut by a group of the older caving generation (not exclusively!) and copious amounts of turkey and mulled wine were consumed. January brought a 'Re-Freshers weekend' to South Wales which was well received including various trips in OFD and Aggy. In February the club went to Yorkshire and Derbyshire to brush the cobwebs off our SRT skills! A trip to North Wales in March to do the Croesor Rosydd through trip was braved by a small UBSS contingency to finish off the Spring term.

After the exam period, we had our annual Rescue/First Aid training weekend kindly run for us by members of MCR which allowed us to appreciate the severity of accidents in caves, as well as lugging a stretcher around Burrington and the UBSS hut!



The summer holidays brought the annual UBSS Surveying trip to Ireland to continue the work from previous years in Coolagh River cave and Cullaun One . In 2019, the club's centenary year, the UBSS intend to publish a new edition of the Society?s book, Caves of County Clare and South Galway, G.J. Mullan, 2003. The trip was successful with a large amount of surveying done along with a bit of Orca riding...

Next was our fresher?s season which started with lots of interest and a great turn out at our fresher?s fair stall. With over 200 email sign ups on the stand we had a packed couple of Fresher weekend in the Mendips. This took us on adventures to Swildons, Eastwater, Goatchurch, Sidcot, and more, involving sporting steamways, fun crawls and challenging squeeze. After caving the evening progressed to - as all good caving weekends do - seeing who can squeeze through the smallest gap and suspended sock wrestling. Some were more successful than others as seen by the photos below! We also had our annual free chilli night at our weekly pub ? The Coach and Horses, signing up lots of people for their first mid-week caving trips.
A fortnight later we were in South Wales for a weekend of stomping O.F.D. passage, as well as trips to caves such as Craig Y Ffynnon to view some rather impressive formations.

Bonfire weekend this year, we had a big party out at our hut in the Mendips, with spit roast lamb over an open fire, a firkin of beer, and a rather daring firework display. There was plenty of merriment and caving games and some of us even managed to get underground the following day!

Since the start of term we have been running SRT training sessions every week in preparation for CHECC and upcoming trips to Yorkshire and Derbyshire. We probably have the most unusual training venue in the country ? the stairwell of the student union building, which we?ve used for nearly 40 years! Students can be seen practising ladder climbing and SRT there, often causing confusion to visitors to the building!

Although we haven't got the biggest cohort of student cavers (student retention is something we struggle with but are working on!), the freshers that have joined and stuck around are a great bunch and we're all (old and new cavers alike!) looking forward to going to CHECC and getting underground (and also the games/frivolities!)

Find us at http://www.ubss.org.uk/
 

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Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
Exeter, Adventure & Expo and UBSS - you are all entered  ;)

I'll update this list as more clubs enter.

Remember:

In order to qualify to enter the competition each club must:

Post on this thread and tell your fellow caver about your club.  For those clubs who entered last year we're interested to hear what you've been up (down) to these past 12 months -  Successes/difficulties with recruiting/funding/training/trips/expeditions??  For those clubs new to The Grand Prize, tell us about your club - history, famous alumni, current activities, training, expeditions etc, etc. 

Student Clubs play an important role in introducing people to caving - how many new cavers joined your club this year, how did you encourage students to try caving??  The reports posted last year made interesting reading and I urge those that haven't to take a look at https://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=21104.0

The best write up, as judged by Badlad and Pegasus wins 10 points, the runner up 5 points.  One entry per club and posted by 10pm, Saturday 25th November.
 

RTurnbull

New member
ULSA and how to bin dive

Following on from Rob?s thorough and extensive introduction to ULSA caving post last year, here?s an update on the club activities this year! The current student incarnation of ULSA is following the teachings of Ian Peachey and taking a global stance of reducing food waste as well as their commitment to caving.

?Rats got to it before ULSA? You guys have been slacking recently.? - Jack Dewison, SUSS, November 2017.

So recruitment has gone well this year, with probably 20 new cavers heading underground regularly, bringing the club up to about 50 regular student cavers. This includes some Europeans who are only with us for 1 semester or year and are getting in touch with their local caving clubs, which is really good to see.

Trips
Since September, most weeks we've run two day trips due to popular demand, to Giants, Easegill, Long Churns, Short Drop to Gavel exchange etc. Evening trips have been really successful with second year cavers who want to practice rigging, in Simpsons and Voldemort. These are great for late night bin diving in Settle and Ilkley.

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George Lazonby cannot be woken from his peaceful slumber, safe in the knowledge that the prize loaf is his. Photo: Wob Rotson

?I haven?t bought bread since joining the club? - Adam Metcalf, November 2017

Our annual pilgrimage to the Mendips occurred, our first weekend away. Our German posse all bought meter-long wooden swords. We still don't know why. Alan and Aileen Butcher kindly descended on the Shepton with other SMCC members and brought tea and cakes and upon hearing this, everyone became very efficient cavers. Some members recall making the most of the Butcher bar tab in the Hunters, but I don't know about that. Caving happened, the wonders of GB and Swildons were seen.

Our next weekend away was at the Pennine Hut, firework fun at the University hut in Selside. It's a great location for making the most of Alum, Long Churns and further surveying efforts. Traditional ULSA onion soup (with thanks to ULSA alumni including Lyndie, Chris, Sniffer, John and Wob), served with dhal and vegetable curries, all upcycled from the bins. The return journey this year was blessed with roadkill plunder: a deer. Inner city Leeds massacre or eco-friendly recycling? We're yet to decide but venison stew has been on the menu for weeks now.

Training
We have regular SRT and theory sessions twice weekly, which have been hugely popular and we?re lucky to have use of the university affiliated gym training wall. Most freshers are SRT competent and some are rigging their first caves. Mike has been leading some leader training which will also be rolled out at this year's CHECC.

Most training sessions are preempted by soup and pizza kitchens, often kindly hosted by Naziba, with the week's scavenged treasures, aiming to redistribute the wealth of West Yorkshire. And of course, all training sessions are followed by the pub.

