Stuart France
Active member
The Cambrian Caving Council AGM last weekend voted to adopt the new modernised name "Caving Wales" for our organisation. This is "Ogofa Cymru" in Welsh.
We've owned the caving.wales internet domain name for a while which redirects page requests to Cambrian's website hosted by the BCA. It will take us a while to deal with the ramifications of this name change, but our new name brings us into line with the modern style of sport.nation or nationality.sport, for example Canoe Wales and Welsh Athletics, making it more obvious to external contacts that we're the representative body for Caving in Wales. In my role as Access and Conservation Officer I found that my opposite numbers often had no idea what or where Cambrian was supposed to be let alone what a Council does other than talk now and again.
Last Sunday we also voted to replace the entire Constitution with a modernised one which had been out on consultation with member bodies and others since last summer and we thank them all for their valuable feedback which has been factored into the adopted version. The previous 1960s version had received only minor tweaks over the years - until now. The new constitution makes clear that we're still representing those adjacent parts of England with geological connections to Wales, like the Forest of Dean and Shropshire. It also reflects our wider offering nowadays like education/training, fixed aids, access management where there is a need, and so on. It also brings the Internet into the way we do business.
We've changed the Executive structure to create an Information Officer from the previous Webmaster and Editor roles, to abolish the Insurance & Legal Officer role since that is BCA's job, and to create a Recreational Mine Exploration Officer given the mining heritage there is in Wales and nearby in England. Other changes clarify and re-order content more logically. It might need a tweak at the 2025 AGM, but the main overhaul is now done. We'll publish this new version and the AGM minutes online "in due course".
Finally we have a better way of managing member bodies, being clearer about what we expect them to be and do. We have a number of dead email addresses or dead clubs on our books, apparently. This is anti-democratic as it means that potentially the right people are not getting our correspondence and the quorum for general meetings becomes artificially inflated. So we will shortly be contacting all member bodies for an update or confirmation of their current contact details. Persistently not replying to this correspondence will be interpreted as non-existence and it will result in being struck off!
We've owned the caving.wales internet domain name for a while which redirects page requests to Cambrian's website hosted by the BCA. It will take us a while to deal with the ramifications of this name change, but our new name brings us into line with the modern style of sport.nation or nationality.sport, for example Canoe Wales and Welsh Athletics, making it more obvious to external contacts that we're the representative body for Caving in Wales. In my role as Access and Conservation Officer I found that my opposite numbers often had no idea what or where Cambrian was supposed to be let alone what a Council does other than talk now and again.
Last Sunday we also voted to replace the entire Constitution with a modernised one which had been out on consultation with member bodies and others since last summer and we thank them all for their valuable feedback which has been factored into the adopted version. The previous 1960s version had received only minor tweaks over the years - until now. The new constitution makes clear that we're still representing those adjacent parts of England with geological connections to Wales, like the Forest of Dean and Shropshire. It also reflects our wider offering nowadays like education/training, fixed aids, access management where there is a need, and so on. It also brings the Internet into the way we do business.
We've changed the Executive structure to create an Information Officer from the previous Webmaster and Editor roles, to abolish the Insurance & Legal Officer role since that is BCA's job, and to create a Recreational Mine Exploration Officer given the mining heritage there is in Wales and nearby in England. Other changes clarify and re-order content more logically. It might need a tweak at the 2025 AGM, but the main overhaul is now done. We'll publish this new version and the AGM minutes online "in due course".
Finally we have a better way of managing member bodies, being clearer about what we expect them to be and do. We have a number of dead email addresses or dead clubs on our books, apparently. This is anti-democratic as it means that potentially the right people are not getting our correspondence and the quorum for general meetings becomes artificially inflated. So we will shortly be contacting all member bodies for an update or confirmation of their current contact details. Persistently not replying to this correspondence will be interpreted as non-existence and it will result in being struck off!
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