Our Club and Freshers Season 2016

[BAMcK]

Southampton University Caving Club

Club history
At the end of the 2015-16 academic year, the Southampton University Caving Club was in shambles. It?s still unclear whether the outgoing president ever actually went in a cave. Several trips had to be cancelled due to lack of interest. An estimated ?2,500 of club funds was locked up in an account to which we had no access. More than ? of the club was about to graduate and leave Southampton. Of the 10 remaining members, the 7 of us who had actually been on trips had to fill committee positions. The reputation of SUCC as a boozy, obnoxious, and incompetent caving club was more or less accurate.

The 2016-17 committee has set out to change this. The first thing we should set straight is our history. The entry for Southampton University Caving Club on the UK Caving Wiki states that the history of SUCC is ?often naked.? While this is technically accurate, there?s a lot more to it than our state of undress. The earliest caving log books for SUCC we can find preserved in our tackle store date back to 1977, only 25 years after the founding of the University itself. Our earliest picture evidence is this grainy photograph from 1986.

Notable presidents through the ages
1994-1995: ?Claire the slut' - known only by this term, believed to have recruited people by sleeping with them.
1998-1999: ?Dead? Paul Walker - Having culled all members who didn?t vote for him, Paul went on to begin the tradition of hard partying at the club. Rewrote the constitution so that ex-presidents didn?t have to pay membership. Still caves with the club regularly and revered as an incredible font of knowledge, both on caving and how to party like it?s 1999.
1999-2000: Tim Comer - Rewrote the constitution to change back the alterations of the previous president.
2002-2003: Chris Jewel - Suspected megalomaniac. Founded CHECC while he was president. None of us would be here without him.
2006-2007: Maxine Bateman - Inspired leader and dominatrix. Allegedly used her feminine wiles to recruit the largest membership in years.
2013-2014: Laura ?Danger? Benn - Once said ?I don?t know where my money ends and the club money begins.? Now uses this legendary financial acumen to help run CHECC.
2014-2015: ?Becci? Rebecca Hayes - Unavailable for comment.  Missing presumed not to give a shit anymore.
2015-2016: ?Shezident? James Lorimer Turner - Organised trips but never actually went. Rumours that he has defected to Exeter have recently been confirmed. Disavowed.
2016-2017: ?Bermuda? Dan Nash - A man with an unsettling enthusiasm for drinking, who has presided over the largest intake of freshers in recent memory. Can explode a can of beer by crushing it against his forehead with one hit, and does this often.

6 presidents of SUCC in one photo. Taken earlier this year.

Training
Owing to a larger than usual efflux of experienced members at the end of last year, SUCC ran a series of intensive leadership training trips to ensure we would be ready for freshers. Route finding practice in the Mendips, SRT and rigging in Derbyshire, and problem solving under pressure in the massive labyrinthine caves of the Czech Republic during our summer expedition there.

Recruitment
Despite our resolve to get serious caving back on the cards at SUCC, we also felt we should let potential members know that partying is a very important part of our culture. Because of this, we?ve managed to recruit lots of members with a serious interest in caving, but also pulled in a lot of freshers who just heard we had rowdy socials and ended up trying caving and love it! We now have 42 paid up members who have been on at least one trip, ? of which are new. We?ve led by example, with even the most brutally hungover committee members managing at least a cheeky Goatchurch every day of our trips.

Current activities
With all our new members we?ve struggled to put on enough trips to keep up with demand. On each trip so far we?ve filled every space in all available cars!

14th-16th October: Fresher trip to the Mendips. 28 people - our absolute max, we don?t have any more helmets! We also hosted a small delegation from SLAG (Southampton Leavers? Adventure Group) who were just there to check we hadn?t forgotten how to party.

First trip. It has to be the Belfry.

28th-30th October: Fresher trip to South Wales. 20 people, including 6 brave souls who found a Cwm Dwr - OFD2 through trip.

Working on some bold new strategies in krab stretch. Clothes were removed to permit full range of movement.

4th-6th November: Sent a small delegation to a SLAG weekend in the Mendips to check that they hadn?t forgotten how to party. Things got very weird, we butchered and ate a roadkill deer and completed the Priddy Yo-yo pub crawl.


No appropriate image found. Weekend was too bizarre.