First Aid and Cave Rescue visits
Early on a Sunday in November, we heard CRO had just put the kettle on. Seeing an opportunity for free biscuits, a staggering 14 students clambered over to Settle and met the brilliant volunteers. Organised by Sean Whittle, the man who ran our very successful cavers? first aid course in February, we were shown around the HQ, introduced to the rescue vehicles and practised some hauling configurations on Ruth, the unfortunate dummy. There was a demonstration of the call out procedure from the comms room using SARCO. Up from typically 3 or so a year, there's been 9 cave rescues already this year, and perhaps 80 fell rescues. All in all, a very fun morning. Many thanks to Sean, Slug and the whole cave rescue team.

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A great day at CRO HQ in Settle. Photo: Chris Horbaczewskyj

As part of fundraising for CRO, 5 ULSA (and two Cardiff!) cavers took to shifting through the bins at Glastonbury Festival again this summer, donating ?700 to the cause. Thanks again to Lyndie for organising all of this.

Surveying
Through the year, we've continued the production of a benchmark survey of Fountains Fell which was started in 2015, the main thrust of which has been in f*** Off University of Leeds (FOUL) Pot, with Gingling Hole now finished and available to purchase. We're metres away from the successful completion of this survey and Carl is optimistic it?ll be complete this year, despite having surveyed around 10m total in the last three trips. On the other hand, Rob, George and Luke have surveyed a combined distance of almost 200m in their last two trips surveying New Pasture Cave and Hammer Pot, somewhat aided by ditching paper surveying and getting slightly more modern with PocketTopo and a PDA. Trips by George to Liverpool to visit ?Uncle Julian and Auntie Becka? to Nerd and Tunnel have been successful (he hasn?t got shingles yet), and work continues. Julian got cross with Rob for cooking the tofu wrong, so he isn?t allowed back for more survex fun.

Digging
We?ve been digging with the Black Sheep Diggers in the Nidderdale system for over a year now, student and nonstudent ULSA member alike. Initially we were digging the dried up sump in Carter Passage near to Telegraph Aven, but after that became flooded again in January focus shifted to Guscott Pot, a cave which aims to find a dry link between Goyden and New Goyden. Between the two dig sites, a total of around 50m new passage has been pushed, over 15 different ULSA personnel have attended around 12 trips and a lot of boulders have been removed (though one very big one tried quite hard to end Rob from a height of 4m or so in March). Massive thanks must go to Chris Fox and Nick Bairstow, the core BSD crew, for being extremely accommodating and generous to the impoverished students, who on the last trip were bought chips for lunch! We hope the digs continue to progress and that we can continue to work with BSD in this important system.

The club has begun an ambitious (stupid?) digging project in Penyghent Pot, in the hope of finding a bypass to the worst of the Living Dead Extensions through the Hunt Pot Inlet and thence find a way into the fabled Penyghent Master Cave. By all accounts it's wet, miserable and slow going in quite a remote and dangerous spot. It's bred a new level of ultimate caver: Adam dislocated his shoulder quite close to the bottom of the cave on the last trip but exited without (much) complaint, repeatedly trying to stop Rob from carrying his bag. Bonus: allows for easy access to Settle bins, and Sam often provides Chocolate Surprise.

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A man provides: Wob Rotson with a nights haul from? ??? Photo: George Breley

Recently, we've begun digging with Richard Bendall and his associates, with a core team of Rob, Luke and Nathan attending on a weekly basis to shovel mud and scoop gloop. Prospects look extremely good for this dig, and work continues. Keenly, this dig allows for bin diving in a lesser frequented area: Kirby Lonsdale. Getting to chat with other cavers (usually the original explorers) has allowed us to learn a lot about lesser known trips in the Three Counties System, like Voldemort Hole and Lost Johns? pull-through trips to Notts II. The production of the new volume of Northern Caves by our very own Sam and Beardy has also greatly encouraged more obscure sporting trips.

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Without a ledge to stand on, Voldemort to Notts 2. Photo: Rachel Turnbull

Trips abroad
Over summer, we tried to scavenge for food abroad, when Booths and Co op were less fruitful. We had a great canyoning holiday in June through Italy and Switzerland, a group of 18 cavers parading through the European countryside in wetsuits. We made successful descents of a number of canyons, some technically demanding and some splashy fun, and all agreed that canyoning is a much nicer sport than caving and we needed to move to Europe, where wine is cheap, crisps come in 500g bags and you can play frisby in the rain and not be cold.

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The brighter side of caving. Photo: Alice Shackley

At Easter, a group of ULSA caves crossed to the emerald isle and man, we were out-drunk. If you think CHECC is messy, you have no idea. The Irish Student Caving forum were very hospitable held in Kiltyclogher, Co. Leitrim, before we ran away to Clare and joined up with the SMCC.

Expeditions
Seeking food freely given by sponsors, 12 ULSA cavers headed out to Bad Aussee, the Loser plateau to ambush CUCC expedition for six long weeks along with UBSS and some SUSS/NUCC. For some, it was their first expedition and for others their first time camping underground. The diet of instant mash potato and curry appeals to many Yorkshire cavers and enabled vast amounts of successful exploration. Thanks again to CUCC for inviting us back every year, it?s a brilliant caving event to be a part of. See this thread for more info:https://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=22020.0

Convinced I could survive on small portions of couscous after the omelette and chips splurge of CUCC derigging, I then headed over to the Dachstein, Austria too. The Dachstein was joined with university cavers from Kent, Dublin, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Reading, Plymouth and cavers from Australia, Czech Republic, USA and Hungary. It was a great expedition, and I got to meet a lot of people! Thanks to all involved with organising that expedition!

At the end of September, Rob, George and Luke were kindly invited to join EPC mavericks Dave and Barny in the Kelmend province of Albania (on the Montenegro border) on one of their ?exploratory caving holidays?. Details were suitably vague, and this added to the adventure of going somewhere where you might get shot or step on a landmine and with no chance of a rescue if it goes to custard. We pushed some very cold caves (we even used ice screws to rig off) and had a great time living at Luigis Guesthouse with his family and all the animals (some of which we ate ? the smigletts were very tasty). Huge thanks to Dave and Barny for setting this up for us and doing all the legwork in previous years! Albania is an incredibly friendly country with amazing food and even better alcohol, and is very cheap.

