A.G.M.

The Annual General Meting will be held at

Redcliffe Church Hall,
Guinea
Street (our old club premises) at 2.30pm on Sat. 1st October.  If you are in any doubt of way, you will find
a number of club members in the Waggon & Horses beforehand.

Long Term Planning.

Members will find nearly all of this B.B. taken up with a
screed on whether we should think about building a permanent Belfry or
not.  Sorry, but this should only happen
once in a blue moon.  There is a
questionnaire about this with the B.B. and the committee would be pleased if as
many as possible returned this to the Hon. Sec. If you find the 4d to spare, bring it to the A.G.M.  (the questionnaire – not the 4d!).

Photoessay Competition.

Closing date for this is Thursday before the dinner (29
September).  Arrangements have been made
for an independent judge to judge the entries that night.

Tackle.

Please see that all tackle is properly booked out and signed
for on all occasions – even on rescues. It is the only way that a check can be kept on tackle, to make sure it
is there when YOU want it next.

Dinner Tickets.

17/6 per head.  Apply
to Bob Bagshaw,

699 Wells Road,
Knowle,

Bristol
4.

Notices

Caving Meets.

October 8/9 (Please note the
change of date) to O.F.D. and D.Y.O. Accommodation S.W.C.C. cottage (room for 10).

November 13th.  Lamb Leer. Meet at cave at 11am.

Permits.

Permits issued to members at the
start of the permit scheme are due to be renewed on the 13th of September
1966.  To assist the Hon. Sec. please
write now, stating ONE of the following: –

(a)                I am under 21 (give date of birth) and am not
married.

(b)                I am over 21 and have reached this age since
completing a C.C.C. indemnity form.

(c)                I am over 21 and had reached this age before
completing a C.C.C. indemnity writing.

Club Tent.

It has now been agreed that the
rates for hire of the club tent shall be 2/- per weekend and 5/- per week.  This is for club members and is not affected
by the number actually sleeping in the tent or the number of nights actually
used.  In the case of weekends, it is in
order to have the tent on Thursday night before the weekend.  If nobody is going to use the tent for the
following weekend, it will be in order to return the tent on the next Thursday,
but it must be returned before that if asked for, otherwise it will be charged
for at the weekly rate.

Caving Reports.

The following reports are
available from B. M. Ellis, Knockauns, Combwich, Bridgwater,

Somerset.

No. 1  (Revised 1963).  Surveying in Redcliffe.              (3/-)
No. 4  Shoring of

Swallet
Cave
Entrances.                    (2/6)
No. 5  (Revised 1966)  Headgear & lightning.                 ?
No. 6  Smaller Caves of Mendip.                                  (3/-)
No. 10  B.E.C. Method of Ladder
Construction.             (3/-)
No. 11  Long Chamber/Coral area of
Cuthbert’s             (3/6)

Do We Want a New Belfry?

When the stone Belfry was built, it was intended to provide
changing and washing facilities for cavers – in fact Jill Tuck hoped at the
time that it would become known as the Vestry. Providing some space for changing in was comparatively easy, but a
number of people have looked into the washing situation (from a theoretical
point of view, of course!) and the general opinion seems to be that the
building is unsuitable for this purpose. Accordingly, the Belfry Engineer drew up a plan for a shower
building.  This plan has been passed and
the Committee have allocated the money. With any luck, this problem will then be solved.

One thing that bothered the committee at the time (apart
form who was going to buy their beer) was that we ought to be careful about
where we put this new building.  It will
not be very big, but, given the average bad luck, it might be erected just
where it got in the way of any future plan for expansion or alteration of the
Belfry Site.  After some thought, it was
agreed to detail a few people who were interested in the site to form a Long
Term Planning Committee.

This committee soon found that they agreed on a number of
things (like who was going to buy them all beer).  They thought it would be a good thing, for
instance, if the car park was moved to the other side of the track, leaving the
Belfry side free for any future building. It was when they started to examine schemes for this future building
that some differences began to be seen.

At first, the idea was to iron out all the differences
between the scheme proposed, and to present a plan to the club at the A.G.M.  However, if the club decides to take on a
project of the sized involved, there will be no hope of success unless nearly
every member is prepared to give it his backing.  It was thus decided to publicise the problem
in the B.B., so that every member could get some idea of what might be involved
before anybody actually became rash enough to suggest anything (pardon the pun)
concrete.

Raising the Lolly.

Before we see how much we might be up against, let us see
what we have done in the past.  The basic
structure of the present Belfry cost £100 and the extension £37.  In present day terms, we can say £300 and £74
respectively.  Even so, this is a
fleabite compared with the sort of money we might be talking about now.  If we had a Belfry built (without any fancy
bits) it might cost somewhere in the region of £2,000 to £2,500.  We could raise this sort of money by (a)
borrowing form outside sources – this would mean payment of interest, might be
difficult to arrange because we are not a legally constituted body, and in any
case, the money might be difficult to come by. (b)  Borrowing from members, would
get rid of most of the difficulties of (a) but would take about £145 from every
single member.  It would take nearly 25
years of paying this back by doubling Belfry dues.  A combination of the two increases would
still take about ten years to pay it back. A third method (c) of raising the money by somehow earning it must be
thrown out at once – it would be easier to build the whole thing ourselves than
to try this.  There remains (d) which is
to forget the whole affair.

Can we reduce this costs?

Estimates tend to vary, but if we assume a building of about
30’ x 50’ in which we do most of the preparation for foundations; build the
walls; fit doors and windows and do the wiring and plumbing BUT have all the
plastering carried out professionally, have the entire roof constructed for us
and have a professionally laid floor, we might get a cost structure like this:
–

Which will do as an approximate estimate for the purposes of
this argument?  Let’s now assume that we
can expect members (or some of them) to support the effort at the rate of £10
per member, and either loan the money or put in the equivalent amount of work.  If we rate time at 10/- per hour (as a direct
labour costing) we obtain….

