A Happy New Year to everyone. Kath and I were at Greenclose for New Year and we had an excellent evening meal cooked by Rachael. We were joined by members of the York Caving Club. They had originally booked a meal at the Indian restaurant in Bentham, but due to last minute cancellations, Rachael invited them to join us. Our thanks to her for all the hard work she put into preparing it during the day.
The Winter Dinner
The Winter Dinner was at the Whoop Hall near Kirby Lonsdale on the 4th February the food being very good. The dinner saw the inauguration of the President’s Award. This is an award presented by the President, obviously, but with no category or theme, just the President’s whim. It could be awarded for some heroic act or equally for a moment of outstanding stupidity! It’s up to the president. So this year’s winner The President’s Award was Rob Murgatroyd for his dedication and determination for getting the job done right.
I would appreciate any suggestions for next year’s awards so beware you are being watched!
After my short speech I handed over to Matt Ewles. Matt has been member for about 2 years now and came from the York University Caving Club and at present he is the CNCC secretary. The committee felt a change to the format regarding the after dinner entertainment was needed. After considering various options including the resurrection of the panto and having a guest speaker we opted for a talk and presentation by Matt.
First he talked about the possibilities of discovering new caves in the Yorkshire Dales areas. Now you might think here he’s telling your grandmother how to suck eggs, but he displayed a very good knowledge of the Yorkshire Dale and had some very interesting suggestions accompanied by slides to illustrate his points.
He then went on to talk about the possibility of cave discovery and exploration in the North York Moors, showing the discoveries him and the York Caving Club has made in that area including Excalibur Pot. He finished off his show with a very professional video of Excalibur Pot which he and York Caving Club had made. It was a thoroughly enjoyable talk, our thanks to Matt, Gary and Adrian who put together a very good show.
Breaking news, I’m coming out of retirement! I was talking with Graham Proudlove just before New Year and he suggested I followed my two predecessors and go on a caving trip. At first I wasn’t too sure, something like Lancaster to County which may require some flat out crawling, or come to that any SRT wasn’t really on the cards, but then he came up with the idea of Dow Cave just up to Hobson’s Choice. Of course ideas then started to develop and eventually a “President’s Meet” was taking shape. I would wonder up to Hobson’s Choice and then turn back, then if anyone wanted they could carry on up Dowber-Gill passage for a while, whilst a party of cavers wishing to have a more testing trip would come down from Providence Pot on a through trip. When would this trip happen? The obvious answer is the summer dinner. There’s a camp site in Kettlewell as well as three pubs (I think) surely one of them should be a suitable venue? I’ve spoken to both Fiona and Fran and they think it’s a good idea. The weekend of the 17/18 June has been pencilled in, more details will be forthcoming in this Newsletter. So happy caving to everyone and hope to see some of you at the Cottage Maintenance Weekend on the 25/26 March for more details of that see Dewi.