Participants

Absent

Jonathan Mitchinson (JM) – Chair

Kate Evans (KE) – Secretary

Rob Cook (RC) – Walking Secretary

Will Jones (WJ) – Walking Secretary

Bethany Kippin (BK) – Orienteering Secretary

Kai Pheasant (KP) – BUCS Captain

Kate Callaghan (KC) – Social Secretary

Hugh Sanderson (HS) – Postgraduate Secretary

Matthew Rochester (MR)- Treasurer

Jonathan White (JW) – Climbing Secretary

Sebastien Morales Feliu (SMF) – Web Secretary

Conor Smith (CS) – Gear Secretary

Laura Bosomworth (LB) – Welfare and Inclusivity Officer

Harley Beattie (HB) – Voting Member

Alex Everest (AE)– Climbing Secretary

Item

Original item date

Brief description of original issue + update

Further action required from

13

22^nd September

Budget
 

Potential reallocation of activities budget to gear budget as we want to do things more local so less budget needed but we need more gear if we are running things locally.

Update

Even after reallocation of some of the activities budget to the gear budget we still have a lot of our budget left for the year so need to look into running some events in semester 2 to use some of this.

14

22^nd September

Plans for trips/semester activities?

Outdoor climbing?

Potential to get bus to Sally in the woods, with personal cars taking boulder pads, and with rocks behind campus. Issue with weather, daylight hours and planning anything in advance.

Learn to belay

Offer from TCA – 4 hour learn to belay course for £40 and months membership included in it (£39 by itself). Only issue is that the people have to be from the same household.

Currently asked for 12 spaces initially so waiting for reply. Need to find someone that you want to learn with and run 6 signups as TCA have said that you need to live with the person that you learn with – hopefully weekly climbing thread will help with meeting people. Will be run on Wednesday afternoon, but more info needed from TCA re: committee members escorting them etc.

Follow up about organisation of outdoor climbing?

2 possible lines around the back of campus so could try to arrange for 31^st Saturday morning with rotating groups of 4 there for an hour (with half an hour either side to get there and back) with AE and JW belaying as intro to outdoor climbing. Limitations of kit as can’t clean it; it has to be quarantined.

Increasing walk capacity 

Potential to trial running a slightly larger walk (8-10), but it is harder to maintain social distancing and risk of public perception of us, especially if the groups are bigger than 6. Ideally still have 4 groups as harder to run more groups on same route, and limits on number of leaders available. Need for more volunteers to run walks.

Instead, could give a step by step guide of the route so that people can go off and do walks of their own accord. Could organise groups of 6 to go out and be on campus seeing them off, and then give out phone number of a walking sec or another committee member so that if they get really stuck, they can ring us.

Activities rota?

Plan to set up a table that we can enter our names in to for events that we are happy to assist with. Need to ensure competency and that we have read risk assessment for the activities.

Update

All on hold due to lockdown

JW to liaise with TCA and discuss advertising

AE and JW to organise outdoor climbing

16

22^nd September

Alumni fund application

Reallocation of activities budget to gear budget so will apply for a dozen pair of new climbing shoes, of which we will pay £180 and ask for £180 from them.

Update

Alumni fund has given us £540 so we will order 24 pairs of beginner climbing shoes and we don’t need to match the amount we have been given.

20

8^th October

Inclusivity

Identification of need to raise awareness and engagement with resources, starting with committee and then working outwards, so that the environment in the club is welcoming, as history of culture in mountaineering being problematic for those from underprivileged backgrounds.

Can we liaise with race equality and SU diversity groups to do this, rather than having to start from scratch? Potential for financial subsidy from SU to help with inclusivity?

Update from sub-group of committee?

SMF, BK and KP to work on educating committee and BUMC about black and ethnic minority issues, through provision of information and sharing of posts etc. with an aim to focus on equity not equality. Plan is to attend a colour up Bristol session and hope is to open this up to the wider club later.

Feedback form to go out for us to act on.

Subgroup of committee to try to organise some actual events (when allowed)

23

8^th October

Bath City Race - Fundraiser with BOK

Orienteering event that we could help with and BOK can give us the funds made from it for the club, which we are able to use for our activities, providing we go through RAG.

We have checked to ensure that it is viable, and have emailed to see what is possible. Waiting to hear back about what they are happy for us to help with.

Bathampton down orienteering event

We can help organise an event in the end of February in Bathampton down, which they have the permissions for. Provisional yes that we can get some money from this (depending on how many people we can provide for an on the day team (ideally 10-15) so they have to provide fewer people). Our team would be coordinating welcome, check in, parking etc. so not too much effort  and good in terms of relationships with BOK so would be good to help them out, and we could get a large proportion of money from this. Money is less of an issue at the moment, but should increase involvement in the club and growth of orienteering in this year and future years. Good in terms of location as it is near uni so good to increase numbers and raise awareness about orienteering and no travel involved. Hopeful that it will still happen (COVID permitting). Potential alternative to a trip as well.

Given the go ahead so plan is to send out some feeders to see who would be willing to volunteer. Need to liaise with the SU and start organising.

BK to coordinate with BOK and SU

24

8^th October

First aid training

Contact with Matt Price (organises SU first aid training). Extension for expiry of certificates providing employer (SU) has shown that we are trying to rearrange ASAP training. Courses were supposed to be rearranged for November but due to lockdown they haven’t been able to go ahead.

26

5^th November

Club gear

Thoughts of doing some gear to offer people so they can feel like they are part of the club. For now, can order the SU sport Under Armour stuff with mountaineering on, then later on in semester we can do some of the club specific stuff later in the year. Company in Bath that we can get a discount on when we order over a specific amount.

Item

Discussion/Description

Action required from

28

Update on BOF affiliation

British orienteering sorting affiliation so we should be affiliated by January. As KE and JM are not members of British Orienteering then we cannot register this with them so we have just used the British Orienteering members from BUMC committee instead. Need at least 3 people on committee who are members of the British orienteering in the future.

29

Plans for Christmas and exam period

End of year social – quiz or something to celebrate the year. Advertise it more and could use it to set a standard for what the socials are going to be for the rest of the year.

Climbing talk being sorted for revision week so need to ensure this is advertised well.

Virtual orienteering up which can be used over Christmas and exams so just need to advertise these.

Walks would be beneficial to keep putting them up over exam periods so we are providing something for people to do as a break from exams. Maybe need to set these up to be automated so its less of an issue for committee needing to put time aside for this.  

Can continue running discord socials as no additional work needed for these.

Could run a photo competition with everyone taking a mountaineering photo from home and we can showcase them at the end.

Advertisements will need to go out in the final Sunday email this week for any specific dates and can continue to advertise things via teams/Instagram etc. and can send reminder emails for individual events.

30

Review of semester 1 and plans for semester 2

What went well

Orienteering has done well with good engagement in events, especially as we have been able to maintain events throughout lockdown.

Walking has gone well as provision of walks each week have been successful and in person walks have been well engaged with, and enabled connection with members. Potentially could have advertised on SU social media and on other sites but have overall been good.

TCA taster sessions have been beneficial to get people climbing and engage with newer climbers however harder with current restrictions i.e. having to stick in groups of 6 etc.

Bigger and in person socials e.g. cocktail night and bar crawl have gone well and been well engaged with, as able to have larger numbers overall splitting into smaller groups as didn’t need to have anyone overseeing them so we were able to send people off doing things.

When advertisement improved about the Tuesday sessions with Ollie Mentz talks, then more and more people engaged following that.

Alumni fund was successful for climbing shoes, and gear spreadsheets and logs are now up to date, and gear store is now organised.

Good engagement and good provision of services compared to other sports and other committees.

How to improve

Across the board we want to improve engagement with older members, however we are unsure of why (what we are offering, people being busier, doing what they normally do so not engaging outside of that etc.)

Want to improve building relationships with first years so need good ratio of leaders/committee members to our normal members to facilitate interaction. Harder with COVID restrictions but needed for retention of members and for committee next year. Potential improvement with more regular faces in second semester but we want to improve on this. Need to ensure more of the older members and more of committee going to socials to encourage more of the other members to go, as people will only go to events if there are other people there, so if we don’t go to socials then nobody will go.

Inclusivity plans to be built upon – colour up Bristol, funding for climbing shoes, surveys to go out about what we could do better etc. as these came to a halt with lockdown.

Lack of climbing – harder to offer with weather, lockdown and COVID restrictions but would be good to get some more climbing events running. Potentially need to be more flexible e.g. sign-ups closer to the day, different days due to the weather etc. 

31

Plans for semester 2

Need to figure out how people are going to renew memberships with SU and how it will be handled with prospective members, that people know that this is coming to an end and removing them from the teams and BMC.