Supporting other clubs
Since we were given a generous grant a few years ago and replenished our tackle store (guess who?s enrolled on the kit inspection training at CHECC this year), we were excited to help out start-up clubs, Lancaster and Harper Adams by lending oversuits when we can spare them.

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Taking care of The Chapel, ULSA?s tackle store. Photo: Brendan Hall MSc

There are plans in place to support CUCC expedition further this year, combining our Christmas weekend away with an expedition planning session.

In our continued efforts to make a Yorkshire student master club, SULSA, we joined SUSS for a joint Christmas weekend at the YSS in 2016 and their summer holiday to France to do Le Verneau traverse (which obviously also had a NUCC contingent, clingy as they are). However, the ?special relationship? has become strained recently on hearing the dispute regarding breakfast they?ve had recently (though the vegetarians will always be welcome with us if they feel further threatened). Some of us spent New Years? with the BPC, SUSS and former Cardiff University students up in the Dales, where Rob experienced some harassment from SUSS after resourcefully replacing his forgotten helmet with a more lightweight, bobbled option on a trip in Peterson Pot.

Along with supporting other clubs with equipment and experience on trips, we?re here to offer advice too.
?What?s the best bin for eating spaghetti out of?? - Will Whalley, January 2017

For more updates, see www.ulsa.org.uk
Or look out for our newsletters posted here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B2v8mXFeRZq6bksxVnItMnNKaVU?usp=sharing
 

JollyMolly

New member
An update from Sheffield University Speleological Society on our past year!

The kit we received last year from UKC has been put to good use with the SRT kits helping to train our new freshers and take them underground and the rope replacing old ropes that needed to be retired. This year however with some of our older members off doing adult things in the real world, drivers and leaders can come at a pinch, but we are continuing to make it work with some people taking the bus to weekends that are in the peak district and a renewed drive for more training of members in rigging and rescue.

Holidays
Summer 2017 included much anticipated SUSS holiday! SUSS along with some welcome additions from NUCC and ULSA spent 2 weeks in the Jura region of France to do the Travers?e du Verneau. Six groups went down to experience the varied and expansive system, with times varying from 11 to 17 hours. We hope this helped prepare members for longer caving trips which we hope to be doing this coming summer whilst on expedition to Tresviso. It was also a good opportunity to introduce many members to canyoning and via ferrata, which I believe tested several peoples fear of heights!

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Both photos: James Deakin

This year five SUSS members also decided to cross the murky pond in a cramped renault megane and descend upon the Irish student caving forum at Easter. Much merriment was had as we were promptly named the class-less English for streaking through the village and Botch ate a whole raw onion in a bid to be DCU?s next president. I think we made a good impression though and can?t wait to introduce some of them to CHECC this weekend. In the week leading up to the forum we stayed at a quaint hut called the Hoo with rather scarce amenities but would honestly recommend a visit to anyone. We managed to go caving every day of the trip and experience as much Irish caving as possible so thanks to all those who gave us advice on the trip. However, I for one did not get enough and so highly anticipate a return in 2018!

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Post Pollnatagha to Pollprughlish through trip group selfie

Over the may bank holiday six SUSS also visited wales to take a trip through the adventure playground that is Croesor Rhosydd and revel in the 'Bridges of Death' pictured below.
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Photo: Helen Fairclough

Fresher season
This year we again had a large amount of sign ups from our universities Fresher?s fair and managed to take around 40 newbies out to the TSG to enjoy the peak round trip over a weekend. Delightfully, our fresher weekend coincided with NUCC?s, resulting in a bustling TSG with everyone joining in on the usual games and the freshers getting their first taste of the tight knit community that is caving! The next weekend was to Bullpot Farm in the Yorkshire Dales. A fun weekend, with a speedy trip through Mistral but slightly dampened by the news of the 2CV breaking down and being towed. Leaving some people with a 2am McDonalds instead of the planned evening curry in Bradford ?

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Photo: James Deakin. The joy on Liams face is palpable...

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Photo: James Deakin. Training freshers up for CHECC

We then had our eventful annual Halloween weekend at the TSG joint with GUPA and NUCC complete with some interesting costumes and fire dancing! Over 20 people have been SRT trained this semester thanks to access to the MWT Rope Access Training tower in Rotherham, which has been generously provided by SUSS alumni, Mark Wright again this year. This meant some of the freshers were able to do their first SRT trips on this weekend. The three freshers on my trip did amazingly well to get down a tightly rigged JH and out of peak in under 4 hours after we spent 2 hours being lost, wondering the misty hillside.

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SRT and rescue training at the tower!

A weekend to the SWCC proved to be a success as the university somehow let us borrow a GoPro and we managed to not break it and get some shots of both OFD1 and OFD2. Recently the club has been involved with the This Girl Can campaign organised buy our union which promotes women in sports. This Wednesday we ran an evening trip just for girls who wanted to try caving for the first time to Giant?s Hole. Although we had to take two boys due to a lack of female drivers and leaders, just highlighting the problem!

Overall, we have had plenty of new sign ups this year and are grateful for the experience of older members that continue to support the club. We still have our weekly pub sessions and are also pleased to announce that we now have new, shiny SUSS stickers to spread the SUSS-love with! To find out more about our year and future ventures, our website can be found at http://www.shefcavers.org.uk/ where members can post trip reports, search for books held in the library and check the calendar for events.

Molly Smith and Michael Holiday
 

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
Pegasus said:
Exeter, Adventure & Expo and UBSS - you are all entered  ;)

I'll update this list as more clubs enter.

