He's not the only one to be wary about when doing Garlands. I had a recent encounter with a CIC who initially seemed to know what he was doing, but then turned out to be a complete liability.
On the way down he criticized our rigging saying that one of our crabs was upside down (granted it was) and then proceeded to try to sell a CIC course to me.. So we set off on the round trip.
Getting back to Garlands we found that our only SRT kit had been taken. This is strange.. but there are loads of people so we'll ask one of them about it.. We got the reply "oh yeah, we took it up. We'll send it back down when we're done." Erm.. That's quite strange. Bemused, we stood there for a further 15 minutes waiting for their group to finish faffing and get to the top. There was A LOT of faff. This ranged from tangling ropes to completely de-rigging our ladder. Handy.
Eventually they decided to give us our ladder back, allowing us to get out of the cave, but in doing so rigged it in a different way to the way we had it.
What is the general consensus of this? I don't like the idea that I can go on a trip and some apparent CIC can start messing around with my stuff. I wouldn't touch someone else's rigging, and if I had to move their ladder to make it easier for me then I would put it back EXACTLY how they left it.
The CIC(s) in question also sent an email to the club criticizing our rigging etc, but not only that, he sent it to the health and safety guy at our student's union! EVERYONE knows that university clubs are in jeopardy of being closed down, so why do that. That is completely below the belt.
More amusingly though, one of the members of our group was an IRATA level 3 with a LOT of experience caving, and I told the CIC this at the time. Though apparently formal rope qualifications and experience are nothing compared to the knowledge and importance of the CIC.
I also found out in the car park later that they had de-rigged someone else's ladder too and not replaced it. I find this behaviour completely inappropriate for a 'normal' caver, let alone a CIC. It seems that every time I encounter them they make mistakes and are incredible slow, yes still have the audacity to criticize others.
Rant over.
