Reading University Caving Club

General

Start as you mean to go on!

Great news!

This Sunday, we took 12 newcomers to the Mendips to try out a spot of caving. One of them, Kenny, had a Go-Pro camera and chest harness mount for it, and this totally badass video is the result!

I think it really captures the ‘Nature’s Jungle-Gym’ aspect of the sport. Anyway, of the 9 newcomers who went down Swildon’s hole, only one didn’t make it to the sump, and she got pretty damn close! The group that went down GB had a great time too, apparently.

So, a successful day-trip, and a successful start to the term! If you’re thinking, ‘Good Heavens, that looks like a jolly good romp! What a pity I missed these wonderful people at the Freshers Fayre!’, then don’t fret; you can still join us in our exploring activities and social shenanigans. Just put your email address on our Mailing List, or Join us on Facebook, or pop along to The College Arms on a Monday night after 9pm! We’ve got plenty of weekend trips coming up; here’s a small selection:

Oct 12-14th – First weekend trip to South Wales – staying at the South Wales Caving Club (We’re sharing with Aberystwyth University, which should be a laugh!) (Also we’ve been given lots of FREE BEER which was left over from Amanda’s wedding!)

Oct 19-21st – Second weekend trip to South Wales – staying at Whitewalls, on Llangattock.
Nov 2-4th – Priddy fireworks trip – staying at the Cerberus. We’ll make an evening jaunt (in fancy-dress) to the annual fireworks display on Priddy Green, which is held in aid of the Mendip Cave Rescue Organisation.
Anyway, I need to stop writing blog posts and catch a train home, so hopefully we’ll see you soon!
Christopher Announcements, General, Photos, Trips No Comments
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Welcome, Freshers!

First, may I give you a warm welcome to our website. It’s lovely to have you here, and I do hope you can stay for tea!

Everything’s hotting up all over campus as the University prepares for this year’s influx of Freshmen, and societies, clubs and volunteer groups all vie for the precious commodity that is a Fresher’s spare time. Our efforts this year will be many and varied, utilising some daring and cutting-edge advertising techniques:

After all, nothing works quite like good old-fashioned, barefaced bribery!

Please don’t hesitate to visit our Facebook Group or Join our Mailing list! And there’s plenty to explore on this site – why not check out a Photo Album to see what you might expect on a weekend trip, or, if you’re still a bit confused as to why the people in the picture above are wearing silly clothes, look at out Frequently Asked Questions page!

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Trips for next term!

Greetings!

Apologies for the delayed announcement: We’ve got a whole lot of goodies and treats planned for the coming term!

We’ll be kicking off Freshers’ Week with a massive poster/flyer campaign, for which any designs you can rustle up would be much appreciated. Freshers Fayre itself is on Thursday the 4th of October, and we shall be out in force publicising the club and trying to persuade as many new people as possible that it’s an awesome thing to spend your free time doing! After the Fayre has closed, we’ll be doing a presentation somewhere on campus to give a more detailed description of who we are and what we do, followed by a walk down to the Back of Beyond for a celebratory curry (I think there’ll be another presentation on Monday for those who can’t make it on Thursday). Our ridiculously ambitious schedule of trips is as follows:

Oct 7th – Freshers’ day trip to the Mendips

 

Oct 12-14th – First weekend trip to South Wales – staying at the South Wales Caivng Club (We’re sharing with Aberystwyth University, which should be a laugh!)

 

Oct 19-21st – Second weekend trip to South Wales – staying at Whitewalls

 

Nov 2-4th – Priddy fireworks trip – staying at the Cerberus

 

Nov 9-11th – CHECC Forum! – Held in the Mendips this year (at Yoxter Farm); we’ll be trying to win the ‘Most Awesome Caving Club’ trophy for Reading!

 

Nov 30th – Dec 2nd – Weekend trip to Yorkshire – staying at the BPC (To get an early start with SRT training!)

 

The day trip will be a brief introduction to the sport of caving, while the weekend trips offer a more complete caving-club experience, with breakfasts, dinner and fun included!
Christopher Announcements, Events, General, Socials, Trips No Comments
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Giant´s Hole round trip, January 2012 – RUCC

Here’s what some of us got up to back in January! Aside from a tight situation with Big Ben’s bum (don’t worry about him; he’s used to it), all went well. Thanks to John W’s keen sense of cinematography and the ingenious invention of the ‘camera on a stick’, we can now appreciate the whole experience in visual form from the comfort of our sofas.

