Novices, lemmings, newcomers

[andymorgan]

Well now we have all calmed down (too many late nights and illnesses for all of us by the sound of it! :evil: :roll: ), I was thinking that this clubs and novices debate (fight!) is irrelevent anyway, at least to regards to their first trip. With the exception of uni clubs, I imagine most people's first trip was not with a club but on an adventure course or with friends (head torch, woolley hat, and old clothes) so most arrive at clubs with a couple of trips under their belts. Therefore most have an interest in caving and have gone past the point of being put off by the thought of being in a cave.
Is this a point? :?:

Also clubs tend to be more of relevence to people who are inbetween complete novice and a more experienced caver. More experienced cavers do their own thing, and the club only supplies insurance and a social life to them plus a filthy dig! I don't know what point, if any, I am making here and I'm wandering off topic :?

 

[cucc Paul]

Once people are proficent at srt and have been on three or four good trips... theres not a lot holding you back unless you like pies, with a bit of mothering and nurturing im sure most people if willing and wanting could go on most trips provided they're fit enough and most who even contemplate going underground are normally active and soon build up the stamina and muscle groups needed... as well as knee caps and elbows that become imune to pain.

 

[JB]

As a committee member of 'Andys club', I for one would welcome your thoughts on any negative aspects you believe our club has.

Thanks for that. Since I live in Derbyshire and don't have any experience of your club I'll keep my mouth shut.

 

[Johnny]

Debates in this forum can often contain inferences, misquotes, paraphrasing, which is probably down to the media used.
So please excuse me while I, once again, use the 'quote function' to refer to a comment I made in the 'Trip Reports' section.

I do believe that there is a good cross section of the caving population using this website, from occasional cavers through regular 'sports' cavers to dedicated explorers.

All users, regardless of ability and depth of experience, and as long as they are not deliberately disruptive, make valuable contributions and make such a forum possible.

Each contribution should be respected and not denigrated....

I would also like to answer two points made during the debate

Firstly the inference that the Eldon Pothole Club is a dinosaur heading for extinction.
One evening this week Eldon lead a trip with eight cavers and four objectives; taking a novice and prospective member on his second trip, exploration by a CDG member of a sump, dive training and pushing a draughting aven discovered last year. This trip was not a one off, it is the norm. I would say that this trip shows the Eldon to be multiskilled, very active and growing in membership.

Secondly the inference that prospective Eldon members are mistreated by their trip leaders.
Prospective members are given very intensive, often one to one, training and mentoring and if they come through this wanting to continue caving, either with the Eldon or another club they will have had an excellent grounding in most aspects of caving.

 

[SamT]

As a committee member of 'Andys club', I for one would welcome your thoughts on any negative aspects you believe our club has.

I dont have any because I have no experience of your club to base any comments on. I could of course make some rash assumptions, which may or may not be accurate - which is why I'll keep them to myself.

 

[andymorgan]

If physical challenge is the aim, there are many ways of achieving that, many of them not involving passing through a fragile natural environment.

This is a fair point, and could be worthy of another thread.

 

[jasonbirder]

I am very much a newbie and was very lucky in that simply by chance when I wanted to start caving the club I aproached was very beginner friendly...
As I sit behind a computer all day i'm pretty lardy and my first trip out turned into a complete nightmare even though the club had selected a nice beginner friendly ladder trip to the bottom of P8 - if they hadn't babied me and protected my feelings (when they would have been well within their rights to just shout - get the f**K up that ladder you lazy lardy t**t) it might have been enough to put me off for life!
Luckily they took me under their wing, took me on a couple of nice confidence builder trips, showed me the ropes SRT wise and now i'm as keen as mutard and hopefully a little more competent all round!
Big thanks to the guys at Orpheous (You know who you are!)
No club has an obligation to treat first-timers with so much care but i'm glad they did!

