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I have now uploaded the photos from the 3 trips that took place in October – the fresher’s day trip, and the two weekend trips to South Wales. There’s a particularly diverse selection this time around, recording all our various exploits – from our crazy caving games (most notably the construction of our multi-story human ‘tower’ at the Whitewalls caving hut), to some spectacular photos of the Helictite formations in Pant Mawr – not to mention lots of pictures of the stunning Welsh countryside…
I would like to thank J, Ushana, and Henry D for taking these photos, and for making them available so that they can be displayed here. I’m very grateful! You can view the photos by visiting the following links:
P.S. Sadly life has (yet again!) got in the way of the maintenance of this website over the last few weeks… There should be plenty of updates soon though – including lots of new photos, and some brand new content sections. Watch this space!
This evening (i.e. Monday 17th) we have the first major social of the term to look forwards to!
The theme is ‘Pub Golf’. This is a competition which is just like a classic game of golf, except that it has several important differences:
Firstly, it doesn’t involve any golf balls, clubs or holes (at least, not in the conventional sense…). And secondly as time passes, the scoring seems to become considerably less important… So in other words, it’s not like golf at all, but it’s still great fun! The basic idea is to go from pub to pub to see who can drink certain drinks in the lowest number of sips – the aim is to get below ‘par’. Full rules will be explained at the event itself.
So overall, this event promises to be great fun! Starting at the College Arms, Wokingham Road at 8:30pm, or alternatively you can meet us at the Palmer Building on Campus at 8pm. Look forwards to seeing you!
Note: Photo by kulicki. Released under CC BY 2.0.
It was great to see so many of you at the freshers fayre yesterday!
Below is a round-up of some of the most important dates for events that are happening very soon this term…
- This Saturday we’re going on a day trip to The Mendips, in Somerset. For those of you who have signed up, we are meeting at 8:30am for a 9am departure, meeting outside the Sports Park (gym) on campus – see building 39 on this map [pdf file]. We’ll depart from the adjacent Athletics Pavilion car park (Building 43). More Details »
- On Monday (10th October), we are running through our presentation for new members again, in case you missed it yesterday. Meeting at 7pm in HUMSS Room 126 (Building 1). Or if you prefer, you can meet us at 8-8:30pm outside the Palmer Building (Building 26). We’ll then take you to our regular Monday evening meeting spot – the College Arms pub on Wokingham Road. You can find out more about us, get to meet some of the older members, and sign up for trips. It should be a really fun night out! More Details »
- On the weekends of 14th-16th October and 21st-23rd October we’ll be heading to South Wales. You can sign up for these trips on Monday at the pub, or online… More Details »
- We’re also planning a big ‘Pub Golf’ social – this will be taking place very soon! More details will be provided shortly…
If you have any questions or would like to know more, please contact our president Elsie or our secretary Chris. It’s going to be a fantastic term – I’m looking forwards to meeting everyone at these events!
Interested in joining us? Want to find out more? Why not visit our stall at the Fresher’s Fayre on Thursday? Or come to our presentation in Room 126 of the HUMSS Building at 5pm immediately afterwards…
This Saturday, we’ll be going on a day trip to the nearest caving region (The Mendips, in Somerset), so you can try some caving and see what it’s like. The club will also go on at least 4 longer weekend trips this term – see our trips page for details. Every Monday we get together and find out what’s planned, and there will also be several social events – always entertaining, and sometimes just bizarre!
If you are interested in joining, or would simply like to find out more about the club, take a look at our information page and our FAQs. Or get in touch with Elsie – our president. We look forwards to meeting you!
I am delighted to welcome you to our brand new website! Our old site has served us well over the last 8+ years, however we decided it was time to give it a bit of a lick of paint… So what’s new? In a nutshell:
- Brand new look and feel, whilst remaining true to the spirit of the previous site.
- More ways for club members to participate on and interact with the site. Add comments to any post, page, gallery or photo, and even add new posts to the front page! Find out more »
- Calendar on the top right with links to details of all upcoming club events.
- Better integration with Facebook. Easily share any post or page, and even log into this site with your Facebook username! We’ll be adding additional Facebook integration in the near future…
- Easier to get in touch with committee members and enquire about joining the club, using our new Contact Form!
- And last but not least, the new site is much easier to maintain, which means that it can (at last!) be updated much more frequently!
Of course I’d love your feedback on these changes – got any suggestions for improvements, ideas for the site, or have spotted any errors? Please let me know – either by adding a comment below this post, or by using the new contact form »
Older members will be aware that these changes have been in the works for quite some time. There are plenty of further plans though – over the next few weeks there should be lots more activity… In the meantime, many thanks to Paul Fellows, who set up our original site and devoted a huge amount of time to it; as well as to those of you who helped out with this new one – particularly Jo Meldner and Kat Hooper.
