CNCC's 2026 Annual General Meeting - Saturday 21st March

[CNCC]

We’ve published the agenda for our AGM...

CNCC Meetings and Minutes

Meetings are open to all and we encourage you to come and either just observe or take part.

cncc.org.uk

Report documents will be added about one week before the meeting.

This will be held at Clapham Village Hall on Saturday 21st March, commencing at 10am (we will aim for 11:30am finish). The village hall will be open from 9:30am for arrival, to provide time to chat and to help yourselves to a brew and biscuits.

Who should come along?

Anyone with an interest in northern caving. This includes all of our full member clubs (who will be receiving an email). However, we want as many interested northern cavers as possible to attend, whether you are speaking on behalf of a club, group or just yourself. If you value the services CNCC provides for northern caving and want to do one thing to support our volunteers, please turn up and tell us what you think.

Can I attend online?

We love to see you in-person, but online participation is welcomed. We have much better online meeting capabilities than previous years (thanks to switching to Microsoft Teams and investing in some better kit). Please email our Secretary for joining details.

What will happen?

After introductions and housekeeping, we will go through various reports from the last year to provide an opportunity for comments.

We will then elect our Committee and Officers. Our team is set for a few small changes, including our current Secretary moving into the Treasurer role, and the possible return of one of our former Officers to the Secretary position (after nobody else showed any interest). We are pleased to retain Todd, Kay and Ian in the Chair, Conservation and Training positions respectively, and our Access and Assistant Access Officers will be swapping places.

Some major changes to the CNCC are coming...

We will then discuss some suggested changes that have been put forward by our representation team in the agenda. These suggestions will allow greater involvement in CNCC for non-club groups and individuals and will be one of our biggest shakeups in decades. We are asking our AGM for thoughts on the suggestions to allow them to be refined over the coming year, ahead of implementation hopefully next year.

Anything you want to ask or raise?

We welcome any matters to be raised from the floor, but if there is something you have specific thoughts on, or anything you would like to raise for discussion either at or in advance of the meeting, please do email our Secretary.

 

[complex]

Regarding agenda item 10.1 / Appendix G (the second one ), isn’t the real question how many people only get their information from the CNCC twitter / X account? I would guess that a fairly sizeable number of the 548 people who follow the CNCC twitter / X account would also follow the CNCC on other forms of social media, so if the CNCC decided to stop posting on twitter / X then they would still get information from other sources.

 

[CNCC Secretary]

Appendix G (the second one ),

Oops - but if that's the only mistake I made, I'll be amazed . . .

Useful comment, though

 

[CNCC Secretary]

Officer Reports now online (link as above)
Lots of interesting information about what our incredibly hard-working officers have been up to this year.

Oh, and goodbye from me, as I'm standing down at the AGM . . . or rather stepping sideways to become CNCC Treasurer (that's assuming they vote for me).

 

[CNCC]

Hello folks

This is a final reminder for our AGM... this Saturday 21st March, 10am, Clapham Village Hall.

The agenda and reports are on our website:

CNCC Meetings and Minutes

Meetings are open to all and we encourage you to come and either just observe or take part.

cncc.org.uk

The CNCC relies on enthusiastic northern cavers to come forward, to take on roles, or simply to turn up to the occasional meeting with suggestions, ideas, comments or just to show support for the work we do. If you value and enjoy CNCC's work and services, please consider participating in our AGM, even if just to spectate or chip in a few ideas, because it really cheers our team up to see a busy room and particularly new faces.

We think you will be inspired by the amount of work that goes on to support northern caving

If you would like to chat to our team before most people arrive, you are welcome to turn up at the hall at 9:30am.

Online participation is available via Microsoft Teams (email our Secretary this evening/friday morning), although by far the best experience is face-to-face, which still accounts for most participants. We aim to be done by midday so still plenty of time to get out caving afterwards (and a great excuse to make your mates pack all the tackle while you're at the meeting).

 

[kay]

We aim to be done by midday so still plenty of time to get out caving afterwards (and a great excuse to make your mates pack all the tackle while you're at the meeting).

And time to get up to Yordas and help John Helm. And he'll still be there on Sunday.

Thread 'Volunteers needed, March 21-22'

Mar 19, 2026

John Helm is looking for volunteers for this weekend, 21-22 March: He says: "There will be a couple of days of Conservation work taking place this Saturday and Sunday 21st-22nd March at Yordas Pot in Kingsdale. There will be drystone walling to repair and a new fence to build around the pot. All welcome for as much or as little time available. We’re meeting at the Yordas Cave roadside parking at 10am both days and walking up the short distance to the top entrance. CNCC are funding the materials, travel and the Braida Garth farmer helping move materials up. John A Helm, Hon...

• kay

• 

 

[CNCC]

Thank you to everyone who attended our AGM on Saturday.

The meeting ran a little longer than we expected, but there were some good discussions. We appreciate your patience. It was also nice to see several new faces including a new volunteer coming forward as our Youth Development representative.

We’d like to welcome Combined Caving and Diving Club as a new CNCC member.

We’ve had a few changes to our Officer team, with our former Assistant Access Officer taking on the full Access Officer role, and our Secretary moving to Treasurer. We welcomed Matt Ewles back as Secretary, who stepped in when there was no applicant for the position and to help see some ongoing initiatives to completion. He has emphasised that this is for one year only and next year we will need a new volunteer.

We will also need a new volunteer for Chairperson next year, as Todd is stepping down.

If you think the Chair or Secretary role are of interest to you, please check out the job descriptions on our contacts page, and get in touch. Now is not too early, and we would be delighted to start working with any interested candidates now.

Contact CNCC

Find the right volunteer to contact within the CNCC.

cncc.org.uk

We heard from all our team about progress over the last year, and plans for the coming year. We’re excited about the integration of CaveMaps into CNCC’s services, the ongoing improvements to the robustness of our anchor scheme, and of course the continuation of our conservation and training programs which are now running very well indeed.

We had a very useful discussion on our representation review, to find ways that CNCC can more actively represent a wider demographic of cavers, and ensure that this is enshrined in our democracy. By the next AGM we hope to present an updated constitution, which will finally allow us to represent the wider community and live up to our new name.

We decided to discontinue use of ‘X’ for social media. We will continue to engage with cavers through UKCaving, Facebook, Bluesky, Threads and Mastodon, as well as our own mailing list:

Mailing List Sign-up

Sign up to our mailing list to be the first to receive news and updates. Don't worry we won't SPAM you or pass on your email.

cncc.org.uk

It was so encouraging to see such a busy room, with several people joining online, as well as a handful of new faces. Knowing that northern cavers are willing to give up their morning (especially such a sunny morning) to engage with us is really motivational for our team.

 

[Ian Ball]

welcome back matt