Remember:

In order to qualify to enter the competition each club must:

Post on this thread and tell your fellow caver about your club.  For those clubs who entered last year we're interested to hear what you've been up (down) to these past 12 months -  Successes/difficulties with recruiting/funding/training/trips/expeditions??  For those clubs new to The Grand Prize, tell us about your club - history, famous alumni, current activities, training, expeditions etc, etc. 

Student Clubs play an important role in introducing people to caving - how many new cavers joined your club this year, how did you encourage students to try caving??  The reports posted last year made interesting reading and I urge those that haven't to take a look at https://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=21104.0

The best write up, as judged by Badlad and Pegasus wins 10 points, the runner up 5 points.  One entry per club and posted by 10pm, Saturday 25th November.

ULSA, SUSS and SUCC - you're also entered  (y)
 

Aoife

New member
Our CHECC CLub

We have had a very busy 12 months, SUCC never sleeps, is always boozing and CAVES OFTEN:

Successes
LARGE FRESHER NUMBERS
We recruited many freshers to caving at the Bunfight during freshers fair, handing out 500 leaflets and getting 140 email address. Many people were very confused about what caving was, and we made sure to explain the ins and out and encourage them to join us at the welcome talk and first social. Both these events were successes with a great turn out leading to many returning to us and wanting to come on weekend trips!
Running two fresher trip weekends to South Wales and The Mendips let many people try caving, and all found they loved it! Caving on the trips was very successful with freshers in awe of the caves and formations they were experiencing. The SUCC parties lived up to expectations, with cucumber and nutella fencing, pan and sling games and LOTS of spag bol got involved (don?t ask). The South Wales trip fell over Halloween weekend and we had fabulous costumes, zombie brides, pumpkins and a team of 4 ghostbusters. The ghostbusters defeated Slimer with live fireworks leading to a long, boozy, dancing night for all!

Difficulties
With a new committee halfway through the year, elected in our AGM, it meant we had to change the name on the accounts. This has been difficult as we have had to fill in so many forms plus banking is just tedious. We have overcome this with telephone banking and dealing with cash :) We are milmeters away from getting our hands on online banking and having real cards!
Another difficult has been wellies; going missing and not having correct sizing. We have decided to avoid this in the future by placing responsibility of the wellies on individuals for the weekends, so people do not just come back from caving and dump their stuff where-ever they fancy. We are expanding our sizing collection of wellies also, and encouraging people to purchase their own as an investment.

Funding
Southampton Athletic Union was great with funding this September. We got  ? of what we asked for. This meant we could purchase, new, oversuits, lights and helmets, all stuff we need :)
However the Athletic Union didn?t support long term development and higher training as they would not grant us money for SRT kits  as they were not convinced that more SRT kits are an essential purchase at this point. Fingers crossed for the next round though.

Training
Very successful weekend the beginning of September before freshers joined us so all our current members could lead caves during our fresher trips. This was ran very successfully  by both Paul Clement-Walker and Daniel Nash (our training officer). All all members became very competent in rigging ladders, rope work and are now all confident leaders.

On the run up to CHECC we have been running weekly SRT sessions for both our freshers and current members, all of these sessions have had a great turn out! We will continue to train as often as we can making the sessions more and more difficult each week.

Famous alumni-
Ed Byrne
 

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CavingPig

New member
The University of Cambridge Caving Club 2017 Debrief

The CUCC year got off to a  flying start at the Bullpot Farm NYE party, where members of the club joined others from Bristol, Oxford, the TSG, Durham, the Red Rose and probably more to watch fireworks, drink dubious alcohol from the 4am shelf, and even go caving!  In a significant improvement on the two previous years, no large-scale rescues had to be initiated ? despite certain people trying quite hard, the worst effects were some mild hypothermia and a badly scratched nipple. NYE itself saw two of us wander into the Co-Op in Ingleton in sodden wetsuits/neofleeces after a sporting trip down Swinsto to purchase cava for the midnight countdown ? the shop assistant didn't bat an eyelid and simply asked whether we'd had a good trip! (We had.)

We eased into term gently with a club trip to the seaside, then it was off up to Yorkshire in early February for a weekend around the Penyghent area. We split into three teams and made a complicated rigging/derigging plan that saw groups take on between two and six caves over the weekend. Highlights included "definitely not" needing cowstails for a particular traverse then immediately regretting it (splash!) and a group of walkers remaining convinced that we were pulling their leg when, by the parking area for Alum, we insisted that they really were many miles away from Ingleton and indeed the nearest pub.


There's no such thing as bad weather, only people who aren't stoked enough.

Next it was off up to Derbyshire to sample the delights of the TSG and Giants, with another trip to Yorkshire the fortnight after that, plus the BCRA cave science weekend where we attended workshops in dye tracing (only turned my fingers a little green) and cave biology. Then it was time for our overtide trip to Otter Hole! Everything went smoothly and we made it to the sump at the far end and back just in time for the tidal sump to open. What a stunning trip! We rounded off the weekend with a quick Lionels round trip on Burrington, then a walk to a pub in a nearby village for a late lunch.
Easter saw us decamp to sunnier climes for the CUCC holiday to the Ard?che in France, where we were joined by a few members of UBSS for much wine and delightfully warm and pretty caving, canyoning, kayaking and via ferrata-ing. It's hard to pick a highlight here ? all of the caves we visited were stunning in their own right. My personal favourite was probably the Despeysse-St. Marcel through trip, despite our lunchtime wine getting smashed on a traverse! :( I would have enjoyed the Aven de Noel more had it contained a little less CO2 ? the others didn't seem too badly affected but I found the lower reaches pretty heavy going.


The Marcel through trip - note T-shirts. Much more comfortable than UK caving!

Things quietened down over the summer examinations period, with just a quick excursion to Derbyshire to use our Orpheus hut nights that we won at CHECC last year (thanks Orpheus CC!) and of course the BCA party weekend, which also doubled as our expedition training weekend, attended by students from Cambridge, Bristol, Sheffield and Nottingham.


Teaching teenagers to use drills.