Could we do it (if we wanted to-)?

In theory, certainly we could.  In practice it would depend – as most things
do – on a few key people.  Here is a
suggestion of how it perhaps could be made to work.

1.                  79 members willing to loan, on a long term
interest-free basis (and it would be long term!) the sum of £10 each would have
to be found AND PAY UP.  The money would,
of course, be refunded if it was found impossible to put the rest of the scheme
into practice.

2.                  21 members would have to be found and be
prepared to work.  Some enforceable
method of guaranteeing that they did not go back on their word would have to be
found, and the volunteers would have to agree to its inclusion in their ‘terms
of contract’.

3.                  In fact, the whole job would have to be
undertaken with this degree of seriousness. A Superintendent would have to be appointed, who would be responsible
for organising the work force, appointing local ‘foreman,’ arranging time
keeping etc.

4.                  A Planner/Purchasing Officer would also have to
be found, preferably a member in the building trade, who would prepare accurate
estimates, act as Purchasing Officer with the responsibility of keeping the job
supplied with raw materials and arrange stage inspections with the local
authorities etc.

At this stage, one imagines most readers thinking what a
daft and impracticable scheme this is, and wondering if the editor is really
all that short of things to put in the B.B. or whether he is enjoying wasting
the club’s paper and time by flogging some weird hobby horse in public.  Before we all condemn this – or any other
scheme – out of hand, let us take a look at one or two further aspects of it.

A Building rather than a Caving Club?

Fears that the work should turn the club into a building
club ought to be reasonably groundless. Given good organisation – and we might as well pack up this or any
similar idea straight away if we cannot set up a good organisation – we should
be able to do the whole job in three to four months.  During this time, essential caving facilities
would be kept going on site, but the use of facilities would be kept restricted
to builders and keen cavers only.  No
sightseers, idlers or layabouts.  This
might actually result in an increase of caving.

In case there are visions of blokes labouring away for
years. With members’ sons picking up the trowels form the faltering hands of
their old fathers, let us be clear that we are not proposing to build a
medieval cathedral.  The Herculean effort
demanded from each of the volunteer workers only amounts to two whole weekends,
one day and two evenings.  Let us try
again, to let it sink in…

TWO WEEKENDS – ONE
DAY – AND TWO EVENINGS

…which is not impossible, or even unrealistic.  The average volunteer should be able to
squeeze in a little caving in during the other….

49 WHOLE WEEKENDS –
ONE DAY – AND 259 EVENINGS

….he will NOT be working on the building during 1967.

Another objection might be that there seems to be no
provision in the scheme as outlined for the club to provide any of the
money.  The club will, of course, have to
finance the tools – including the purchase or hire of a cement mixer, and will
also probably be put to some expense in arrangements to be made during the
demolition and rebuilding phase.  As for
the rest, it should be possible to repay loans in five or six years if the club
were prepared to put up with some of the increased charges.  If possible, these could revert back after
repayment as they have done in the past. A calm look at the whole business says that it is not impracticable –
providing it gets the support it needs. Schemes might be introduced in addition to provide forms of incentive
for those giving time or money.

What sort of Belfry do we want?

Assuming, for a mad moment. That a permanent building is
contemplated, much thought will have to be put into the actual design and
construction of the building.  The size
and shape must obviously be considered with costs in mind, but is must equally
be realised that the actual size and shape of the building can have a great
effect on those using it.  Here are a few
controversial points in connection with this….

1.                  There may well be a danger in making the place
too big – even if we could afford it.  A
very large building might lead to an unwieldy state of affairs, or to the need
for far more discipline than we need at present.  Alternatively, it may lead to the formation
of splinter groups.

2.                  A separate room for serious caving studies is a
temptation.  The danger of this to a
separation between the more serious and more frivolous minded would be very
real here.  There is a lot to be said for
making people live together and put up with each other’s requirements.

3.                  There is much to be said for and against a
separate kitchen.  This point needs
careful thought.

4.                  Do we really want/need a women’s room?  Many caving and climbing clubs seem to manage
well without one, as indeed we did many years ago.  Again, this wants thinking about.

Is it all worth it?

This is the crux of the whole affair.  Supposing that we found enough heroes/suckers
to undertake this work, and enough people to finance it, is it really worth the
candle?  It is perfectly possible, one
assumes, to go repairing the present Belfry for ever, until eventually there is
not a single piece of original wood left in the building.  For many years now, various club members have
suggested a permanent club building.  It
would seem that now is as good a time as any to face the problem squarely, and
either get on with it or forget it.  I
would further suggest that if we do decide to forget it then, unless something
happens to change the situation overnight we should bury the idea for a goodly
number of years.

S.J. Collins.

Surveys.

The following surveys are also available form Bryan Ellis
(see page 2 of this B.B. for his address).

Brownes’ Hole (2/-)   Eastwater (2 sheets) (8/3)   Lamb Leer (3/4)   Pinetree Pot (3/-)   St. Cuthbert’s (plan)  (3/3)  Stoke Lane (4/3)   Goatchurch
(2/6)   Holwell Cave (2/9)   Pate Hole (2/3)   Quaking House Cave (2/6)   St. Cuthbert’s (section) (2/6)   September series (1/-)   Swildons (4/3)   Caves of Cheddar Gorge (4/3)

Packing and Postage…1 sheet 1/-   2 sheets 1/6   3 – 4 sheets 2/-.