J. Meeting 10 [04/03/22] AGM

BUMC Committee 21/22

3^rd March 2022 – AGM

Participants

Absent

Jonathan White (JW) – Chair

Kate Evans (KE) – Secretary

Ffion Loring (FL)- Treasurer

Vanesa Dimitrova (VD) – Media Secretary

Hugh Sanderson (HS) – Social Secretary

Robert Haseler (RH) – Gear Secretary

Josh Nicholas (JN) – Walking Secretary

Emma Wilkes (EW) – Climbing Secretary

Thomas Hodges (TH)– Climbing Secretary

Jonny Ellis (JE) – Orienteering Secretary

Bethany Kippin (BK) – Orienteering Secretary

Joseph Shouksmith (JS) – Voting Member

Artemi Kursi (AK) – Walking Secretary

Vicky Bennett (VB) – Welfare and Inclusivity Officer

Past items

Item	Original item date	Brief description of original issue + update	Further action required from
32	28^th October 2021	Transport update Update MPVs for longer trips (not weekends) can be booked now, so we had one for ISB (£38 per day) and can book one for Font. Difficulty with booking due to taking them abroad. Also issues with booking ferry, as won’t have registration. May be able to get one for summer trip. To train drivers, we only paid for 1 day MPVs hire and the fuel for that. This will come out of the club budget rather than the trip budget. Issue with training is that you can only extend hire rather than hire them for a single day.
35	23^rd November 2021	Inclusivity Award Current ideas for inclusivity events include liasing with GB paraclimber in Bristol, ColourUp Bristol etc. Other examples include womens only climbing events, beginners climbing training, navigation and training sessions, inclusive socials etc. Would be good to run a disability access climbing event but nobody in Bristol to run it at the minute. 7^th March is the official deadline but would probably be fine if we have things booked in to happen by this time. Update Talking to a Charity called Bristol Inclusive Thrillseekers to try to arrange a talk. Ideally would tag it on as a social, and would be easier to do it on campus. Could open it up to others as well. Bring your own food and drink as a sober social. If Thursdays not available then any other day not Wednesday would be best. External speaker form must be completed in advanced time.	VB to liaise with JE and BK about orienteering inclusivity Secretaries to plan inclusivity activities within their sports
37	23^rd November 2021	Semester 2 trip plans Update 12/13^th Feb - Week off 19/20^th Feb - BUCS climbing 26/27^th Feb - BUCS orienteering 5/6^thMarch - Night hike – hut sorted for Saturday night. To be advertised on the SU webpage and amongst club ASAP. 12/13^th March - Portland climbing trip potentially – need to book the hut, whole hut sleeps 40 people. 19/20^th March - SWUBS competition potentially 26/27^th March - Wild camp to Dartmoor – need to find drivers 2/3^rd April – Dartmoor climbing trip Easter – Font Nothing after Easter No orienteering trips planned other than BUCS.	Anyone planning a trip should put dates on internal calendar and start planning Orienteering and climbing secs to put provisional dates into the calendar.
44	14^th December 2021	Alumni fund application Update Application has been sent for bouldering pads.
46	10^th February 2022	Gear store light Light flickers and doesn’t work so need to get it fixed.	RH to chase up gear store light
47	10^th February 2022	Summer trip 22 Proposed to go to the Gower. Exams finish on the 1^st June, with bank holidays on 2^nd and 3^rd. Summer ball is on Friday the 3rd. Proposed to go on the Sunday to Wednesday so that people can do both summer ball and summer trip.	JE to send link to the campsite
48	10^th February 2022	Christmas trip 22 Proposed to go to Snowdonia to the Chamois hut that we have been to before.	JW to book
49	10^th February 2022	Socials Summer social to be on the 3^rd June. Sober social for movie night proposed to be next week. Could either do a film night on campus or combine this with Frome boulder rooms x UKBanff Filmfest in Komedia (15^th and 16^th Feb) Will try to squeeze in sober social between AGM and hustings. Could do a board games social, either at board games café or using SU’s supply. Could do a score social towards the end of semester. Could also do minigolf when it warms up. Proposed to do a pub quiz either before or after exams.	HS to organise sober socials
50	10^th February 2022	Club stash Would be good to have some to identify club members at the climbing walls. Proposed to do design a t-shirt, and do a poll for something else. Could do fleeces, soft shells or hats as well. Update Facebook poll up on now for people to vote on. Need to consider what we want to represent the club as next year, as this is what people will see when they meet the club next year. Can always run 2 designs if there is demand.	RH to pin posts
51	10^th February 2022	Climbing tasters Going to do a trip to the new climbing wall in Chippenham, the Arc. No plan to do many more climbing tasters to Bristol.
52	10^th February 2022	COVID policy Plan to keep 2 tests before going on trips. Potentially need to review refund policy. Proposed to remove refund with a positive test, unless we can find a replacement.
55	10^th February 2022	Trip reports Trip reports to be written for all trips which happened last semester.	Anyone who ran a trip to write the trip report