One of our number joined the University of Bristol on their annual expedition to Ireland, surveying the watery delights of Cullaun 1 and Coolagh River Cave ? trying to keep our noses and the DistoX above the stream as the roof pinched ever lower, and hoping that the forecast of no rain was accurate... we just kept thinking of the cottage waiting for us upon exit, with the peat fire roaring and a pint of Guinness in hand!



Ireland is both wet and muddy.

And then, the summer ? and CUCC's biggest trip of the year: our expedition! Now in its 41st year, this time round students from five different universities (Cambridge, Bristol, Sheffield, Nottingham and Leeds) joined forces with assorted hangers on for a six-week expedition to the Loser Plateau in central Austria. This year's expedition saw a lower-than-usual attendance from people who knew the ropes (badum-tish!) so we did find things a little challenging at times ? but the results speak for themselves, with around 7km of completely virgin passage explored and surveyed! It wouldn't have been possible without the 70+kg of flapjack, a couple bottles of disturbingly cheap whisky and countless crates of G?sser (the oh-so-cheap beer) ? and of course our generous rope sponsorship from UK Caving! Thank you again! :) You can read more about our exploits on this thread: https://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=22020.0


A quick break from surveying in Guten Morgen H?hle, Austria.

In September, our President's Invite trip saw us discover the subterranean delights of Northern France, and as October rolled around, it was time for the Fresher's Fair once more. With Cambridge a good three hours from the nearest caving area, enticing people to try out our somewhat niche hobby can sometimes be hard work ? but those manning the stall did a sterling job. We had over 400 email signups resulting in 12 frequently returning new members, all of whom have been able to put into action underground the SRT training they received at our sessions in Queens' College Stage and in a tree (the BBQ with Tyrolean over the river proved particularly popular, both with freshers and curious kayakers). The weekly pubmeet socials have all been buzzing, and we've had three very well attended weekends away so far this term (thank goodness for Van Rouge, which we can just load up with kit so people can travel in relative comfort five to a car!) ? so far the club has visited OFD I and II, Gavel/Short Drop, County Pot, Swinsto, Swildon's, Rhino Rift and GB. It's been great to see trips to suit all levels from the apprehensive to the keen ? and some of this year's novices are very keen indeed... let's see what they make of CHECC!


Deep beneath the streets in France for the President's Invite.


Radost crosses the Rubicon Cam. Not pictured: perplexed kayakers.


Our trusty Van Rouge steed.

What's next? Well, term ends next week ? but we aren't letting that stop us. We're having a "swap" (boozy meal) with the Expedition Society this Tuesday to celebrate the end of lectures, then some of us will be heading down to London for the RGS "Golden Age of Caving" weekend. NYE at Bullpot Farm is on the cards once more, and we also have a caving trip to the Tatra Mountains in Poland lined up for early January. We won't be getting bored any time soon!

If you'd like to find out more about our club, take a look at our website. https://www.srcf.ucam.org/caving/wiki/Main_Page

Expeditions more your thing? Find out about our Austrian endeavours here. http://expo.survex.com/
 

UniOfNottsCaving

New member
Nottingham University Caving Club

737835569758236


Three years ago, there were 0. Two years ago, there were 3. Last year, there were ~14. This year there will be 18 - yes, EIGHTEEN, the 4th biggest turn out of all clubs* - at the Dalesbridge for the CHECC Forum, the highlight of the student caving calendar. Many a year of hard work by a number of individuals seems to be paying off. Over the course of the last 12 months the exponential expansion of our club has continued. The number of people participating in caving and the club has been the largest seen in the memory. The profile of the club within the caving community has continued to grow, and unusually for a university caving club, within in the university!

Trips

2017 began with a club trip to SWCC. Here, we would give the now cave-hardened freshers a taste of leading, Lydia would perfect her photography skills and Briony would give some newbies their first underground adventure! Armed with a survey, a description and a hungover leader, those learning to lead set off down the hill to the Bottom entrance with the aim of completing the round trip. All gained the vital skill of pretending they knew what they were doing, especially when they went down the wrong crawl with the weird dried out gower pools, which for those without kneepads was particularly painful on the knees. Rosanna lead a trip in OFD II which gave Lydia a chance to perfect her photography skills, picture below!
Our next trip was northwards to Bull Pot Farm, where we?d be joined by MUSC! Unfortunately the weather that weekend was not on our side ? the words ?Biblical? and ?Well, this is a bit shit? come to mind. The weather did give some a chance to practice their hitchhiking skills? We?d dropped a group off (planning to pick them back up later in the day) at Kingsdale, who intend to get to the bottom of Aquamole. After about ten minutes of rigging Rosanna decided the trip was a bit too wet, so they headed out. As their lift wasn?t for a few hours they decided they may as well start to walk the 20 odd miles back? After 2 miles, they flagged down a car. The leather seated Land Rover gave the five cavers in full kit (including SRT kit!) a ride to Ingelsport. From Ingelsport a very kind member of staff, who was on his way to his mother?s birthday party in Preston, kindly went via Bull Pot Farm with the by now very tired cavers. Briony?s trip report can be found here.
Up next was Northern CHECC where, somehow, we were the 2nd best attended club - even more than ULSA somehow?! Here, many of the not-really-freshers-anymore freshers consolidated their SRT skills, with some starting to learn rescue techniques. Jacob?s driving also made a hungover SUSS fresher sick. He?s especially proud of this as it was the second of the year.
Our final official club trip of the academic year was to Mendip. Here a group went around St Cuthbert?s - SUCH A GOOD TRIP! In the evening, we attempted what appears to be a first on caving weekend, make pizzas from scratch? I don?t recommended?
Summer continued to be active time for NUCC cavers. A group of three joined SUSS on their holiday in the Jura region of France. After averaging 48mph and Lydia sleeping through all of Belgium, we finally made it to the destination. Over the course of the fortnight the Vernau was traversed, many a canyon was completed, we had a telling off by the Swiss police and we went via a few via ferratas. Lots of fun, baguettes and croissants were had!
Lydia continued her travels around Europe in the name of speleology by joining CUCC in Austria while the rest of us continued our adventures closer to home, mainly in the Peaks and South Wales. Highlights include an epic 14 hour trip in Ogof y Daren Cilau and a shitty Thursday night trip to Carlswalk?
Planning for the new term was well underway over August. This year, our Fresher Day Trips to Peak Cavern had to coincide with SUSS?s. Despite the havoc, the day went with minimal faff. We managed to get a total of 26 wide eyed freshers underground over the course of the weekend! All enjoyed and completed everything thrown at them! From Giorgio?s shoulder dislocating rock, the duck at Ink Sump (which had no airspace at all on the Sunday) to fighting each other blindfold over a doughnut back at the TSG!
Our first weekend of the year was to the traditional one to South Wales. This year we had a record of 18 people, plus Fluffy the Satanic Balloon Dog! The standard fresher trips were completed where all the newbies once again took everything in their stride. The new committee also took everything thrown at them and did most of the leading! As this trip coincided with ICCC?s trip it further emphasised the closeness of caving! Highlight of the weekend was taking Fluffy on a trip to Judge and Trident and having an all female fresher trip!
Meanwhile, our midweek SRT Training session at the climbing wall had began again. Once again these have proven to be extremely popular! This year, due to increased number of committee members and two training officers, we?ve been able to make the learning of SRT a slightly more formal process. Shout out to Natalie who?s been keeping an up to date spreadsheet of the freshers SRT skills! 
Next up, literally, was a trip to the Dump for our first Yorskshire trip! With help from some Scout Caving and the BPC for kit (Cheers Martyn and BPC) we were able to get everybody underground on both days! This included somehow getting 12 Fresher?s doing SRT in a cave for the first time!
Our latest adventure was back down to Mendip. Surprisingly a quiet weekend considering we were at the BEC ? that?s not to say there wasn?t any singing! Everyone caved on both days, with most people reaching Sump 1 in Swildon?s, a strong group headed to Eastwater and then Sunday ticked off Sludge Pit Hole, finishing off with a cake baked by some keen freshers.
As well as the weekend trips, this term we?ve recently started Wednesday afternoon trips to the Peaks! These seem especially popular with freshers not able to commit to a weekend. So far we?ve ventured to Bagshawe and Waterway Swallet! Thanks to those who?ve organised these and for Jay and Alex for driving.