By the way, the old site hasn’t completely vanished off the face of the earth – you can still access it from http://old.rucavers.co.uk
So, here’s to the next 8 years!
Patrick Hathway
Webmaster
I am happy to announce a lot of new photos have now been added to the site – these were taken during many of our club events over the past year… To access them all, either click on a thumbnail above to go to the relevant gallery, or visit our Photos section. Many thanks to all those who have taken them!
By the way, now that we have moved to a new system, it should hopefully be much quicker to add photos to the site in future, so from now on they should (finally!) be appearing far more frequently…! That’s the plan, anyway…
Somehow or other it appears that we have managed to organise LOADS of events for the coming term, even before it’s started! I can’t help feeling something must be wrong here – has the club ever been this organised before?! We’ve got plenty of trips to look forwards to, as well as a number of socials in the works – pub crawls, parties, a trip to Go Ape! (TBC), etc, etc. Thanks to the committee for planning all this 
Anyway, I have updated the calender on the top right of every page to display all the events that we’re planning at the moment. Feel free to navigate through this calendar, and click on the days that are highlighted in yellow to view full details of the events that are happening on those days. I’ve also updated the Trips page to include details of all upcoming trips.
Note: it’s worth bearing in mind that some of these events and dates are provisional, so remember to check this site for further details nearer the time… If you are interested in attending any event, please feel free to get in touch!
It looks like we’ve got a brilliant term ahead of us!
On Monday, we completed our annual 9 mile pub crawl to Henley. The weather wasn’t quite as good as normal, but somehow or other this didn’t detract from the event – if anything, it added atmosphere… The theme this year was ‘Harry Potter’, and among other diversions we had fun attempting to unmask the Dark Wizard from our midst…
Sadly, I only had a chance to complete the final stretch of the walk between Shiplake and Henley, but seemed to have picked one of the best sections of the route! Miraculously the others arrived at almost exactly the same time as my train – a huge coincidence considering that Shiplake is the only convenient station along the route!
We had our customary swim in the Thames (see photo above), and arrived in Henley just as it got dark. After celebrating our arrival at the local Weatherspoon’s, we then headed back to Reading, and ended up having a rather wild House Party at Elsie, Alice and Penny’s place
I’m already looking forwards to next year’s Henley Pub Crawl…
Last weekend we went on a club trip to Yorkshire. Although much smaller than most of our trips, it was a particularly enjoyable one.
Here are some of the things we got up to:
- Worked out how to pack a small car with five person’s worth of luggage PLUS caving / SRT gear, and yet remain surprisingly comfortable!
- Learnt how NOT to open or shut a car bonnet…
- Left astonishingly early on Saturday morning to visit the fabulous Gaping Gill chamber (accessed via Bar Pot). I was really pleased to see this again after so long – it’s one of my all-time favourite caves. Did you know that this chamber has the second deepest shaft in Britain, and that the square volume of the cavern is comparable to most cathedrals?! This time I stood right underneath the waterfall for a while – I’m quite proud to be able to claim to have showered in the waters of Gaping Gill
- Played against Nottingham Uni (and were defeated) at Beer/Cocktail Pong.
- Got up not so early on the Sunday, nursing hangovers, and tried to summon up the will to go caving on a rainy day… Sound familiar?! Ultimately it was worth it though!
Congratulations to Chrissie who completed both caves successfully despite very little experience with SRT, and to Chris who rigged his first caves! You both did brilliantly! Thanks also to J for leading, and for putting up with us…!
Note: Image courtesy of Wikipedia. And yes, the shaft really is that spectacular!
This weekend, the club went on another very successful trip to South Wales, staying at the Croydon.
Even before we started, we knew that it would be an eventful one – an astonishing 18 people turned up for it – unprecedented for the summer term?! And that indeed turned out to be the case…
Among other things, we:
- Saw some spectacular helictites in Pant Mawr – well worth the hour’s walk to get there!
- Indulged in our usual pastimes of Sock Wrestling, The Box Game, etc
- Navigated our way intrepidly through a non-existent forest, attempting to find our next cave…
- Once we eventually found it, spent the next hour inside the most pointless, stupid, ridiculous and muddy cave ever – but also one of the most entertaining! See the photo above for the aftermath…
- Learnt the best techniques for preventing copious amounts of mud getting smeared in the interior of the minibus, whilst attempting to travel somewhere we could clean off …
- … spent an hour cleaning the interior of the minibus, after said techniques failed spectacularly!
- Learnt that the best answer to any question is invariably “SAUSAGES!!!”
In short, it was another excellent trip! Thanks to Elsie and the rest of the committee for organising it…
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