'The current BCA website, they agreed, was dull and old-fashioned, and as a shop window for British caving, mediocre'. As reported, this is being actively looked at.
'Worryingly, none of the students seemed to have found their way from the BCA homepage to the New to Caving website, with its stacks of useful information and alluring photos ? although the site was designated as an ?official? BCA partner more than a year ago'.
Google 'caving' and there's New To Caving - not that hard to find.
'As for social media ? the critical means of communication for anyone under 30 ? caving as a whole, caving clubs and the BCA might just as well be invisible'.
Caving as a whole...might just as well be invisible - I strongly disagree, a quarter of the 2700 cavers who follow UKC on FB are under 34 and I'm sure there must be at least one person who's under 30 on the forum itself! Caving is not invisible on social media -
many clubs have twitter, FB and instagram accounts.
?On the day we checked, the BCA Facebook page only had 841 likes!? I post on the BCA facebook page regularly (as do others), support BCA and please like the page if you are on facebook. https://www.facebook.com/BritishCavingAssociation/
'?The BCA doesn?t even have an Instagram account!? True - and it's something I'm aware of, however there are only so many hours in the day and I do a
lot of social media (on a voluntary basis) as it is - volunteers, please speak up now!
'Another common theme was the need to generate awareness that women both enjoy and derive great benefit from caving'. Perhaps if the students had found New To Caving they would have come across Adele's 'A novice caver's experience', seen the many photographs of women caving and spotted the UKC logo.
'....caving really does have a lot of work to do to attract future generations ? and at present, little understanding as to how this might be done'. I disagree, understanding of the issue is increasing all the time, however implementing changes takes time...and help.