New items

Item	Discussion/Description	Action required from
56	Introduction from 2021/22 Committee and update on all positions Introduction of roles from 21/22 committee members in attendance. Those absent and not covered by others were introduced by JW.
57	Budget update Roughly stuck to budgeted amounts for each trips. Freshers trip came under budget, we made ~£300 on BritRock, profit made from orienteering event run with Bristol last semester which is due to come in this week. ~£600 left in gear budget ~£2000 left in trip budget (~£600 left after Font and Summer trip)
58	Constitution Changes Secretary – update of responsibilities Addition of statement for secretary regarding insurance (point k) and health declaration forms (point l). k) Responsible for maintaining BMC insurance and affiliation l) Maintain club health declaration records and distribute to trip leaders when necessary 23 votes for yes, 0 votes for no, 0 abstained. Update of Appendix II - Club General Meetings Update regarding frequency of General meetings to remove contradictions so both points say once per year, as currently 1) e) says that General meetings occur once every academic semester, whilst 8) a) x) says ‘at least one Club General Meeting a year’ Proposed change: 1) e) club general meetings should take place once in every academic year 21 votes for yes, 2 votes for no, 0 abstained. Reintroduction of BUCS Coordinator Last year we removed the BUCS coordinator to give us space on committee another orienteering secretary. Originally removed as BUCS coordinator only did the majority their role in 3 weeks of the year, and had minimal role in actual committee affairs but still attend all meetings and vote in committee business etc. Decided that instead, the secretaries would be responsible for BUCS of their respective sports, and then a member of the team would be elected as BUCS captain for that sport, and they would be able to liaise with committee and attend meetings where necessary. Difficulty this year with not having access to club account and website. Would be good in some ways to have a BUCS coordinator in order to maintain BUCS team throughout the year and have some dedicated training sessions, so there was some consistency and some additional training prior to competitions. Issue this year was that the SU BUCS policy changed and so we didn’t find out final numbers for BUCS until ~1 week prior, hence the limited number of training sessions. Main issue with re-introducing BUCS coordinator is that we have to reduce the size of committee anyway, and if we are able to get them access to club account then it worked well as a coordinator role this year. Vote to reintroduce BUCS coordinator as a committee role: 4 votes for yes. 10 votes for no. 8 abstained.
59	Committee for 2022/23 New SU Groups policy and effect on elections SU groups policy updated 2 years ago, but we as a club were not aware of these changes so found out last week that all designated positions were going (except chair and treasurer) and we would only be allowed 12 positions. We then protested this, alongside many other clubs and societies, and we now have 12 designated positions (chair and treasurer being 2 of them). Alongside these 12 positions we could also elect members of the club to become ‘coordinators’ and help with the running of the club. Therefore we now need to remove 3 committee members. Ideally we would keep all 15 as they all play an important role in committee. However, unlikely to be much leniency in numbers as wouldn’t likely have the backing from SU membership and it has been in the SU groups policy for a while it just hasn’t been implemented. Additionally, the argument for 12 committee members and then having coordinators within the club to increase responsibility of the wider club members and outside of committee. Unsure of distinct roles of coordinators. We cover a broad range of activities so have a large committee, and as a club we should push it for future years to reintroduce these roles. However this is unlikely to come into play for next year so we still need to remove 3 committee members. Could look at moving orienteering into its own club, but orienteering is growing, and there is a lot of overlap with people, and the club is often entry into orienteering. 