Hi Everyone,
I?m Paul, the current captain of Queen?s University Belfast Caving Club (QUBCC) for the 2018-19 academic year.
I?m pleased to say that QUBCC will be attending CHECC this year. Many people would say that QUBCC is the number one Student Led caving club in Northern Ireland (mainly because we are the only one). Normally you don?t see us at many mainland events, usually due to cost, planning, drivers and people being able to organise it well in advance ? but we?ll be here this year so watch out.
So lets jump into a bit of background on the club;
There isn?t much solid information about when the club was formed, and the only relic of information we can seem to find dates to our old-old-old website. It states that the club was founded in the 1980?s by a ?crowd of bored alcoholics, 60?s throwback hippies and a surfing priest? (
http://caving.club.qub.ac.uk/old/oldsite/about.htm/). To some that have been amongst us over the past few years attending various events, that probably sounds about right. What we know for certain is that QUBCC has been an active club since then and I?m pleased to say over the last year we?ve been flat to the mat running trips when we can, and with around 60 paid members this year, things are looking good for the club in membership terms, however when it comes to new active members, this is where things start to dive a bit, this is mainly due to being able to run trips, i?ll follow up on this shortly.
We mainly cave around the Fermanagh region, some would say it?s our bread and butter ? but really it's closer than taking the 5 hour drive down to County Clare, and it?s in Fermanagh you will find ?The Hoo? ? Ireland?s only caving hut, looked after by none-other than Sean ?Miner? ? a past QUBCC member. If you?re interested in Caving over in Ireland, drop me a message and we can discuss about organising a trip.
So what have we been up to over the last year?
We try our best to hit up trips as frequently as possible and as much as funds allow. Trips last the full weekend, and we cater for pretty much all a member needs, from food, to gear and a roof over their heads. Since last November we?ve hit around 1 trip every 3 weeks, mixing it up between horizontal caving and vertical caving ? really just what our members are looking forward/wanting to do over a particular weekend.
Probably most of our members favourite trips are our annual new years trip, the Irish Student Caving Forum over Easter and SUICRO in October.
For many freshres, the new year?s trip will be their first time being able to take their SRT training and apply it in a caving environment. I particularly enjoyed last year?s ?New Year Trip,? this was thanks to a mixture of things - mainly the fact that we as a club finally explored some caves we haven?t been to in a long time and also, when caving on new year?s eve we just made it back to the accomodation 5 minutes before the clock struck 12! (No thanks to the two students who thought they could leave the radio running and headlights on in the car without starting the engine every once in a while!
The ISCF is the annual meetup for all student cavers in Ireland. This year it was our turn to host it, and we believe it was hosted successfully with the major theme of the event being the impending ?Brexit Crisis,? and was actually hosted over the border in Kiltyclogher, County Leitrim ? the event could be referred to as a ?mini CHECC,? with around 50-60 people in attendance, except with better food (the grub was impeccable this year, thanks to our secretary Liam, we had everything from starters, mains and deserts - all freshely prepped by Liam and his volunteer members), better accommodation (the local community centre/hostel) a pub quiz, t-shirts (designed by myself), talks and caving. Tony Seddon was also kind enough to pop over and open his shop for students looking to purchase! The ISCF is a must visit if you are ever wanting to keep yourself busy over the easter break. This up-and-coming ISCF will be hosted by Dublin Institute of Technology Caving Club (we hope), so keep an eye on the Ireland Section of UKCaving for more information.
Thanks to the Shieffield guys and other folk who traveled across the pond to attend the ISCF this year. It was fantastic learning some of the traditional caving songs and also for us to teach them some of our classics. We hope to see you all again!
We also kept ourselves busy over the summer, running multiple trips again around Ireland. Most of these trips again were weekend adventures, however we also lent a bit of a hand in doing some work around ?The Hoo,? getting it fixed up in time for freshers season. The main project at the moment is replacing the fireplace, installing a back boiler and getting some heating into the hut - I hear it?s already caused everything to be covered in dust, but we all look forward to it being completed soon, especially in time for these colder months, where the fire just doesn?t cut it anymore!
As for the new academic year, things have unfortunately been off to a rocky start. Our first freshers trip was a great success, being able to take roughly a group of 15 people caving over the weekend, many people thoroughly enjoyed it and it was mad.
However, since then, our biggest issue has been getting drivers. Specifically, with my car breaking down right when it's most needed (typical!), it?s meant we?ve had to cancel and reschedule trips a few times, and so people have started to loose some interest. However, with more trips planned over the next month and a half and into the new year we are hopeful we can kick things off again! After all, refreshers is just around the corner.
QUBCC haven?t taken part in any expeditions over the last number of years ? however, I am particularly keen to get involved ? talk to me over the weekend to discuss! We have however some past members such as Steven Muh who have been to New York and are taking part in a trip to Tasmania. There?s also Jock who has been to expeditions in Vietnam.
Training
As for training and equipment, QUBCC are fortunate enough that we are able to run training twice a week, namely on a Wednesday and a Sunday (yes we?re that keen!). Our training wall is pretty good, and allows for easy teaching of freshers thanks to the ledges which are in situ at the top. However, our biggest issue facing the club is the quality of our equipment. A lot of it is starting to reach its end of life and we have been quickly going down in the amount of available SRT kits we can make use of (from 12 to 8 and I can further see this going down again at my next quarterly audit). So we?ll most likely have to spend a bit of cash just before the end of year on getting this sorted out!
One issue the club has started to face however this year, is caused by our older members starting to leave the club, and has resulted in us now trying to organise new methods of getting our current student members trained up ? however training alignment just didn?t work out for us last year with the SUI (Speleological Union of Ireland) due to them running most of their events in County Clare, over examination periods and so pretty much all of our members couldn?t attend.
For the rest of the academic year:
However! Best not look on the bad side of things ? along with CHECC this weekend, we have our second freshers trip running, a drip planned for mid December, our classic new years trip planned and a number of refreshers trips planned and also the possible trip to England over the summer. We are all really looking forward to it and hope it shapes up to be a fantastic year!
But that?s pretty much it. We look forward to what the new year brings and I?m very keen as the current captain to outreach to other clubs, especially in England as we are looking to possibly have a summer trip over, much like what RUCC did this summer coming over to Fermanagh (hope you enjoyed it Jo!) and we are always happy to host other clubs
Oh, and we also updated our website on Monday, check out the new design here: http://caving.club.qub.ac.uk/
Cave Safe,
Paul McCarron
QUB Caving Club Captain 2018/19