Revival of Adopt a Club?

Hidden Earth is always a good place to discuss ideas openly with various members of the community. This year's was no different, one of the ideas floated at the CHECC talk being a revival of the Adopt a Club scheme, with each 'adult' club that signed on forming a close link with a  student counterpart. The potential benefits of this are obvious: available experience (and kit?) for the students, and a source of new graduate members for the adults.

This obviously works best with nearby clubs (SUSS <> TSG, Cardiff <> SWCC, GUPA <> GSG etc), but there's no reason to tie ourselves fully to geography; if clubs already had ideas of who they'd like to form links with that;d be higher priority.

What are the opinions on this? Would clubs be interested in seeing this happen or is it only a dream? I was not around for the scheme when it was originally set up, so any information on how it worked, what went wrong etc would be greatly appreciated.

NB: I've been told off before for referring to non-student clubs as 'adult clubs'. Is there a preferred terminology?
 

JoshW

Well-known member
Big Bad Botch said:
NB: I've been told off before for referring to non-student clubs as 'adult clubs'. Is there a preferred terminology?

how about "BCA clubs"?
 
Student clubs both are clubs and also BCA affiliated so neither really properly defines the difference. Tbh I think adult clubs works fine but I've had people disagree
 

Ian Ball

Well-known member
Only if they have a no U-18s policy.

When you say student club, you mean a club that is restricted to students, it follows that an adult club would be restricted to adults or that student club is not open to adults?

As the club has no restrictions other than be interested in caving perhaps caving club would suit?






 

alastairgott

Well-known member
Topimo said:
I thought SUSS was supporting the TSG?

Suss is well catered for by its "old farts", sorry I mean graduates.

We tried not to encourage the youth that joined, but they couldn't help themselves... One trip to longcliffe and they're signing all their mates up too.

Topimo as eldon spy, can't you steal some too?

On topic, I was chatting to a club in its very early days at HE, and it seemed positive. I'll see what headway I can make to help with this one.

Seriously, I think SUSS as a force is strong enough to support new student clubs, in fact they've a proven track record of doing so.
 

alastairgott

Well-known member
Thinking about it, I guess the best way would be to create a three way relationship.

A good student club nurturing a new student club with the "adopting" club sitting in the background helping where they can.

This enabling mechanism means that the student clubs retain that instantaneous bond, ie chatting to each other on FB or other means. "The union said this, the union that, what would you do?"
This is the kind of support an adopting club cannot give. I guess you could argue this is CHECC's role, but what happens if it's a simple matter <not worth bothering CHECC for this> say we're having a kit inspection, what are they like? It might be easier to speak to someone than it is to send an email to CHECC? (Neither are right or wrong answers, just ideas).

It would then be up to the individual Uni clubs to decide on the best "adopting" club to choose for their needs.
Also, the "nurturing duo" should decide what they actually want for their own needs and think about what they can give back to the community perhaps they see some different ideas need injecting, BBQ's, pub crawls, inviting their adoptee club away on weekends. Whatever, it's these things which will really foster that 3 way relationship, and it can work if you really want it to.

I'm all for it by the way.
 

JoW

Member
We tried this the first time around and I was acting as contact person. I sent details of all our trips and events but noone ever came, and I never got any replies back, but that could well just be that club or that person who was in charge at the time.
The main problem seems to lie in how to keep in touch student club contacts change quite frequently so before you know it the contact has changed and you've lost touch.
 

alastairgott

Well-known member
But if there's an opportunity for a new system would you give it a try second time around?

I'd say it needs a bit of thought, if it's not working then fine move on. Both sides need to be working together. As soon as you get into "contacts" and "uncontactable" something is not working in the relationship. It's not a marriage, so you can just move on!
 

nearlywhite

Active member
So I've spoken to Botch about why I ended the scheme and it's because close relationships with one 'adult club' almost killed several student clubs - it serves to wick away leaders from those student clubs and makes them less versatile by tending to cave in one area. It is less problematic in the South, given the lack of SRT (and generally bigger clubs) but a positive impact hadn't been demonstrated in favour of the student clubs..

The other point here is that there was nothing more to the 'scheme' than a series of recommendations, and many of the ones that signed up had been doing it for years and once I ended it still do it. There's always going to be more friendly to student clubs and they are going to be the clubs that sign up the younger cavers.

For any club wanting to get in on this I think a broader and less specific approach would be good - helping adult clubs become more student friendly and getting more of them to stay there. Either myself or Botch would gladly give advice and it will be part of the youth and development's 'Meet the clubs' campaign once our revised child protection policy rolls out.
 
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