11th-13th November: Trip to the Mendips. 18 people - including an 11 man trip down Swildon?s filming for our CHECC video.

Megatrip down Swildons. We played sardines in the upper series and did some filming.

25th-27th November: Woah, that?s right now! CHECC (22 people).

Socials
We?ve also had a social every Wednesday, and we put a lot of effort into making them fun and varied. These have got progressively weirder and boozier as the term has gone on. Highlights include:
- A toga party featuring a hot tub and a centurion challenge
- The Chameleon Social, which involved people dressing entirely in one colour and having to drink when a whistle was blown if they took      too long to ?blend in?.
- A shop crawl where teams of 3 were given a shopping list of obscure alcoholic beverages to buy and consume in fastest time.
- A competition to see if the committee could outdrink the rest of the club. Everyone took it so seriously that by the end we were all way      too drunk to work out who won. By far the messiest night of our lives.

WKD neck off. Current champion is social sec Ben.

Future Plans
Owing to deadlines and exams, no more trips are planned until February. Instead we will be spending our weekends teaching freshers SRT and rigging on trees in the park, and of course socials. We?re applying to the Union for additional funds so that we can bring more people on trips, as we currently don?t have enough gear. As we hope you can see, this year has seen unprecedented growth in membership and we?re working hard to change Southampton?s reputation from a drinking club with a caving problem to a club that does both to equal excess.

 

[Badlad]

Extreme 

 

[UniOfNottsCaving]

Nottingham University Caving Club
Our Club and Our 2016 Fresher Season!

Hello everyone! So here?s our entry to the Grand Prize of this years CHECC. Over the last few years (well, certainly in the caving lifetime of all the current committee) we may have struggled BUT it looks as if we?re nearing the end of the crawl, we can smell a change in the air and feel the draft, we seem to have entered the chamber of a stable club. With it comes pretties and plenty of untouched mud (we like mud =]) but there?s no time to stop and admire, there?s more to explore and bloody hell it?s going to be arduous, but fun, to keep it going! Let?s get started! Hope you enjoy!

History ? The Little We Know

So as the heading suggests, we don?t know much about the history of our club. The University of Nottingham archives date the club back to the 1940s. We are referenced in a BEC newsletter in 1947 as ?Nottingham University Cavers?. Since our institution didn?t get University status until a year later we therefore generally consider our founding year as 1948!

A quick search on the British Caving Library revealed that during the 60s and 70s we appear to have gone on numerous expeditions to Picos de Europa in Spain.

According to a drunken conversation I had with a man at Eurospeleo we also had something to do with discovery/exploaration of Notts Pot, Yorkshire. Would explain the name I suppose!!

We won CHECC Ultimate Club in 2011?!

We have a fair bit of memorabilia in our Club Stores. Notably lots of signs, a door, a brick, a Trip Schedule from the 70s and some historical surveys!

Unfortunately that?s about all the history about our club the current members know of. If anyone knows anymore please feel free to get in touch!

This Freshers? Season


This freshers? season has been really busy for us, the committee especially! It feels like some of us may have actually spent more time doing things with the caving club than actually studying!

Our stall at fresher?s fair was exceedingly popular, with Jacob yelling out to every person that passed telling them to try caving ? we even managed to convince some people who claimed they were claustrophobic with the aid of some nice big pictures of Titan and Gaping Gill! The week after we held a talk which went into more detail about us and what we do, we managed to attract over 30 people to that ? a record turnout for an event since I?ve been in the club!


Next up was our Freshers? day trips the first weekend in October, where we took approximately 25 caving newbies into Peak Cavern to get wet and covered in mud. Despite being warned that Peak Cavern may not be the best cave due to the wetness, everyone seemed to enjoy it ? whether it was the initial plunge at Muddy Ducks, the big stompy passages or getting covered in mud at Gelena. While not caving we looked after the Freshers? at the TSG playing caving games (yes we started the practice early ? you better be prepared to face our pros!), sharing stories and eating lots of food.

With hardly a rest between came our SRT taster session on the new shiny climbing wall at the new Sports Centre at the university, where we massively underestimated both how many Freshers? would come and how many people we?d need to help lead and supervise. Everyone got to have a go climbing a ladder and doing a fairly low traverse and a lucky few got to have a go at some SRT. Every Tuesday since we?ve had training sessions with a more manageable amount of people and we?ve now trained about 20 people, with one fresher looking to start rigging and derigging next term.

