News; August 2022

In this newsletter ...

  • Science Symposium and AGM
  • Motions to be proposed at the 2022 AGM
  • Cave & Karst Science volume 49(2)
  • BCRA Review 2021
  • Exploring the Karst and Caves of the Gower Peninsula
  • Post of BCRA Secretary
  • Nominations for Officers and Members of Council for 2023
  • Honorary Life Membership awarded to Dr David Lowe
  • Hidden Earth (Repeat announcement)

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Science Symposium and AGM
Our Cave Science Symposium will be on Saturday 08 October at the University of Manchester; hosted by Prof. Cathy Hollis. This will be a face-to-face event, but we hope to stream it on Zoom as well. Brief details are on the BCRA News forum. A second circular will be circulated in the next few days. The deadline for submissions has been extended to 10 September. BCRA's AGM will take place during a break in the Science Symposium at 12:00 to 12:50. Details are at https://bcra.org.uk/agm/2022

Motions to be proposed at the 2022 AGM
Notices for motions to be proposed at the 2022 AGM must be received by the secretary no later than Saturday 11 September, i.e. 28 days prior to the date of this meeting. See https://bcra.org.uk/agm/2022 for details.

Cave & Karst Science volume 49(2)
Unfortunately, there is a delay in publishing CKS 49(2), which is now expected to be mailed at the start of October. There are two main reasons for the delay. i) After review, some of the papers needed corrections from their authors and it has been difficult to contact them over the summer recess. ii) More generally, we are seeing a slow-down in the number of reports and papers submitted, so when there is a delay in finalising a paper we have only a limited amount of spare material to fall back on.

BCRA Review 2021
The BCRA Review for 2021 is now being assembled and will be published, we hope, in October. A free copy is sent to our member clubs (those who subscribe to C&KS) and to our journal exchange partners around the world. Individuals can order a copy in advance from http://bcra.org.uk/bookshop/order.html. It will also be available as a free download.

Exploring the Karst and Caves of the Gower Peninsula
This book, by John Cooper, is expected to be published in October. Details will go online soon. Some of you might recognise this as the (very) delayed book that was originally promised to accompany our field meeting that was held in 2017. We apologise for the lengthy delay - there were several re-writes by the contributing authors and, for a long time, we did not have a volunteer to lay it out, but this is now being done by Phil Wolstenholme, who also edits the BCRA Review. If you attended the original field meeting and paid for a copy of the book, please contact David Gibson to obtain a discount code that will allow you to order your free copy online.

Post of BCRA Secretary
After 12 years as BCRA Secretary, I have decided that is enough. I will be stepping down on 1 September and BCRA Council has appointed Vince Simmonds to take over for the remainder of the year. Vince intends to put himself forward for election as secretary for 2023. I am also intending to put myself forward for election, but just as an ordinary Council member, so that there will be the opportunity for a managed handover. Which brings me to...

Nominations for Officers and Members of Council for 2023
Please see https://bcra.org.uk/agm/2022 for details of this process.

Honorary Life Membership awarded to Dr David Lowe
BCRA Council has awarded Honorary Membership of the Association to Dr David J 'Deej' Lowe, who stepped down as BCRA president at the end of 2021. The award is in recognition of his outstanding service to the science of speleology and his service to BCRA. The former is evidenced by his many publications including contributions to papers on the hydrogeology of the Peak District and most notably his seminal work on Inception Horizons. Deej served as BCRA President from 2016 to 2021 and his editorial service to BCRA includes "Caves and Karst of the Yorkshire Dales" (with Tony Waltham), the BCRA Review for 2015, 2016 and 2017 and "Cave and Karst Science" (The Transactions of the BCRA) which he has co-edited with John Gunn since 1995. Honorary Membership confers all the benefits of Individual Membership without payment of subscription and is conferred for life.

Hidden Earth (Repeat announcement)
As announced earlier this year ... Despite ongoing efforts, the Hidden Earth team has been unable to find a suitable venue this year and, with regret, the event will be postponed for another year. See https://bcra.org.uk/forum or https://www.facebook.com/hiddenearth for the full announcement.
 
Thanks all! Im not sure how much it will reduce my workload, but it does take me out of the firing line, and introduces a new person to the job. BCRA is always short of volunteers, but it is often difficult to define what actually needs doing.
 
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