Annual Subscription.
It is, we know, a tradition in the B.E.C. to be late with subs. We are mostly familiar with the little rhyme
which goes Annual subs must all be in ere the month of May begin and the
bloke who fails to pay doesnt get B.B. for May., which is all very well as
far as it goes. One of the big snags
about this is that it is useless to put a notice in the May B.B. saying that if
you havent it (the May B.B. that is!) it is because you havent paid you sub.
This year we are trying two new moves in this battle of wits
and members who have not paid off their subs by the end of April will get
getting a reminder note INSTEAD OF the may B.B. In addition, the names concerned will be given to the Hut Warden with
instructions to charge as visitors until such time etc. Just think, you could frustrate all these
cunning schemes by simply PAYING YOUR SUB. Why not foil the Committees plans this way.
Alfie
Monthly Notes No 1
by Dave Irwin
To keep members abreast with news of the caving world, this
page will highlight some of the events; new publications, etc., in the form of
potted notes. Those members hearing of
any suitable news, please contact me immediately, so that we can keep the B.B.
really up to date.
LOG BOOKS. The B.E.C. log books for 1956-58 are
missing. Are you sitting on them? Have a look please.
(
discovered about a mile of large sized passage. A dry bypass round the sumps has been found.
EASTWATER. W.C.C. have re-opened the
lifeline. (W.C.C. Journal, November 1966).
Hammer Pot,
list. Also descriptions of Meregill Hole
(Yorks) and Oxlow-Giants connection (
worthy buying at 1/6.
St. CUTHBERTS. Maypole Series being closed to all tourists
from May 1st 1967 for biological research. (details later). B.E.C. divers (
to a total length of 13-14. The roof is
rising. Surveyors have competed
Pyrolusite, Gour Hall Area and Ledge Pitches to entrance. Surveys and reports available later this
year. 5,560 feet of cave has been
resurveyed.
St.
CUTHBERTS REPORT. B.M. Ellis is
prepared to accept firm orders for all 15 parts to be issued in the next two
years or so. Part O published Oct 66,
Part A (History of Cave) available midsummer 1967. Gour Hall and Sump Area Report available
Sept/Oct 1967.
FAIRMANS
FOLLY. (DIG MENDIP). W.C.C. have reached old buckets left by
B.E.C.
CUCKOO CLEEVES. Entrance is unstable. Believe passage below shaft being
cemented. If not, take care.
LOST JOHNS (
Pitch. 5 belay now required.
SWILDONS. Mike Boon dived sump 12. Found rift with depth of 20 with air space
at top. Boon and support party withdrew
owing to air cylinder running low. N.W.
Passage being surveyed by S.W.E.T.C.C.C. to high grade.
HISTORY of MENDIP CAVING. Davies & Charles. (
Abbott). Price about 35/-. To be published later this year.
Letter
To the Editor, Belfry Bulletin.
Dear Sir,
The B.E.C. never ceases to amaze me. The course in cave Surveying which was held
recently was a splendid thing. I should
like to compliment the instructors on the clear and interesting was they were
able to pack the information into the day. And what pleasanter classroom could we have than the back room of the
Hunters? The practical work which followed
was equally well organised, and I should like to see many more such courses run
by people in the club who have extensive technical knowledge.
I know you do not make a practice of publishing
appreciations of club activities, but perhaps you could make an exception in
this case.
Yours Sincerely
Alan Thomas.
The
Mendip
Cave
Most cavers on Mendip have heard of the Mendip Cave
Registry, and quite a few of them have made some very valuable contributions
towards it over the past ten years. But
how many know how to avail themselves of the information which the registers
provide?
In this article, I hope to shed a little light on the
workings of the Registry and the Registers.
On the 25th May 1956, the Executive Committee of the Mendip
Cave Registry was formed. The Committee
consisted of eight people. Five of them
were Registrars, whose job it was to get the information for the
Registers. The other three were
administrative, being Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer. In October 1962 however, the Executive
Committee was increased to sixteen members, of whom twelve were Registrars. This increase enabled the preparation of the
Registers for the libraries to progress more rapidly, and by October 1963, the
first two copies were ready to take their place in the Bristol Central
Reference Library and in the Wells Library. A third copy was kept by the secretary, both to answer postal enquiries
and to ensure that the Registers could all be kept up to date by adding to his
copy and exchanging it for one of the library copies. The copy removed from the library could then
be amended and exchanged for that in the other library, and so on. In this way, all the registers could be kept
up to date without the libraries being kept short of copy.
The placing of the registers at
work for the Registry, far from it. The
Executive Committee immediately began investigating various methods of
reproducing the Register at an economical price that it could be offered to
interested organisations. It was
eventually decided to use the Rank Xerox method of copying and the work of
brining the secretarys copy up to this standard began. This entailed revising the existing pages,
reading Club publications (we understand they even read the B.B.! Ed) and
personal caving logs and diaries as well as the work of checking the various
sites of caving and speleological interest in the field.
Work progressed steadily over the next three years and in
June 1966, over 200 register sheets were Xeroxed and made into six new copies
of the register. Two of these copies have
been sold, complete with binders, to the Bristol Central Reference Library and
the Somerset County Library. The Cave
Research Group and the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society have
also purchased copies.