We?ve had two weekend trips so far this term, the first to South Wales and the next to Yorkshire. For the first we explored OFD, doing the round trip in OFD1 and general sightseeing in OFD2. Everything was sorted going incredibly smoothly as we set (we?d got this running a trip malarkey down). Then we arrived to an empty hut to release we hadn?t got the code to getting. A quickly sprint across the fields to the neighboring hut and we are in.  The rest of the weekend went smoothly with every underground by lunchtime on the Saturday. Sunday saw the Freshers? been less than keen to have their first experience of caving while hung over. Although everyone that made it underground enjoyed themselves.

With the Wales trip selling out before we announced it official, the training been reserved for those coming to Yorkshire and a steady stream of inquiries about join the club we decide it was necessary to run an extra day trip to Derbyshire.
This was slotted in between the two weekend trips. Jacob ran a trip to Bagshawe Cavern where we managed to get as far as the sumps while Alex took a group on the Giants Round! E

In the last few years we had struggled to train people in SRT but due to the new climbing wall we had enough people trained to run an SRT trip to Yorkshire. In total we had 15 people going. With only 3 people having done SRT in a cave before this was going to be a challenge. We found a few extra people to help out and were able to get everyone do SRT!!! Some even twice.  Considering it took the whole of last year to get me (Briony) to do this, it was a big achievement!!
Photo: Tanguy Racine of Imperial College Caving Club

So that?s that! Hope you?ve enjoyed reading about us! We look forward to seeing you all this weekend.

Jacob, Jay and Briony  :

I can't seem to upload images!!! They're all saved on my laptop as opposed to being online!!

PHOTOS

 

[Alex Noot]

Adventure and Expo Plymouth (A + E)

Adventure and Expo can only be described as an oddball.

We?re split into 4 sections: Caving, Climbing, Slacklining and Mountaineering.

While we have no written history for the club, we?re aware that in the past it was 3 different clubs. Mountaineering/Climbing, Expedition and Travel, and Caving. Mountaineering and Expedition merged together to form the original Adventure and Expo. With the caving club on the verge of collapse, it got integrated into Adventure and Expo.

Due to not being a specific Caving club we have struggles each year finding Caving secs with previous Caving backgrounds or finding individuals who show enough enthusiasm to learn to lead and will convert to our mud loving Vitamin D deficient ways.

However, despite the struggles there are some Alumini who are still active with helping the club to this day. A Special thanks to Duncan Hine, Luke Edwards, Patrick Hillier, Olivia Jeanette and a few of our previous caving secs mentioned below for their continuous support of our club. 

Caving Secs

Alice Anderson, 2008-2009: I've only met her once but she was lovely and i'm aware she will be coming to CHECC this year!

Josh Bratchley, 2009-2011:This Cornish creature pops up everywhere and takes caving to the extreme, easy to be inspired from his adventures.

Thom Starnes, 2011-2013: Our claim to CHECC fame, this quirky individuals name pops up a lot with oldies stating how Starnes was their favourite and how he dipped his wick in freshers milk, sharing?s caring!

Lawrence Hylton, 2013-2015: This mud loving edgy photographer has a very forward and enthusiastic manner for getting people to try caving and normally captivates the moment through a beautiful photo, or by draining ?wellie juice? on a freshers head. 

Alex Noot, 2015-2016: Ginger Cornish. Some boy.

The antics so far.

We started Freshers week on 20/09/2016 with a squeeze box challenge, slacklines and enthusiasm to try and entice new members! Some of the old Adventure and Expo members might recognise the squeeze box! 

We had our first Slacklining day Social on the 25/09/11 Where I started trying to recruit new Cavers!

We managed to get 131 paid signups and our first trip of the year was looming!

After much venue faf we commenced the first weekend on 08/10/2016-09/10/2016.

We had 74 paid signups, this included Walking/Bouldering, Climbing and of course everyone?s favourite. Caving!
We managed to get 29 victims underground over two days, this was the truly breath-taking cave known as Pridhamsleigh.. A big thank you for the help Patrick Hillier and Olivia Jeanette!