For any viewers thinking “Gosh! I could never find the strength of mind and body to accomplish a feat such as this!” I feel obliged to inform you that Connor, our token American, left for this trip not half an hour after waking up with a truly superlative hangover. Having fallen prey to Martyn’s skittle vodka he so closely resembled a comatose giant that even falling off a top bunk in the middle of the night could not disturb his slumber. Eventually woken by the wafting aroma of bacon, he stumbled downstairs and in an unusually distinct East Coast accent announced

“I HAVE QUESTIONS.”

What are we to learn from this story? That bacon is a panacea for all ills? That caving is more fun than it looks? That mind-over-matter is the best way to deal with a hangover? Nay, the lesson here is … Look at those smiles!

Christopher General, Photos, Silly No Comments
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Finally!

IMG_2436-P50

Welcome, to all you denizens of the Internet, and especially any soon-to-be students of the University of Reading!

After many moons of delay, faff and excuses, I am at long last uploading the enormous backlog of photos from all our trips this year. At the moment it looks like we haven’t done anything since October, but I assure you we’ve been very busy indeed, just a little lazy in the post-production stages!

Anyway, check back this afternoon to see what we’ve been up to all year.

Christopher

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AGM Results!

Hello everybody!

Two Mondays ago, we held our AGM at the venerable and accommodating Sweeny & Todd’s Pie Shop, meaning that we now have a new committee! The elections were hotly contested; a great day for caving democracy! The night thereafter, unfortunately, seems a little hazy.
Here are the new committee for the year 2012/13:
President – Chrissie Picken
Secretary – May Alexander
Treasurer – Kat Hooper
Tacklemaster – Yiorgos Gadanakis
Webmaster – Ben Wilson and Christopher Holt
Social Secretary – Georgina Redgate
Permit (& Survey) Officer – Alex Manthorpe
Training Officer – J Bouchard
Cake Secretary – Anna Rabbett and Mesh Yalvac

Permit Officer is a new one, to ease the Secretary’s job with a view to getting us to certain places called ‘caves’, and will also take responsibility for the club library. Training Officer is so we have an official-sounding title to describe what J does. We realised that we’d rather have two Cake Secretaries than one, and I’m looking forward to working with Ben as Co-Webmaster throughout the year ahead.

Things are  looking interesting for next term. I think J’s doing a small trip over the May Day Bank Holiday (get in touch with him for information), while most of us are revising hard at the Beer Festival. The next big trip will be over the Jubilee Weekend, to Yorkshire.
More news to come!

Christopher Announcements, General, Socials, Trips No Comments
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Freshers Weekend Trip to Wales – Trip 1

Description:

Our first weekend trip of the term! This trip to Wales is particularly geared up for new members and people who wish to try caving for the first time, however it is likely to be very popular with many of our older members as well!

Expect a lot of excitement, crazy antics including our legendary ‘caving games’ during the evenings, plenty of partying, as well as chance to try some fantastic caving…

You can sign up for this trip at the Fresher’s Fayre or the presentation afterwards, at one of our Monday pub gatherings, or by emailing our president.

Where:

We will be staying at the Whitewalls Caving Hut in the Brecon Beacons in South Wales.

When:

Friday 14th – Sunday 16th October. Meeting in the car park of the Athletics Pavilion at 6:30pm on the Friday – see building 43 on this Map [PDF file]. Returning late in the evening on Sunday.

What to bring:

  • Standard trip gear
  • £35 to pay for the trip (if you haven’t already!), plus extra money to pay for any additional food or booze on the way there or back
  • Your Sports Fed card (obtainable at the Freshers Fayre or from the Student’s Union)
  • Lots of enthusiasm and a willingness to try new things!

Further Information:

Patrick Events, General No Comments
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And another term begins…

Cavers_group_shot_1 Welcome back everyone – we’ve a term full of amazing caving, socials and all kinds of other things to look forwards to!

This term, a trip to Wales and 2 trips to Yorkshire are planned; details of these are on the trips page… SRT training for the Yorkshire trips begins on Tuesday, so it’s a good idea to turn up to the pub tonight if you’re interested!

In other news, I’ve FINALLY got round to adding the photos from the Mendips trip last term – view them here.

Many thanks to Lucy, Jon W, and J for taking all these pictures – there are quite a few, so I hope you all enjoy them!

Photos from CHECC and the socials last term will also hopefully appear here shortly.

P.S. Newer cavers will notice the homepage is a bit different this term – the website is now in ‘standard’ mode, and will continue to be until around the end of summer.

Patrick General No Comments
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