Bring on CHECC!

photo.php


Other News and Exciting Stuff

One of NUCC?s proudest achievements over the last couple of years is that the girl to boy ratio is roughly 3:2. This year we?ve continued the tradition of having more females than males in the club. As previously mentioned, this year we have managed to run all female trips!
Lydia?s amazing ?Brave the Cave? t-shirt design took off amazingly well! Lydia sold in excess of 40 t-shirts to cavers all over the country raising funds for new club kit! We even have plans for purchasing a de-humidifier for our stores.
Our relationship with the SU and Sports department has continued to grow ? they seem to actually know who we are now!! This has resulted in more funding from the SU this year. Though, we still don?t know what?s happening with our supposed ?new? stores! We are also in the planning stage of realising University of Nottingham buffs jointly with the climbing and mountaineering club! Through our relationship with these clubs we?ve even managed to convince them to come to our socials and even on some trips!! As Lydia put it, ?cavers are more fun than climbers?.

photo.php


Jacob?s Soppy Bit

Thanks for everyone who?s helped us over the last few years, being in my final year of university now I really can?t imagine the last three years without you guys, thank you!!

The End..!

Here?s to another year caving! See you all this weekend!

[https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=454578711591236&set=g.2221660160&type=1&theater&ifg=1/img]

http://nucaving.co.uk/
 

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
Entered to date are:

Adventure & Expo (Plymouth)

CUCC (Cambridge)

EUSS (Exeter)

NUCC (Nottingham)

SUCC (Southampton)

SUSS (Sheffield)

UBSS (Bristol)

ULSA (Leeds)

If I've missed a club off, please let me know.

If you're not on this list, you are not entered - so get writing!  :read:





 
So, here's Iccc's entry..

Since last year, Imperial College Caving met new challenges with success. We are an active and growing club, and throughout the caving season the newer members have consistently taken responsibilities: from organising and leading weekend trips to helping run our summer expedition to Slovenia.

The large contingent of our cavers having attended last year's installment of CHECC drove a new campaign to get the club better known among the student community. The following article is an integral part of this move towards better and more effective publicity.
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Visits to Gaping Ghyll and Little Hull pot punctuated this week. Lots of rigging practice for the newer members
Among our successes the past year we count the running of a week long tour to Yorkshire before Christmas 2016. 20 club members attended the trip for various lengths of time and all got underground at some point, learning navigation in Easegill, rigging and leading in Leck fell. The first day saw 5 different Kingsdale caves rigged. One particularly memorable trip was the Boxhead Lost John's exchange via the Tate Galleries. We were privileged to also host Lydia, Natalie and Alex from NUCC for a couple of days. We rigged Little Hull together, strengthening our club relationship. At the end of the week, we also organised a rescue training session in Clapham with Tony Seddon, for 6 cavers to practise advanced techniques.

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Practising rescue techniques at Clapham
The Spring term began with a traditional foray in Mendip. Swildons and Longwood swallet to the delight of the novices who hadn't been able to come during the winter tour. Next up were tougher trips to Vesper and King, Washfold and longer Easegill traverses. Two of our novices, the Dubz Bruvs (twins keen on caving since their scouting days) showed a real interest towards the summer expedition and led trips to some of the horizontal classics of the Dales. One wintry morning saw a joint ICCC NUCC trip to Great Douk and Sunset Hole.  But our luck ran out..

Storm Doris hit. We were rained out of Bullpot, Rowten and even Jingling. In the face of these misfortunes, we drove to the Barkin Gills to do some waterfall spotting.

Our luck picked up again with a very productive trip to Derbyshire, where we taught more SRT and rigging techniques in view of the looming Easter Tour.