Highlights of the weekend included ?Danger can? making it into our camp.. which resulted in a brand new game known as ?Danger Urn? causing the demise of our brand new ?40 Urn.. The president was not happy (It was hilarious).
The look of horror when Hungover Sunday Cavers pulled out sopping wet kit from the dry bag, priceless.
Lots of booze, games and me trying to harass freshers to come Caving?

Second trip: 24/11/2016-26/11/2016.

We had 34 paid signups for our second trip. Again this was a multi sport trip but this time in Mendips! We retained 9 Cavers who went to our first weekend and 12 new Cavers! We did Swildons, Goat Church and East water over the two days. A big thank you for the help Luke Edwards and Duncan Hine!

Highlights included partying and caving with Alumini, a trip to Weston Supermare A+E; ironic. Fireworks and Smacking freshers helmets with a rock when they go through sump one. Never gets old.

Third Trip: 05/11/2016-06/11/2016.

We had 11 paid signups for our third trip. Again in Menips, however this was a caving only trip with our affiliated club SMCC. Our more experienced ?oldies? went to Longwood, GB and did SRT in Hunters, whilst our freshers went to Swildons. A big thank you to the SMCC for their hospitality and trip leads.

Highlights included: seeing Thom Starnes! Et al, fireworks, scaring some freshers with a tour to the Belfry and SUCC having a road kill deer on the menu.

As well as our trips we have fortnightly socials and are usually fancy dress.

Plymouth look forward to seeing what the CHECC antics will bring!

       

 

[ImperialCollegecaver]

Our Club and Freshers Season 2016 ? IMPERIAL COLLEGE CAVING CLUB

Imperial College Caving Club (ICCC) was established in 1962 by Ian Lennon (wrongly put on the pub tankard as J. Lennon - not sure if that counts as a famous member). After the death of the University College of London Speleo. Soc. (UCLSS), ICCC is the only remaining student caving club in London.

The club has a rich exploration history both within and outside of the UK. The biggest event of our year is an expedition to continue the exploration of Tolminski Migovec, a mountain western Slovenia that the club has been visiting since 1994. Since we connected major cave systems in 2012, Sistem Migovec has been the largest cave in Slovenia. Two years ago we also managed to scrape together the funding for an Easter expedition to New Zealand.

Will Scott ascending a pitch in Primadona cave

After a successful freshers fair, 28 freshers bought the ?24 membership (out of 182 email addresses received). Our first method to reel in the unsuspecting cave-cubs was to give them a taste of exploration, with an introductory talk about our cave exploration efforts in Slovenia. We got an encouraging response from the talk - a fair few freshers were really keen on getting acquainted with the explorers? thrill and coming up with passage names of their own.

We run fortnightly trips in the first and second terms, the first two of which are the freshers? trips, to a caves where SRT skills are not required. This year we went to Ogof Agen Allwedd - during these trip we attempted to complete as much of the inner circle as we could (this usually meant not going far beyond NW junction). The freshers? trips are also a good opportunity to give last year?s new, albeit competent, members a chance to lead a trip of their own. After the trip we ask (read ?coerce?) the freshers to write trip reports for our extensive website. We're not massively successful at getting new people to write things, but they do give us valuable insights into the mind of the novice caver; what did they find difficult/scary/interesting?

Before attempting any SRT caving trips, our new cavers attend weekly 'tree-training' sessions. Here we throw an SRT rope over a tree branch, and show the new members how to kit up an SRT harness and climb the rope. The most advanced are then taught how to get back down! We're lucky in that the college has a small quad with some mature London plane trees, offering nice steady horizontal SRT belays about 10 m above the ground. You can actually do quite a lot with this setup - prussiking, reverse prussiking, mid-rope changeovers, knot changes, belays, deviations and Tyroleans.

SRT training is a stone's throw away from the main South Kensington campus

Our first SRT trip of the year was to Yorkshire - a classic West Kingsdale bimble. Three teams of four went to Aquamole, Jingling and a rather aquatic Bull pot. Needless to say, they were all exhausted afterwards but all of those who attended are keen to go on future adventures.

