Our Training Officer has had a rough first year in the role, with all attempts to organise events thwarted by Covid, including the much anticipated (and fully booked) SRT refresher workshops originally scheduled for February which had to be cancelled.

With things now looking up however, we are now pleased to offer a comprehensive series of training opportunities throughout this summer:

• May 29: Return to SRT
• May 30: Return to SRT
• June 5: Learning to rig
• June 6: SRT rescue
• June 12: New to caving session
• June 19: Underground geology
• June 26-27: Two-day SRT-workshop
• July 17: Improving your SRT skills
• July 18: Practical skills for trip leaders
• August 7-8: Two day new to SRT workshop
• September 4: Learning to rig
• September 5: SRT rescue
• September 25: New to SRT
• September 26: Improving your SRT skills

Full details for all of these, and signup can be found here: https://cncc.org.uk/training

All sessions are subject to the Covid roadmap going to plan, and will follow all requirements.

This is undoubtably the most extensive series of training opportunities the CNCC has offered for decades and we are thankful to Ian Patrick for putting this together. We hope these sessions will provide a great opportunity for anyone out of practice to refresh their skills, as well as opportunities to learn some new skills including advanced SRT, rigging, leadership or a bit of geology.

Most of the sessions have an associated fee as a contribution to the running costs, which is mainly venue hire and professional trainers. In most cases that fee reflects as little as half the actual per-person cost of running the event, with CNCC subsidising the difference.

We expect these events to be popular based on the enthusiasm we saw for the February sessions. However, to help us maximise attendance and give as many people as possible the opportunity to attend, please only book your place once you are confident in your availability.

Any questions, email training@cncc.org.uk for more information.

Excellent initiative.
A great way to start Summer!

This is awesome. We have booked into one of the courses and would love to go on others in the future.

Great to see lots of enthusiasm for these training sessions. Within 24hrs of these being broadcast, the 6th June Rescue Workshop is now fully booked (and only one space remaining on the 5th September session). The rate of signup tells us that rescue training is clearly very in-demand so we will bear that in mind. The new to rigging courses are also proving popular, but still availability in both sessions.

Take up so far of the training workshops has been very positive.

Both the SRT rescue workshops are now fully booked. We will look to add some extra dates in the near future.

CNCC training workshops are open to cavers from any region.

https://cncc.org.uk/training/

Please let us know of any other caver related training you would like to see been provided.

Due to popular demand.

We have added another SRT rescue workshop on Sunday 30th May.

Please pass onto anyone you think maybe interested.

https://cncc.org.uk/training/

In other exciting news, we have just secured the services of a well known cave photographer for a 2 day workshop in August. Details to be published in the near future. Watch this space.

We are pleased to announce that some new dates for training events have been added to our diary.

At the time of writing, there are spaces available on new-to-SRT, SRT improver, rescue and rigging training sessions later this year, as well as skills for trip leaders.

Following tremendous enthusism for the geology tour with John Helm, a second date for this has been announced (18th September) with spaces now available.

We are really pleased to add a Cave Photography workshop to our training opportunities for summer. This is a two-day workshop (14-15th August) hosted by Mark Burkey, where you will learn how to take photographs underground, how the kit works and what kit is needed. Each day will involve an underground session. For anyone wanting to learn how to take better photos underground, particularly anyone wanting to progress from point-and-shoot to digital SLR, this is an excellent opportunity, and will certainly be a great fun and social weekend. Spaces are limited to eight, first come first served.

We have slightly revamped our training website. All workshops, information, availability and booking can be found here: https://cncc.org.uk/training

We know that the initial courses announced last month were booked up quite quickly (and no doubt these additional dates will be too). We are learning what is popular and if there is sufficient demand we will try and organise more sessions. Therefore, if you have missed out getting a place, let us know (training@cncc.org.uk) and if there is sufficient interest we can try to add some more dates.

I attended two workshops this weekend and they were both excellent! I refreshed my knowledge and learnt new things as well. Both boosted my confidence with rope skills and I?d thoroughly recommend the courses to anyone.

Thanks to all involved with putting them on!

Glad it was useful maxb727 

There is still some availability... at the time of writing we have the following:

> SRT Improver 17th July (3 spaces)
> SRT Rescue 18th July (1 space)
> Photography weekend workshop 14-15th August (4 spaces)
> Geology tour 18th September (4 spaces)
> New to SRT/SRT refresher 25th September (2 spaces)
> Meets leaders skills 26th September (5 spaces)

Live information, availability and signup at https://cncc.org.uk/training/

Last few spaces...

