If you're not in a club, you're not a bona fide caver!

[cap n chris]

Though I expect that you could be a perfectly capable caver, just rich enough to pay someone to take you. Or maybe so smelly that you have to pay someone to go caving with you.

Perhaps they simply enjoy going caving with someone who they are learning from, while engaged in their chosen passion; they are perfectly capable of going caving under their own steam but prefer to do lots of other stuff with an instructor along for the ride. Clearly the instructor needs to eat and pay bills and receives a modest fee for their services.

 

[graham]

Perhaps the fact that they feel sufficiently unsure of their own skills to continue to pay for an instructor/guide might say something about how reliable they might prove to be under stress.

 

[Elaine]

I didn't mean you had to cave alone. I meant that you didn't rely on others to look after you. Of course they would if and where necessary, but paying someone implies you need to be guided.

Unless as I said (meant), you have money to spare and can spend it this way.

 

[kay]

Do you have to be a competent caver to be a bona fide caver?

I don't think you have to be competent to be bona fide. You can be genuinely interested in caving, concerned for the caving habitat etc, but still not, for example, do SRT, or be happy about small spaces, or be confident taking responsibility for a group of people.

So is the reason that people feel the person who pays for their caving is not a bona fide caver perhaps not because they're not bona fide, but because they're not a caver? Does the word 'caver' imply an ability to look after yourself in at least some caves, and not have to be led?

 

[cap n chris]

Do you have to be a competent caver to be a bona fide caver?

Clearly there are incompetent bona fide cavers out there, as plenty of other threads will testify!

 

[Elaine]

Yes, I think I was getting confused with the bona fide bit. I was thinking along the same lines that a person who messes around on the piano teaching themselves what they can is not necessarily a pianist, although they are a bona fide piano player.

 

[Cave Mapper]

If you are in a club, are you a bona fide caver?

 

[graham]

If you are in a club, are you a bona fide caver?

Not necessarily, but if you are in a known and respected club then it is reasonable for others to assume that you are a bona fide caver.

 

[shortscotsman]

Its a rather funny phrase "bona fide". 
It's meaning only really a matter for discusion because its the term used in a lot of access conditions.
I suspect the term "recognised caver" would be a more correct one which would include both members of clubs
together with know and trusted individuals [and not in.

Amusingly,  access conditions for Ogof Capel in south wales  is only to "...cavers from bona fide clubs".     

 

[mikem]

Surely "bona fide" is used to remain within the spirit of British law, rather than the extremes of covering every eventuality that exist in US law.

If you're not in a club then you're probably not an insured caver, which is likely to be more of an issue.

Mike

 

[kay]

Surely "bona fide" is used to remain within the spirit of British law, rather than the extremes of covering every eventuality that exist in US law.

If you're not in a club then you're probably not an insured caver, which is likely to be more of an issue.

Mike

If you're not in a club, then you may well be a DIM. But you won't get access to many caves which operate a permit system.

 

[AndyF]

Im loosing the will to live 

 

[robjones]

If you're not in a club then you're probably not an insured caver, which is likely to be more of an issue.


Thats a good point. As is the related issue of your age - if you're under 18, access is also likely to be an issue to some caves, no matter how bona fide you are.

Where lies the boundary betwen a 'novice' and a 'bona fide' caver? Some notable caves have access conditions that state 'no novices'. Tricky thing definitions... No, I'm not trolling - this is a genuine point. University clubs are far from unknown to take parties of what I'd term novices down such caves, with a, say, 1:6 leader ratio (I plead guilty to doing the same meself 25+ years ago) yet with a 1:1 or 2[leaders]:1 [under-18] ratio, I cannot take my son. Funny old world.

The only UK legal definition (maybe not the most useful admittedly) of bona fide that I iknow of, is the old one of pubs being permitted to serve bona fide travellers in the era of Sunday closing. If I recall correctly, it required the drinker to have travelled at least 3 miles. Seems a pritty low threshold - which suggests that having done a couple of caving trips converts a novice or non-caver into a bona fide caver.

 

[kay]

Where lies the boundary betwen a 'novice' and a 'bona fide' caver?

Why does there have to be a boundary? A novice can be a caver 'in good faith' -he/she is just not a very competent one. 'Bona fide' is about intentions rather than competence

 

[cap n chris]

The argument of the beard (Thouless) springs to mind.

item 19: http://theunspunblog.com/2007/11/06/straight-and-crooked-thinking/

 

[Roger W]

Further to what Kay said...

I suppose if I wanted to get into a cave to steal stal to sell on e-bay (perish the thought!), or find somewhere to dispose of a dead body (hmm - I wonder whose?), or some such reason, I would not be a 'bona-fide' caver. 

And if I needed to be a member of a club to get in, I suppose I - with a few like-minded friends - could form a club for the purpose.  We would call ourselves a caving club, and our reason for existence would be so that we could go underground, but since our prime purpose would be to nick stal, I'm sure the members of this forum would not recognise us as a 'bona fide' club...

Does my level of caving (in)competence really come into it?

 

[kay]

The argument of the beard (Thouless) springs to mind.

item 19: http://theunspunblog.com/2007/11/06/straight-and-crooked-thinking/

If that was in response to me, no it isn't the same thing. I'm not arguing that there is a continuity between 'novice' and 'bona fide', I'm arguing that they are measuring two different things. You can be a bona fide caver but a novice, a bona fide and experienced competent caver, a novice caver with ill-intent, or an experienced and competent caver with ill intent.

 

[cap n chris]

Sorry, Kay, I didn't make myself clear; I posted the link in response to the question (possibly rhetorical) "Where lies the boundary between novice and bona fide caver?" to highlight the potential vagueness in which any such definition is liable to result. The Beard argument (drawing a line) is one which is more often given media attention when it covers such topics as voting age, sexual maturity etc..

 

[Glenn]

Sorry, Kay, I didn't make myself clear; I posted the link in response to the question (possibly rhetorical) "Where lies the boundary between novice and bona fide caver?" to highlight the potential vagueness in which any such definition is liable to result. The Beard argument (drawing a line) is one which is more often given media attention when it covers such topics as voting age, sexual maturity etc..

Bugger! And there was me thinking beard = bona fide

 

[graham]

Bugger! And there was me thinking beard = bona fide

Doesn't it?