Last weekend we had our first day trip in more than a decade to account for a larger-than-usual influx of newbies. Swildons? seemed the natural choice - after all, who wouldn?t want to freedive a sump on their first trip! It was cold, dark and wet and the freshers didn?t seem all that happy at times - particularly on the ladder on a rather torrential 20'. But yet, the caving bug (or cave-fungus as we like to call it) seemed to have infected them all! All the novices on that trip have already signed up for future adventures.

Even though our first few freshers trips are usually to Wales and the Mendip, historically we cave in the Dales, with the NPC (Northern Pennine Club) as our spiritual home. Club classics are Lost Johns?, King Pot, Notts, Gaping Gill and Easegill trips. However, we continually try our best to keep the trips varied, and last year we did club firsts such as It?s a Cracker and a Vespers/Spectacle exchange.

For Winter tour we head to Yorkshire. What better time is there to enjoy the majestic, and surprisingly empty landscape? Winter tour has often been a good time to spend some quality time with new members, to teach rigging practice and do the longer or more esoteric trips than we can fit in on a weekend. We have also been using this time as an opportunity to teach more experienced members rescue techniques, with a day long session with Tony Seddon. With an additional grant from the Union, we plan to attend a more advanced (i.e. one step up from the most basic rescue training) cave rescue course this Winter. With our club?s expedition roots, rescue skills are a vital asset for all competent members.

This is pitch is probably De profundis, descended by accident on a Notts 1 trip

Gaping Ghyll main chamber is a must see during Winter tour. Next time we'll see if we can get there before the sun sets...

Our Tours and Expeditions secretary is planning another two tours during the second and third terms. Easter tour this year will take us to Hungary - a place we have not visited as a club, despite one of our steadfast members coming from and learning to cave there! The Summer tour will take place us to the Chartreuse mountains - a classic destination for the club during the 80s and 90s. After Summer tour, the serious fun begins - the annual Slovenia expedition. Every year a member is chosen by proclamation in the pub and becomes the expedition secretary and dedicates a good deal of their summer term to organising the expedition. With the system now being more than 37km in length, the aim is to keep on pushing that number, squeezing through every crevice, climbing every aven and descending every pitch.

Exploration of Sistem Migovec started in 1974 by the JSPDT (the local Slovenian caving club). ICCC joined the expedition in 1994 thanks to the heroic efforts of Jim and Mark Evans. The rich history of exploration from 1994-2006 in this ?hollow mountain? can be discovered in our self published book, free here: https://union.ic.ac.uk/rcc/caving/FILES/expeditions/slovenia/hollowmountain/hollow_mountain_final_full_246pages.pdf. The next couple of volumes of this publication are currently in the works.

Learning hand bolting skills is essential for expedition caving.

A new 40m pitch in Primadona Cave: we called it Hall of the Mountain King.


In summary, weekly pub nights, sporadic socials (bowling, cocktails, film nights, curry dinners etc.) and frequent trips ensure that the newcomers get that ?je ne sais quoi? feeling associated with caving that makes them want to keep on coming for more. Before I came to university I had no idea I would become part of a community that is so rich, diverse and eccentric, and especially to be part of one of the few remaining forms of true exploration. This is why caving is fantastic and we hope to pass this on to new adventurers through the continuing cycle that is ICCC.

 

[ImperialCollegecaver]

Our president Ben Honan writes the following (apologies for image embedding issues earlier on):

Our Club and Freshers Season 2016 ? IMPERIAL COLLEGE CAVING CLUB

Imperial College Caving Club (ICCC) was established in 1962 by Ian Lennon (wrongly put on the pub tankard as J. Lennon - not sure if that counts as a famous member). After the death of the University College of London Speleo. Soc. (UCLSS), ICCC is the only remaining student caving club in London.

The club has a rich exploration history both within and outside of the UK. The biggest event of our year is an expedition to continue the exploration of Tolminski Migovec, a mountain western Slovenia that the club has been visiting since 1994. Since we connected major cave systems in 2012, Sistem Migovec has been the largest cave in Slovenia. Two years ago we also managed to scrape together the funding for an Easter expedition to New Zealand.

Will Scott ascending a pitch in Primadona cave

After a successful freshers fair, 28 freshers bought the ?24 membership (out of 182 email addresses received). Our first method to reel in the unsuspecting cave-cubs was to give them a taste of exploration, with an introductory talk about our cave exploration efforts in Slovenia. We got an encouraging response from the talk - a fair few freshers were really keen on getting acquainted with the explorers? thrill and coming up with passage names of their own.

