Quote from: nearlywhite on April 07, 2019, 01:12:57 amEveryone else in the thread seems to think you're wrong.That may well be true but it isn't the whole truth, however, since this forum does not comprise the totality of the nation's cavers and those that don't visit/use this site, by definition, support my view as correct by their very absence.
Everyone else in the thread seems to think you're wrong.
Would you care to expand on this?
Do the organisations cooperate? By and large, yes, but there are also vicious personal feuds which can, and do, percolate up from individuals (and occasionally groups) to infect and fracture organisations. I would suggest that most cavers have a tendency to anarchy: bureaucracy is aimed at taming this, but it will only work under wise leadership...(cf many other threads)...otherwise organisations fracture (cf history of British Speleological Association, England's first national body).
There's just one caving community then. So I must be in it. Is this correct?Or are there many caving communities (e.g. clubs, regions, non-club groups)? Which is it?Both?
I'm probably going to cause some controversy with these comments
OED 2nd definition - the condition of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common.We are a community, end of.Mike
Having a nose is hardly an attitude or interest. There are c. 6,OOO card-carrying cavers in the UK, that's less than 1 in 1O,OOO of the population & they are starting to emerge from the club tribalism of the last few decades into a more aligned "community" (the size of a large village or small town)...
Whilst Britain has only a limited number of caving areas, which are all quite small, & most of the cavers congregate in those - there are 3 club huts within about 1km of each other on top of Mendip & they do intermingle nowadays! Different to your experience I know...