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Ben Honan, the then president descendingl mine
We spent a week caving in the Aggtelek and Bulk karsts of Hungary. There wasn't as much SRT as we'd hoped (lots of ladders) but we got to traverse the Baradla Domica system and bottom Istvan Lapai cave. The sumps were impressive!

We managed to coax two of our keen new members into joining the committee, our current secretary immediately took to her job with gusto, and as well as being our social secretary now takes the lead on organising the upcoming tours, earning herself the nickname 'Triple Sec'.

Onto Summer: Wales and Yorkshire on the menu. Stamina and further SRT training before Slovenia. We travelled to OFD for some exciting excursions to CwmDwr and the Northern Lights. Then we revisited the Masongill area, bottoming Marble Steps, exploring Duke Street II, and descending to Coates Cavern in the Rift-Large system.

Then it was time for the annual expedition to Slovenia where we took 5 novices, four of who discovered new passage. A large skillset was passed down from the older members to the youngsters who will be looking to lead and rig in the new year, and come back for more next summer.
RhysTyers-Outside-DSC05714--thumb.jpg


On the via ferrata in the Julian Alps

After 23 years of cooperation with the local club, ICCC has cemented Sistem Migovec as the longest in the whole of ex-Yugoslavia by extending it to 39km long and finding 1.8km this summer alone.

We were supported by UKcaving for this expedition, putting 300m of rope to good use in the entirely rerigged entrance series. The eradication of dodgy rigging enabled more serious trips into the system and played no small part in the continued success of our slovene adventures.

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David Wilson descending a pitch in Slovenia

Another success story this year involved the documentation of our trips and explorations. Rhys and Jack invested time, money and effort in camera equipment and setups to improve the quality of underground pictures, as well filming and making short exploration podcasts. Those were shared via the Imperial reporter, while in the meantime Tanguy took part in the Imperial heroes photoshoot to promote passion alongside studies and encourage students to take part in extra-curricular activities.

We did well for funding this year, and so far the club has invested in oversuits, wetsocks, undersuits, rigging maillons, descender bobbins. We are slowly renewing our SRT gear and have the capacity to take 15 new cavers on a trip. Our drive towards personal equipment ownership means more committed cavers and concurrent ability to offer kit rental for a trip at no cost to the novices.

So how about the new academic year? We've now run two fully booked weekend trips to Wales (OFD and Aggy) and had new comittee members run SRT training every Wednesday since the start of term. The last sessions saw an SRT obstacle course set up for CHECC training. Saturday evenings at caving huts were also prime circumstances for teaching Pot Sling and all the classic caving games. 
RhysTyers-DSC06916--thumb.jpg

Nathaniel in D?j? Rue passage OFD

Over the years we've struggled to keep members interested from season to season, but the suitable variety of trips we've been able to offer seems to have paid off. We have a strong team of keen 1-2nd year cavers intent on taking the club further, to the delight of the 'old' guard.

Overall: cracking year, mostly competent caving, delightful social entertainment and unforgettable memories. Long may happy and safe caving continue under all the limestone mountains we happen to visit.
 

pjh5000

New member
Greeting from Reading University Caving Club (RUCC)! You can read more about us on our club website at http://www.rucavers.co.uk/ and in our report last year: https://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=21104.msg270367#msg270367

As you'll read there, we had a major crisis a couple of years ago, during which we weren't sure whether the club would survive... Thankfully we had a really successful year last year, and our future now seems secure again.

This year we are aiming to build upon these successes, making sure everyone has a fantastic time both caving and socialising, and also encouraging people to develop their skills and go caving further afield... We've already got off to a fantastic start, and have gained around the same number of members as we did last year, which is a great achievement considering that it's very rare for us to get 2 good years in a row!

Recruiting:

We used our approach and experiences from last year as a 'template' for this year. This time around we were thankfully (slightly) better organised, so there was slightly less dashing around at the last minute before fresher's fayre! We continued our successful approach of using an online form with tablets/phones/laptops to sign people up to our mailing list and Facebook group; this worked just as well this year. Someone also created a life-sized figurine out of wood, which we dressed up in caving gear - that attracted a lot of attention! We spent some time creating a good quality flyer and compiling photos for our slideshow as well, which helped attract interest...

In addition we organised a balanced mix of socials, ranging from our weekly pub nights to a film afternoon (this time in a fantastic mini-cinema located in one of the uni halls of residence), and a well-attended Thorpe Park Fright Night trip.

Caving-wise, this term we ran a day trip (taking 2 groups down Swildons and 1 group down Waterwheel), and 3 weekend trips - two to Wales, one to the Mendips, where among other things we attended the BEC's brilliant talk about the huge break-throughs on their caving expedition to the Philippines!

As a result, we seem to have attracted some very keen freshers this year, which stands us in good stead for the future!

Funding:

Funding-wise we seem to be doing quite well this year too... Our student's union gave us a decent budget this year (our president rather enterprisingly went and requested a bit more money, which seemed to help. The fact that our member numbers were significantly higher probably went down well also!).

One thing we were really concerned about was that our SRT kits were getting old, so obtaining replacements was becoming increasingly important. We mentioned in our budget request that we needed the new kit for safety reasons, and thankfully the student union didn't quibble about it... So now we have some nice shiny new gear! :)

Our membership and trip fees are very carefully calculated to keep the costs as low as we possibly can in order to encourage participation, whilst ensuring we just about manage to break even... We even have a clever spreadsheet to work out the figures for us! ;) Whilst it can be challenging to avoid losses (particularly if we have to book an external minibus where the hire cost is significantly higher than for those owned by the student's union), overall we have managed to keep the trip fees the same for the last few years, and we're proud to be one of the cheapest uni sports clubs (which is also a great aid to recruitment!).

Training:

This is an area we have struggled with... We don't really have any facilities for SRT training in Reading or anywhere nearby, and using trees is far from ideal... We also lost a lot of older members a while back, leading to a reduced level of retained knowledge in the club - as a result we only have 2 or 3 confident riggers.