We run fortnightly trips in the first and second terms, the first two of which are the freshers? trips, to a caves where SRT skills are not required. This year we went to Ogof Agen Allwedd - during these trip we attempted to complete as much of the inner circle as we could (this usually meant not going far beyond NW junction). The freshers? trips are also a good opportunity to give last year?s new, albeit competent, members a chance to lead a trip of their own. After the trip we ask (read ?coerce?) the freshers to write trip reports for our extensive website. We're not massively successful at getting new people to write things, but they do give us valuable insights into the mind of the novice caver; what did they find difficult/scary/interesting?

Before attempting any SRT caving trips, our new cavers attend weekly 'tree-training' sessions. Here we throw an SRT rope over a tree branch, and show the new members how to kit up an SRT harness and climb the rope. The most advanced are then taught how to get back down! We're lucky in that the college has a small quad with some mature London plane trees, offering nice steady horizontal SRT belays about 10 m above the ground. You can actually do quite a lot with this setup - prussiking, reverse prussiking, mid-rope changeovers, knot changes, belays, deviations and Tyroleans.

SRT training is a stone's throw away from the main South Kensington campus

Our first SRT trip of the year was to Yorkshire - a classic West Kingsdale bimble. Three teams of four went to Aquamole, Jingling and a rather aquatic Bull pot. Needless to say, they were all exhausted afterwards but all of those who attended are keen to go on future adventures.

Last weekend we had our first day trip in more than a decade to account for a larger-than-usual influx of newbies. Swildons? seemed the natural choice - after all, who wouldn?t want to freedive a sump on their first trip! It was cold, dark and wet and the freshers didn?t seem all that happy at times - particularly on the ladder on a rather torrential 20'. But yet, the caving bug (or cave-fungus as we like to call it) seemed to have infected them all! All the novices on that trip have already signed up for future adventures.

Even though our first few freshers trips are usually to Wales and the Mendip, historically we cave in the Dales, with the NPC (Northern Pennine Club) as our spiritual home. Club classics are Lost Johns?, King Pot, Notts, Gaping Gill and Easegill trips. However, we continually try our best to keep the trips varied, and last year we did club firsts such as It?s a Cracker and a Vespers/Spectacle exchange.

For Winter tour we head to Yorkshire. What better time is there to enjoy the majestic, and surprisingly empty landscape? Winter tour has often been a good time to spend some quality time with new members, to teach rigging practice and do the longer or more esoteric trips than we can fit in on a weekend. We have also been using this time as an opportunity to teach more experienced members rescue techniques, with a day long session with Tony Seddon. With an additional grant from the Union, we plan to attend a more advanced (i.e. one step up from the most basic rescue training) cave rescue course this Winter. With our club?s expedition roots, rescue skills are a vital asset for all competent members.

This is pitch is probably De profundis, descended by accident on a Notts 1 trip

Gaping Ghyll main chamber is a must see during Winter tour. Next time we'll see if we can get there before the sun sets... credits to Jack Hare for the photo

Our Tours and Expeditions secretary is planning another two tours during the second and third terms. Easter tour this year will take us to Hungary - a place we have not visited as a club, despite one of our steadfast members coming from and learning to cave there! The Summer tour will take place us to the Chartreuse mountains - a classic destination for the club during the 80s and 90s. After Summer tour, the serious fun begins - the annual Slovenia expedition. Every year a member is chosen by proclamation in the pub and becomes the expedition secretary and dedicates a good deal of their summer term to organising the expedition. With the system now being more than 37km in length, the aim is to keep on pushing that number, squeezing through every crevice, climbing every aven and descending every pitch.

Exploration of Sistem Migovec started in 1974 by the JSPDT (the local Slovenian caving club). ICCC joined the expedition in 1994 thanks to the heroic efforts of Jim and Mark Evans. The rich history of exploration from 1994-2006 in this ?hollow mountain? can be discovered in our self published book, free here: https://union.ic.ac.uk/rcc/caving/FILES/expeditions/slovenia/hollowmountain/hollow_mountain_final_full_246pages.pdf. The next couple of volumes of this publication are currently in the works.