 

[pisshead]

i think treating people with care should be standard - i was a fairly competent caver after a year and a half with SUSS, when during a maskhill (don't know spelling)/oxlow exchange i managed to develop a fear of heights...if the group i was with then, and on subsequent trips when this has become a problem wasn't caring i would have given up caving for good - as it is i still cave as regularly as i can and get a lot of enjoyment out of it - even vertical caves...

i've been given lots of help and nurturing even though i'm no longer a newbie (3 years)...i think it's important for all ages/standards of caver - things can unexpectedly go wrong...

...i'm not hinting that any clubs on here wouldn't have done exactly the same - i can't, i don't know the people concerned and have never been on a trip with them - this is a general comment.

 

[Roger Cook]

Don't forget that when taking a novice on their first trips underground, it is an opportunity for them to suss out the club they are caving with before joining, just as much as it is a chance for the club to assess a potential new member.

If after the trip you reckon they are up for it, and would be happy for them to join, if you've pissed them off, they'll go and find some other group. Your loss, their gain.

 

[scoop]

Apologies if my two posts offended anyone. They were only meant to be bit of light-hearted rib-poking. Honest.

 

[kay]

Most caves have some vertical element to them...

Well, yes, otherwise the ceiling would be on the floor and they wouldn't be a cave :wink:

I'm not sure about 'most' - I did think of doing a trawl through Northern Caves and decided I had better things to do - most big caves I think you'd be right about. But there's an awful lot of small non-vertical caves which are still worth visiting (as well as a lot where the only reason for visiting is to establish that there's no reason to go there ever again).

As a non-vertical caver, I know that I am missing out on some splendid sights. But nevertheless I have seen a lot of magical places underground, and my wish-list of caves to visit is long enough to keep me going for the next few years.

 

[andymorgan]

Most of the great Welsh caves have very little vertical element to them (if you stay clear of the traverses) as well depending if you are talking about big pitches. I think Paul meant any pitches including small ones (?).
Is there a maximum pitch depth you would do Kay before you say the cave is too vertical, or is it no pitches at all? (BTW this is not a critisism or put down etc.)

 

[andymorgan]

Apologies if my two posts offended anyone. They were only meant to be bit of light-hearted rib-poking. Honest.

Its ok, we are all 'ard enough :wink:

 

[nickwilliams]

The expression comes from the (in)famous 1963 expedition to the Gouffre Berger (then the deepest cave known); the "Ironman" caver, Ken Pearce, successfully dived the terminal sump 1, only to meet with another which turned him back;

The phrase does indeed come from the 1963 Berger trip. I was told the story by PB Smith, who claimed to be the guy who pulled up the ladders to ensure the team could not get out until Pierce gave word.

Apparently, Pierce climbed down a ladder and trod on the fingers of some junior expendable who was coming up. When asked to take his foot off the expendable's fingers, he looked down, fixed the expendable with a steely glare, and said the now immortal words 'If you're not hard you shouldn't have come".

Nick.

 

[cucc Paul]

Ok i retract most... a majority of caves...


But we just had a societies fair and signed up lots of new lemings... so the cucc will live on for a while longer yet... ON last count we signe dup 16 virgin cavers and a couple who have "dabled with candles"

 

[cap n chris]

But we just had a societies fair and signed up lots of new lemings... so the cucc will live on for a while longer yet... ON last count we signe dup 16 virgin cavers and a couple who have "dabled with candles"

I'm very interested to know what your itinerary is: do you have a planned list of trips for your newcomers or do you (for example) let them just join in with trips you're already doing anyway?

Is their first trip to the Black Hole series in Swildon's Hole, Daren Cilau or perhaps the Priddy Green/Swildon's Hole through trip?

 

[Andy Sparrow]

I would also like to answer two points made during the debate

Firstly the inference that the Eldon Pothole Club is a dinosaur heading for extinction.
One evening this week Eldon lead a trip with eight cavers and four objectives; taking a novice and prospective member on his second trip, exploration by a CDG member of a sump, dive training and pushing a draughting aven discovered last year. This trip was not a one off, it is the norm. I would say that this trip shows the Eldon to be multiskilled, very active and growing in membership.