2 options: Option 1: Remove 1x climbing/walking/orienteering secretaries, and then add in a coordinator with website access Option 2: Remove 3 other roles e.g. postgrad, voting member and welfare and inclusivity. Option 1: Walking, orienteering and climbing secretaries x2 fairly essential as need contingency for when people get busy/have issues, and a lot of work for 1 person. Option 2: Concept of voting member is good but because it is not a well defined role, then there are often issues with not having a set goal and not having much to do, therefore it seems like a good one to remove. Argued that postgrad sec could be combined with W&I however having an obvious postgrad presence within the club is good as it is appealing to other postgrads wanting to join the club. Additionally if we had a younger W&I officer then they may find it difficult to organise events for postgrads. Proposed to combine social sec and media sec however they are quite important roles regarding communication with the membership and involve quite a lot of work behind the scenes. Could add in media sec role within respective secretaries but this would add work to other roles and could lead to inconsistency in the communication. Proposal to remove secretary and rotate minutes through committee but issue with BMC insurance and health declaration forms as this is usually centralised to 1 person so not sure who this responsibility would fall to. Argued that although W&I is a good role, and we should push to reinstate it but realistically we do need to lose 3 positions and it does seem like an obvious one to lose. Often if people have an issue for W&I they would go to who they know better or who was running that activity, but that only works if you know someone or it is specific to an activity. Argued that it is good to have an obvious W&I officer and person to discuss any issues you have. Also good for someone to pay lots of attention to W&I. Could come under remit of chair, but they have a big role so would be good for them not to be a designated W&I person. Could have W&I as a coordinator rather than as an actual committee role, but it is important to have incentive for this as otherwise it could get lost. Could be split it up across the club but then issues on how would we maintain knowledge and ability to handle these issues. Could combine W&I with media but that probably wouldn’t work, as the roles are not very compatible and the people who would apply for the roles are not necessarily the same. Could combine W&I with secretary which would work in terms of workload, but unsure on whether or not the people running for each role would work. Alongside this could increase it within the committee in general and run training sessions to implement this. Votes to remove voting member: 21 votes for yes, 2 votes for no, 0 abstained. Votes to remove postgrad sec: 17 votes for yes, 2 votes for no, 4 abstained. Votes to remove W&I officer: 1 votes for yes, 22 votes for no, 0 abstained. Votes to combining W&I officer with secretary: 18 votes for yes, 3 votes for no, 2 abstained. Votes to add in W&I role to secretary within the constitution: Lead on campaigns related to welfare and inclusivity within the club. Attend Welfare and Inclusivity Training provided by the SU. Promote actively the role to members so that they are aware of how they can raise concerns or issues within the club. Work to ensure appropriate committee members attend training provided by the SU. Be a reporting point for students in their club who wish to report welfare related incidents and work with committee or teams to resolve or signpost to relevant support. Ensure that where possible the club participates in the Inclusivity Award and co-ordinates this involvement. 20 votes for yes, 0 votes for no, 3 abstained. Votes to actively pursue reinstating full committee: 23 votes for yes Hustings 17th March Hustings will be on 17^th March, which will be where you can stand up for a role and say why you would be good at it. You don’t have to but it is encouraged. Nominations open from 14^th March until 20^th March so hustings is in the middle of this. Voting will be open from Wednesday 23^rd March-Sunday 27^th March.
60	Inclusivity Climbing tasters TCA have changed the way we run the tasters, so we now have to bring groups of 10, staggered in 15 minutes. Implemented to reduce bottlenecking at the door, which is understandable but it means that more leaders now needed in order to run these sessions. Issue with reduced inclusivity because of this as will be more difficult to know who is there with BUMC. SU also no longer do SU sport t-shirts which has previously been a good way to identify bath students. Alternatives are not feasible with aim to increase inclusivity as Flashpoint has increased prices and no longer offer discount so less inclined to go there for tasters, and Bloc has a similar high first entry price. TCA do tasters at £6.50 (inc. shoe hire). £16 for flashpoint first entry (inc. shoe hire) then £11 for subsequent visits (without shoe hire), similar prices for Bloc. Communication also worse with flashpoint and Bloc. How can we make climbing tasters more inclusive? Big issues with leaders leaving climbers at tasters, so need to make sure that leaders need to stay with their groups and introduce people to climbing/teach them how to do it. Then need to make sure that they get in ok and are comfortable with what is going on. Also would be good to show them how to fall properly to reduce injuries. Would also would