The registers are based on the Ordnance Survey two and a
half inch to the mile maps. Each sheet
has been divided into quarters and each quarter sheet forms a division of the
register. The maps are filed in ascending
numerical order, with the quarter sheets filed in the order SW, NW, SE and
NE. The relevant information on caves
etc. typed on ledger sheets, and these are filed following the quarter sheets
on which they appear. The type of
information given on the sheets is: –
(a) Type of site (Cave, Swallet, Depression etc.)
(b) Grid Reference to 8 figures (10 metres) if poss.
(c) All know names.
(d) Owner and tenant of land.
(e) Restrictions of access.
(f) Brief notes of the cave.
(g) References in books etc. of scientific or
historical interest.
(h) Details of any surveys available.
The brief notes only include a full description of the site
if this is not otherwise available in a readily accessible book such as
Mendip. It is not intended that the
register should be an enlarged form of this book, but that it should give
information not readily obtainable elsewhere, together with references to the
more readily available information and accounts. It is hoped that, in particular, the register
will be of the most use to a person wishing either to find out what has already
been recorded about a site, or looking for a reference to specific information
on a certain cave.
The work of the Registry will never be completed while
caving is carried out on Mendip and if anyone would like to help in this work,
he can contact me at the Belfry most weekends. The work, as I have said before, consists mainly of literature searching
and fieldwork. The former involves
reading caving books and club publications and noting all references to
so that the information can be included on the relevant sheet of the register
a nice easy way to do your caving! The
latter consists of walking over the ground looking for sites, more strenuous
than the former but a very pleasant way of spending an afternoon or two.
Anyone who has personal caving diaries containing
description of original explorations, digs etc. is also asked to contact the
Cave registry in order that the information in the diaries can be recorded in
the Registers for the benefit of other cavers. People with such diaries may be interested to know that it has been
arranged for any caving diaries or caving photographs of historical interest
that are donated or bequeathed to the Registry to be stored in the Somerset
Record Office at
reference by anyone interested, but, as nobody id allowed to take them away
there is no danger of their ever being lost. Furthermore, they will not come under the control of any single club
which could make it difficult for the average caver to consult them.
G.D. Tilly.
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HAVE YOU PAID YOUR SUBS YET? A clear conscience costs only 12/6 why not pay NOW!
Long Term Planning – 5
At the March meeting of the Long Term Planning Committee,
The Chairman reminded the meeting that tome was getting on, and that there was
not a great amount of time left before the Committee must put ist findings to
the club. The Secretary pointed out that
this must be done before next years A.G.M. and accordingly the Committee
decided that it would attempt the difficult job of deciding on the shape of the
new building at its next meeting in April and have full plans prepared by its
meeting in May. This will enable the
various planning and other permissions to be sought so that the result of these
can be made known when the Long Term Plan is presented to the club as a whole.
There are, a few snags. We may be able to negotiate a new access to our site and we may be
able to enlarge it, but we shant know the answers to either of these questions
in time to draw up the plans. We shall
thus try to draw up a plan which can be modified if the need arises.
Drawing up plans for new Belfries is an occupation which has
become quite a tradition inn the B.E.C. and we feel that a number of members
may feel that the have the answers to all our problems. Unfortunately, this B.B. will be in most
members hands rather late for them to be able to send anything into the
secretary, but it may not be too late for your bright idea to get incorporated
into the plans, so send it in to S.J. Collins, Homeleigh, Bishop Sutton,
considered. There are no prizes! A specification for the new building has
already been produced, and we have an idea what a fearsome job it is to try to
get everything in. We are aiming at a
building of about 1,400 sq. ft. floor area, to sleep between 30-36 men and 6
women.
When everything has been finally settled, a report will be
issued by the Long Term Planning Committee and sent to every member of the
club. This will happen about late
August or early September and will give members about a month to six weeks to
study it before The Annual General Meeting. Some suggestions as how best to tackle the problem of deciding whether
to go ahead or not will be included. These will be no more than suggestions as the club is, of course,
perfectly at liberty to discuss the scheme in any way the A.G.M. might decide.
Again, in order to save time, the main Committee have agreed
to start with the introduction of certain money raising schemes. If the Long Term Plan is turned down at next
years A.G.M. any monies collected will be returned to those who gave or lent
them.
Now that most of the decisions about the plan have been
made, it is suggested that these reports on the activities of the Long Term
Planning Committee should cease being written up in the B.B. as there is little
but hard routine slogging in front of the committee from now on. We expect you will be pleased to be able to
read some more interesting article that this in future B.B.s.
Meanwhile, and this is the last time we shall be mentioning
this, if you have any thoughts, or queries, or want to know any of the ideas
held at present, ask any member of the Long Term Planning Committee or write to
the secretary of the Committee Alfie. We dont want to keep members in the dark over what we are doing but
equally, we dont want to keep boring them with reports which are bound to
become less interesting from now on.
S.J. Collins.
Secretary, L.T.P.C.
*****************************************
It would refreshing to see some new names attached to
articles in the B.B. Have YOU ever
written anything for the B.B.? Why not
have a go?