Secondly the inference that prospective Eldon members are mistreated by their trip leaders.
Prospective members are given very intensive, often one to one, training and mentoring and if they come through this wanting to continue caving, either with the Eldon or another club they will have had an excellent grounding in most aspects of caving.

My comments were not really directed specifically at the Eldon. I think a lot of clubs are gradually becoming aware of looming problems.

I am a member of a major Mendip club, one of the largest in the UK, with a membership of over 200. This sounds healthy but when you examine things more closely you find the active membership are mostly in their 30s or 40s. They represent perhaps 20% of the membership, the remainder being more or less retired and often in their 50s or older. Almost entirely missing from the club are the young cavers in their teens and 20s.

A generation is missing. The club in question, by its own admission, is not novice-friendly and is not an ideal environment for a beginner.

This situation applies to many clubs in the UK. So far it is the smallest clubs that have been most adversely affected and several have wound themselves up.

The world changes and unless we adapt to the new reality we will, at the least, fail to fulfil our potential, and at the worst cease to be.

I think we need to offer much more to potential cavers and to value them as a resource for the future. I think clubs need to treat them respectfully and sympathetically.

Our club in Cheddar has recently taken on several new members. They are mainly in their 30s/40s, half are women, and they are all intelligent people, good company, and a valuable asset to the club, even if they are not all cut out to be hard cavers. I abhor the idea that any club would reject these people on the basis that they show insufficient 'potential'.

Now most of you guys out there are members of clubs. You have a pretty good idea of your clubs average age, and whether or not numbers are declining. If you feel that these observations do not apply to you, or are just plain mistaken, that's fine. I'm not trying to tell you how to run your own clubs, just trying to provoke some thought and discussion.

 

[Johnny]

My comments were not really directed specifically at the Eldon. I think a lot of clubs are gradually becoming aware of looming problems.

Your comments, quoted below, were directed specifically and unambiguously at the Eldon

Yes. From what you have told us the Eldon is an elitist club only open to accomplished experienced cavers. The old 'if you aint hard...' attitude, usually quoted as a joke, is applied very literally in your case.

We have one similar club on Mendip, once one of the biggest, and now in decline. The vast majority of the members of this club are retired and the active membership are ageing. It is not a club which facilitates or welcomes novices and this, in my opinion, combined with an elitist 'hard man' attitude condemns it to terminal decline.


But a few clubs, still lumbering around, roaring and grinding their teeth in a Jurassic Park of their own making will face extinction...

 

[andymorgan]

Going all the way back to the Cap'ns original question.

Should newcomers be taken on arduous "If you ain't `ard you shouldn't have bloody well come" epics to begin with or should they be gently taken by the hand and mollycoddled around something simple and undemanding?

I agree with Johnny that perhaps we shouldn't give the impression that caving is easy peasy (not most of the time), I have heard of people on more than one occasion suprised by the lack of concrete floor and how dark it is.
However it is good to discourage the Andrew Moorhouse

http://ukcaving.com/board/viewtopic.php?p=2951

and the adventure racer types
http://ukcaving.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=1007

That seems to be the problem with many 'adventure sports' is that they attract these people who want to show off how hard they are to make up for their small willies.
They are obviously saying 'Look at all the tough stuff I am doing - please sleep with me'


To me it is interesting as a classic example of mankinds sexual evolution

 

[kay]

Is there a maximum pitch depth you would do Kay before you say the cave is too vertical, or is it no pitches at all? (BTW this is not a criticism or put down etc.)

It's not so much the height as the potential for falling. So once on a ladder I'm OK if someone is lifelining me - I've been to the bottom of Water Icicle, for example. Not happy about SRT because I have to rely on myself, and I trust myself far less than I trust other people.

What I really don't like is traversing or free climbing (the 'easy staircase climb' in Browgill/Calf Holes is about my limit) or making my way to tops of ladders.

So in practice, that means no pitches at all.

Which means it's a pity I live in Yorkshire :wink: