Caving Secretary's Report 1979

1979 has been a reasonably active year for the B.E.C. and all major and minor Mendip Caves have been visited at least once by members of the club. Cuthbert’s has seen 33 tourist trips to date and digging is taking place at Sump 2 where Mr. 'N' is blasting away the roof with the help of Butch.  Dave Turner has also been digging at Sump 1, hoping to enter a fossil system and has used various ingenious pieces of piping to direct the water!

During the year the Wigmore site has been tidied up and the cave capped but not locked.  The club has re-opened Tynings and as soon as a stile and fencing has been put up the key (kept at the Belfry) will be available to bona-fid caving clubs.

There has been a large increase this year in the number of club trips to other regions particularly Yorkshire.  Many members have visited the newly found Link Pot at Easegill and I believe Stu Lindsey has been down it at least half a dozen times!!  G.G., Mongo Gill, Peak Cavern are just a few of the sites visited.

The last 2 points worth mentioning are that valid C.C.C. temporary permits are now available at the Belfry.  The club also has its own Lamb Leer key which is available at the Belfry.

A meeting between the B.E.C. committee and the St. Cuthbert’s Leaders was held on Sunday 20th May to discuss insurance and I have copies of the minutes for those interested.

Martin Grass
1.8.79

Tackle Masters Report, 1979

During the last year, 180ft. of ladder has been rewired and all except the ultra-lightweight ladder has been dipped in lanolin.  We have purchased enough rungs to produce 15 twenty foot ladders (ultra-lightweight) and 15 twenty foot standard ladders.  To complete this task of building new ladders we are waiting for the delivery of taper pins and talurits from the manufacturers.

At the beginning of the Club year the tackle key was removed from general access and arrangements were made to enable members to apply to the Committee for a personal key.  Four ladders and 2 tethers together with two lifelines were left in the shower room for general use by members.  This equipment was rotated to even out the wear. Although members were able to obtain their own key to the tackle store by first applying to the Committee only two keys were requested.  This system is by no means perfect but it was felt by me and the Committee that a tightening up of tackle access was necessary due to the fact that we had lost so much tackle in the previous years.  We have had returned 5 ladders but there is still a considerable amount of tackle still missing.

The following list is the accountable tackle as at 3 August 1979:

Spreaders 1, 2, 3

Tethers 7, 10, 12, 13, 16.

Ladders: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 33, 44, 45 and 48

Ultra-lightweight ladder: 24, 26, 28, 41, 42 & 43

450ft of super Braidline Nylon 10mm

1000ft of digging rope.

I would like to take the opportunity of thanking Graham Wilton-Jones and Garth Dell for their assistance throughout the year and also the members who altered the stone Belfry making tackle storage easier.

John Dukes, August 1979

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