Learning hand bolting skills is essential for expedition caving.

A new 40m pitch in Primadona Cave: we called it Hall of the Mountain King.


In summary, weekly pub nights, sporadic socials (bowling, cocktails, film nights, curry dinners etc.) and frequent trips ensure that the newcomers get that ?je ne sais quoi? feeling associated with caving that makes them want to keep on coming for more. Before I came to university I had no idea I would become part of a community that is so rich, diverse and eccentric, and especially to be part of one of the few remaining forms of true exploration. This is why caving is fantastic and we hope to pass this on to new adventurers through the continuing cycle that is ICCC.

 

[Dgreenwell]

Our Club and Freshers Season 2016- Aberystwyth Caving Club

Last year we celebrated Aberystwyth Caving Club?s (ACC) 50th birthday! We held a large event and dug deep to find old members all the way back to the early days. We had a merry evening full of story-telling and reuniting old friends. During our research for the event we discovered that there had in fact been a protoACC founded in 1961 that ran for a couple of years but then died when the committee graduated. The club we all know and love today was founded by a completely separate group of people in 1966.

This year the club has undergone some social upheaval. The pub that had been the traditional base for ACC, The Fountain, is no longer affiliated with us due to being renovated and no longer being a grotty old man pub. Our caving shrine has been replaced by flowery wallpaper and our caving challenge to squeeze under the bannister has been blocked off by a decorative cabinet. As you can imagine, as a club we are heartbroken but it was clear that it was time for us to move on. We are still trying to fill the pub shaped hole in our hearts.

On a brighter note, we have had some wonderful freshers this year. We seem to have gotten lucky with both natural caving ability and personality, although alcohol tolerance needs to improve for some! They have gone from being shy little things, politely sipping their drinks, to hurling insults at committee members in under 2 months.

We currently have 30 paid members. Even though we are small compared to other caving clubs, we currently have too many people to cater for as we only have one member who meets the requirements to drive a minibus! As a committee we try our best to work with this arrangement and make sure people don?t go too long without being underground.

The very first time we take freshers underground is a trip to Ystrad Einion mine. We do this to give them a feel for the underground and to make sure nobody is too freaked out by the situation. We ran one trip in the morning and another in the afternoon as the mine is only 20 minutes outside of Aberystwyth. Ystrad Einion mine mainly involves just walking around. However, there is a beautifully preserved waterwheel and a climb for those who want to try it out. All of our returning freshers gave the climb a go and did it well!

The weekend after the trip to Ystrad Einion, we took the freshers down their first real cave. We ran both a Saturday and Sunday trip down OFD2, which definitely wasn?t boring for the committee and older members leading. We visited the trident and the judge and most conquered presidents leap to go and see shatter pillar. Everyone did really well, nobody got overly scared or anxious about any of the obstacles and afterwards everyone said how much fun they had. One of the freshers did decide to have a spontaneous sit down in a puddle half way through the trip ?on purpose?.

Over the bonfire weekend we stayed in the Wessex (but spent most of our time at the Belfrey). None of us remember exactly what happened in the evenings but our collective memory tells us that nudity and sofa rugby with Reading and Southampton happened. During the day time, despite some of us being wonderfully hungover, we managed to go caving. We took two groups through Swildons, those of us without wetsuits were very pleased to have a nice warm shower and a sit by the fire when we got back. Some more experienced, adventurous members of the group did the Swildons short round trip, they found it hard going but rewarding and also got quite cold and very wet. Another group (no freshers) did GB. However, a couple had to leave early due to being too hungover (or still drunk) to carry on.

All in all, this year?s freshers season has been really successful for ACC. We?ve had lots of lovely new members and done some great trips underground. This year already looks like it?s going to be pretty sweet.

 

[vae1342]

Cardiff Freshers Season 2016!

CUCC has been around since the 1970s, coming and going as it pleases. Its current iteration stems from the club Tim Lamberton founded 1999. Shortly after in 2006 CUCC merged with the separate medic?s caving club. In 2015 our illustrious ?oldies? founded the Cardiff Hill Divers, which CUCC members can join after they leave university, giving them a space to keep caving.  These ?oldies? have been quite instrumental in keeping us afloat this year. As only 2 (!!!) of us students have driving licenses their willingness to drive has been crucial. More importantly however is their knowledge; thanks to them we have all kept caving and broadened our caving repertoire. 