For these reasons, recently we have generally resorted to running SRT training sessions on Yorkshire caving trips (often dedicating the first day to training). Although this does just about work for us, it does mean we waste a lot of valuable trip time which we could be spending going caving or doing other more interesting things, and it also makes it harder to explore really exciting caves involving SRT!

For these reasons, this year we are focusing harder on getting people trained up this year. We are lucky enough to have some new blood with SRT experience this year, which is a good start, and we will be organising a higher number of trips involving SRT, so that people acquire the skills sooner. We have also been looking at partnering with other clubs, and are taking full advantage of the training opportunities provided by CHECC! In addition, we're helping our existing members develop their caving leadership and rigging skills, among other things...

Trips:

We organised a wide range of trips during the last year, and had a great time on all of them! This included trips to Derbyshire and Devon, which we hadn't been to in some time... Other clubs (e.g. the TSG and EUSS) were kind enough to help out with leading, ensuring that we could make the most of these trips!

The Devon trip was particularly fun, as not only did we do lots of caving, we also went swimming with glowsticks in the dark, as well as going to a waterpark with amazing flumes, and to the beach - giving the trip a real holiday atmosphere!

We also ran a 4 day caving trip to Yorkshire over the summer holidays, and managed to entice along a number of former members, who emerged from their hibernation to join us! We had a fantastic time, and it turned out to be excellent training for...:

Expeditions:

In August, three of us spent 2 weeks at the Dachstein expedition in Austria. It is the first time in years that anyone from our club has been expedition caving, so this was a bit of a step into the unknown for us...

We had an absolutely amazing time there! We got to explore some really exciting caves, as well as to develop our rigging and bolting skills, not to mention the chance to do some mountaineering and Via Ferrata - the scenery was stunning!! All capped off by fun evenings reminiscing and making plans whilst enjoying some surprisingly cheap beers!

There was a fantastic atmosphere there, and we got to know some great people. It was really exciting feeling that we were part of something truly pioneering, exploring new places that few (if any) people had been before - knowing that more people had gone to the moon than some of these places was quite exhilarating!

We all felt that this particular expedition is surprisingly approachable, even for people with limited caving experience, so for this reason we have been promoting it much more widely this year, in the hope that our club can take a considerably larger contigent there next summer! All in all, this is definitely something we're looking forward to...

On a related note, although we didn't get to go there last year in the end, we are very much hoping to go to the Irish Student Caving Forum next Easter - another chance to do some caving a bit further afield... We met some fantastic Irish caving contacts in the Dachstein, so this  should help make it a lot easier to organise!

Overall, after a very successful year, this one seems to be going just as well, and we are feeling optimistic and excited about the months ahead...
 

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
Pegasus said:
Entered to date are:

Adventure & Expo (Plymouth)

CUCC (Cambridge)

EUSS (Exeter)

ICCC (Imperial)

NUCC (Nottingham)

RUCC (Reading)

SUCC (Southampton)

SUSS (Sheffield)

UBSS (Bristol)

ULSA (Leeds)

If I've missed a club off, please let me know.

If you're not on this list, you are not entered - so get writing!  :read:

Updated with Imperial & Reading added.

MUSC (Manchester) have entered some competitions however not posted on this thread so aren't entered  :eek:  :eek:
 

LisaCrow

New member
Hey, MUSC here, catching you guys up with all that's been happen right with us this year. Been a pretty average year for us, we haven't undergone that much growth, but we haven't experienced a decrease in membership either, so our regular caving activities haven't changed much either way.

Expedition:
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We did our usual Mattienzo expedition this year, after sitting it out in 2016. We didn't do much surveying of new stuff, but we expanded the surveys of some of go to caves in the area, and we managed to get some more relaxed trips in in some of the larger caves in the area. We had one new person join us this year, and he seemed to enjoy his first taste of expedition caving.

Freshers:
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Like I said, we didn't get a massive boost as far as fresher retention goes this year, which is a bit of shame, especially considering we had quite a few new dedicated cavers join last year (and the year before that). The odd thing is that we're not 100% sure why that is. We had a record number of people sign up to our mailing list at our freshers fair (we got 200 people giving us their email address), and we handed out over 4000 fliers. We also changed our freshers day trip to a Peak Cavern Bimble, which we thought would be more interesting, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Still, we've only got a handful of people actually come along for multiple caving trips. Not really a big deal since it just means that the club will maintain its existing size, but it's a shame to see our trend of growth slow down.

Trips:
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Another change we made this year was to go from doing 6 trips a year to only doing 5. We figured that having fewer trips with more people was better than having more trips with fewer people per trip. It seemed to work out fine, we've had a fairly good turn out for all of our trips. Our average is about 10 people, and since we're a smallish club that's pretty good for us. We've also been working a bit on improving our relationships with other clubs, both other student clubs and the more grown up ones. We figured it's always good to have people we can turn to if we need help when it comes to leadership and experience.

Finances:

We're actually doing pretty well on this front. We were pretty dismayed when our university implemented a system last year that made it much more difficult to get funding, but we've got enough in the bank that we can survive for the next few years even without a massive amount of financial support. We've also increased the amount of day trips we do, and also increased the cost of an official club day trip (?15 p.p.) as we found that these were a great way to get a bit more money to the club.

Other stuff:

We've been upping the amount of social/ non-caving activity we've been getting up to. Since we spend more time above the ground that below it it seemed like a good way to get people interested in sticking with the club.

Overall:

Not a bad year. Things have been going fairly well, and we've been getting some good trips in, which is the important thing.
 

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
The following CHECC Clubs are entered into the Grand Prize:

Adventure & Expo (Plymouth)

CUCC (Cambridge)

EUSS (Exeter)

ICCC (Imperial)

MUSC (Manchester)

NUCC (Nottingham)

RUCC (Reading)

SUCC (Southampton)

SUSS (Sheffield)

UBSS (Bristol)

ULSA (Leeds)

Thank you all for your write ups above  (y) (y)  As last year, they make interesting reading and hopefully will shed light on the current student caving scene to cavers in the wider caving community  :coffee:

Good luck tomorrow!

wl
 
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