CCPC Archive.

[wellyjen]

We are in the middle of making as much of the Crewe Climbing and Potholing Club's written archive available on the club web site as we can. So far all our Newsletters back to September 1991 are on line and one of our five Journals. The index to all other known Newsletters and Journals is complete, back to 1975. Documents newer than 20 years, or so, are text searchable pdf's straight from the word processed document, as we switched to mainly email distribution around then. Earlier documents are largely scanned from paper copies and converted to multi-page pdf's. They also have OCR generated text files to help with text searches. The success of the OCR process is variable and depends on the quality of the print, ink fade over time, the font used and the page layout. There has been minimal proof reading on these so far, so they are offered "as is".
The newsletters were internal club communications, which not only dealt with day to day stuff like meets, gear and so on, but also gave the first reports on various digs and explorations. Journals were intended to be a long term record of our exploits, deeds and misdeeds for posterity.
We hope this archive will be useful for cavers looking to see what previous work has been done at a site. It should be picked up by the search engines shortly as we add to it.
Personal information, like telephone numbers and addresses have been redacted.
See https://www.ccpc.org.uk/newsletters.html.

 

[snebbit]

Fantastic news! Likewise with the Kendal, just waiting for the final vote going through next week.

As someone who's come into proper caving in the last decade (and loves the free-sharing nature of the Internet) it's great to see clubs leaving behind a secretive and possessive mindset around publications, and it can only be good for fresh exploration. Although it's easy for me to say this having contributed nothing to the hard work that went into compiling those publications, for which I am of course very thankful

 

[wellyjen]

There are now 151 CCPC newsletters on-line. All in the numbered series from No.1, issued July 1983, to No.151 from February this year. There are the older pre-numbered newsletters back to 1975 still to do and four of the five volumes of the club journal, but this is a milestone worth noting.
https://www.ccpc.org.uk/newsletters.html

 

[Pitlamp]

Well done. I suspect Ralph would have been very pleased.

 

[wellyjen]

Well done. I suspect Ralph would have been very pleased.

Lots of his exploits and writing in there. Has been a mixture of interest and sadness reading them. Ten years now since he died.
The paper copies have been scanned by Steve Knox, from his complete library. I've just been doing the processing and uploading.

 

[langcliffe]

I've just been doing the processing and uploading.

Still a lot of work!

 

[Pitlamp]

"Has been a mixture of interest and sadness reading them."

Yes, I've felt the same emotions in similar circumstances. We owe it to these great people to do our best to ensure their achievements are prioperly documented and made as widely available as possible.

Good for you.