SRT Improver 17th July (2 spaces)

This one day indoor workshop is aimed at cavers who have some SRT experience and want to expand their skill set. After a quick recap on kitting up and basic manoeuvres we will start introducing more technical skills and look to become generally more efficient at SRT

Suitable for: Cavers with some SRT experience who want to expand and consolidate their skills         

Topics:                   
Full refresh of current skills
Deviations
Rebelays
Knot passing
Technical aid traverses
Problem solving
Improvisation
Looking at additional kit options

Candidate pre requisite: Some previous SRT experience required (i.e you can safely manage yourself at a pitch head)

Photography weekend workshop 14-15th August (3 spaces)

An incredible opportunity to spend 2 days with award winning and renowned cave photographer Mark Burkey. This workshop is aimed at anyone who is looking to move on from point n click camera's to DSLR type photography through to reasonably experienced photographers that are just looking to see other ideas.

Geology tour 18th September (1 space)

A great opportunity to increase your knowledge and understanding of the amazing geology of the Yorkshire Dales. A full day with Dr John Helm "The rock Doctor". The morning will be spent indoors and also at some surface features around Helwith Bridge and the afternoon will be underground (no pitches) looking at a wide variety of geological features. The day will be presented in a relaxed and easy to understand format with some terrible jokes thrown in !!

Suitable for: Any caver who wants to broaden their geology knowledge 

Meets leaders skills 26th September (5 spaces)

A one day indoor workshop aimed at experienced club cavers who take novice club members caving. The aim will be to give the experienced club members some extra knowledge and skills that will help them provide a safe and enjoyable trip when taking less experienced members underground.

Topics:                   
Planning trips; duty of care
Kit choices
Rigging and using ladders with novices
Supervising SRT with novices
Rope work for protecting small ?free climbs?

Candidate pre requisite: SRT competent, SRT rigging competent

This course could be particularly useful for some of our student clubs, where experienced members are gearing up to lead freshers events again.

Live information, availability and signup at https://cncc.org.uk/training

A quick bump to say that there are now only two of eight spaces remaining on the CNCC's excellent photography weekend workshop on 14-15th Workshop with Mark Burkey:

https://cncc.org.uk/training/course-details.php?id=24

Should be an excellent weekend, both socially and educationally for anyone looking to improve their cave photography skills.

Plus, in addition to the above post about the upcoming photography workshops (two spaces left)...

To support future SRT training sessions, being able to provide kit is a huge advantage. The CNCC has just taken delivery of a batch of SRT kits formerly used in BCA training events. We have invested about ?500 in these to bring them up to good standard, replacing some of the worn-out or out-of-specification components including the harnesses and cowstails.

We are now pleased to be able to offer four complete SRT kits to support future training events, with these of course being particularly useful for those who may not yet have been able to invest in their own equipment.

If you are signing up to any of our events and wish to use some CNCC kit, please let us know so we can reserve one for you. There will be a small hire charge for those using the kit for the entire day, to help towards their upkeep. The kit will also be available so pre-equipped cavers can play with individual components as alternatives to their usual setup.

This enables greater flexibility and opens training out to more people.

Some more pics of our (very!) shiny new kit can be found here: https://cncc.org.uk/news/20210727-srt-kits-for-training

We are currently arranging more training dates for the back end of this year, so watch out for more news soon. In the meantime we have handful of spaces remaining on  a 'new to SRT/SRT refresher' course on 25th September: https://cncc.org.uk/training/course-details.php?id=4 and a meets leaders workshop on the 26th September: https://cncc.org.uk/training/course-details.php?id=8

Some new dates just added to website.

https://cncc.org.uk/training/

Geology and paperless survey workshops to be added in the very near future.

Please pass onto anyone who you think would be interested.

Workshops are open to all cavers from all regions.

Bump for the survey training.

We have been asked quite a lot this year when we will run another Introduction To Paperless Surveying weekend. Well we now have one coming up based in Ingleton but so far have only 5 out of 12 places booked. We need a few more people to make this more worthwhile so if anyone is interested and needs a bit more info can they get in contact via CNCC training or just get booked on.

If you have no surveying kit do not worry we can provide it, all you need is a laptop.

This will be an interesting weekend as we will also have a demo of TunnelVR which is software that enables cave surveys to be drawn virtual reality.

training@cncc.org.uk

I can really vouch for the tutors on this event. even for those who have picked up a disto and pda/phone, and have a fair idea how these work. You will learn how to turn in cave sketches into a cave survey. The course is aimed at people who have never picked up a disto or data collection device before, so no prior knowledge is necessary.