This year we were inundated with sign-ups at Fresher?s Fair thanks to our cracking stall team and the Give It A Go scheme that advertised our novice caving event in every fresher?s dorm. Within a week of tickets going on sale it was filled, meaning we used every helmet we could get our hands on.  A large part of our success was down to the lovely lads and ladies who somehow convinced wide-eyed freshers spending your weekend in the dark, cold and wet was a good idea.
Due to the large amount of sign-ups we ran fresher?s trips weekly for over a month to places such as OFD 1/2, Craig a Ffynnon, and more.

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Trapping Freshers at the Fair

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First Freshers Trip of the Year!

For 2016 we made our first weekend away into a giant Halloween party in South Wales, including a costume party on the Friday. With over 30 people in attendance is was a great mix of abilities and ages.  We had a nice novice trip to Aggy Music Stand on the Saturday, where we definitely didn?t get slightly lost on the way out?.,while our more experienced members tackled the Grand Circle(+).Thanks to the clocks falling back we got an extra hour to party, or for those on the Grand Circle trip cave. Caving games were played on the Saturday night, with many freshers claiming top marks. Despite losing our sense of direction the day before the first-timers were still keen for Sunday trips, with OFD Top to Bottom and a bimble round OFD 2 running. 

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Our Vice President Trying, and Failing, to Win the Cardboard Game

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Games in Full Force

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Some First-timers Enjoying the Clay in Aggy

Other trip highlights include a particularly muddy and slippery trip to Craig a Ffynnon that saw many wellies lost to the mud, and a Daren to Prices trip that started with the team tackling the Vice without realising and ended with wine in the parking lot thanks to some lovely Hungarian cavers.  In keeping with her past Tilly, our resident welly loser, almost lost her boot to the streamway in OFD 1 in an eventual and hilarious battle.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/145914990@N07/31199077336/in/dateposted-public/
Pre-Daren Snap

After the initial and inevitable ?freshers? drop-off? we?ve managed to keep quite a few! Our overground activities, such as the weekly social, Curry night and bigger events like our Caveman Social, create a strong bond between us.  Many friendships have been formed over the past few months. CUCC is like a big wayward family, and when we get together good times are always had. Soon, very soon in fact, the club will be holding its AGM and a new batch of keen cavers will take over! After Christmas plans for SRT training, more weekends away and even more socials are in the works.

All-in-all 2016 has been a great year, and while we might not have kept as many freshers as we would like the ones who?ve stayed are fantastic people. Each of them brings a different aspect to the group, creating a diverse mix that really adds to CUCC?s feeling of family. It?s safe to stay we all are looking forward to the future and the endless possibilities it offers.

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Smiling Cavers, Both Old and New

 

[Pegasus]

Hi Cardiff - I can't view the photos - can you try again - I'd do it but have one or two trip reports to read    Thanks, Pegasus

 

[Benstead95]

KUCC - our club and freshers season 2016

Kent university caving club enjoys a good membership of new cavers as well as older alumni who come along when they can. As a club we do alot of work on SRT with training every other week on a climbing wall in Canterbury and rope and knot week during the other weeks. As a club we are lucky to also take part in occasional SECRO training.

As a club we engage in 6 trips per term with 2 of those being SRT caves, as any caving club should we also make time for copious amounts of drinking. Courtesey of the lowest card drinking game on recent a freshers trip we have had 30 cavers running round a hut naked. This isn't the only memorable moment we've had recently, our last trip of last year led to an interesting cave rescue of our now president (which we haven't let him forget), personally this was also my first caving trip with KUCC so won't be one i forget in a hurry.


We started off this year after the freshers fair with a welcome talk for our new cavers followed by a few get to know everyone drinks, we managed to convince around 10 new members to consistently show up. Every week training is followed but trips to the pub (always wetherspoons when we're in town) and various socials outside of training too. We had our massive caveman social in novemeber and got a massive group of around 20 cavemen and cavewomen to decended on canterbury in fantastic outfits.

Currently we're looking forward to our Christmas meal where it'll be good to see all the new and old cavers together and then can look forward to the new year and the refreshers fare. With any luck we can introduce a few new members to caving.