be useful to have committee there and helping people, as well as the leaders. New members of the club commented that they didn’t know what was going on or who was part of the club. Previously had leaders taking groups down to TCA, showing them what to do for ~1 hour and giving them tips before leaving them to it. Also enables them to meet other people who they can climb with. In some ways, TCA’s new taster structure might help with this, and an added push from committee and older club members to talk to new members. Wednesday (and Saturday?) sessions could be more structured and have someone taking people from campus and getting them to TCA. Wednesdays should definitely be done, however the reality with Saturdays is that it is a lot of work and not many people turn up. Good to have a post on facebook with the name of the member of the club who will be walking down from campus to the train station being announced in advance. Need to figure out what time people would prefer as variety of times with the tasters and later ones seemed to be preferred, however we do have the Monday as designated evening climbing session, and Wednesday afternoon is sport Wednesday so makes sense to have it in the afternoon. Socials More space and seats desired at socials, to increase inclusivity and reduce how intimidating it might be to approach a big group of people with nowhere to sit. However, issue is that we can’t control what space we are given. We can control where we go, but the issue with that is that then we would end up at the same pubs fairly frequently. Ideally in the future would be good to have fewer last minute bookings and give estimates of numbers to help with inclusivity at socials. Also added push needed from committee and older club members to talk to people who are new to the pub and talk to people who are on their own, as balance needed between socialising with friends and making the club more welcoming. Core Members Previously an exclusive group of the club who have run a mini club within BUMC, without offering things to the wider club. Awareness that the club runs based on members attending regularly and volunteering to run trips etc. However, the discussion is mostly with regards to actually acknowledging/referencing core membership. This includes jokes about it, as need to consider outsiders perception of the club, and the fact that newer members may not understand this joke. Also need to ensure there is no preferential treatment of he members in regular attendance and ensure that they are not closing off the club (cliques). General improvement as a club needed with talking and engaging with new members.
61	Trips Number of spaces Lots of enquiries about increasing the trip size. However, not much we can do due to limited hut size, limited number of drivers and limited number of leaders. Although we could use public transport to overcome transport issues, this would be very expensive and there is still issues with hut size and number of leaders. Could be better at communicating why the trip size is limited, in order for people to understand why there are limited numbers. Prior requirements e.g. belaying As a club, trips are aimed to be as inclusive as possible. Some trips do have specific requirements e.g. Peaks trip or Portland and roped climbing, but always the option to do bouldering. Requirements also after learn to lead/belay sessions so it is not excluding people in this way. Currently trip requirements are probably as relaxed as possible, as an issue with safety concerns and knowing that people are competent, especially with leaders. Club has moved away from just being made up of members who knew what they were doing, and so does have increased inclusivity and transfer of skills so it is better than it previously has been. Proposed that the week before a trip we could take people attending trips through rope skills etc. but issue with teaching people in that short of a time. May be useful to still have a refresher session as don’t know how long ago people learnt these skills, so good to verify these skills. Trip plans for the remainder of the year Google calendar with all of our trip plans for the rest of the year. Overview of trips for the rest of semester: 5/6^thMarch - Night hike – hut sorted for Saturday night. To be advertised on the SU webpage and amongst club ASAP. 12/13^th March - Portland climbing trip potentially – need to book the hut, whole hut sleeps 40 people. 19/20^th March - SWUBS competition potentially 26/27^th March - Wild camp to Dartmoor – need to find drivers 2/3^rd April – Dartmoor climbing day trip Easter (16-23^rd April) – Font (only open if you went to interest meeting) Walking day trip somewhere in 2 weeks after Easter 5-8^th June – Summer trip Leaders on trips Thank you to anyone who has been a leader on a trip as lots of responsibility and commitment. Additional thanks with those who have run trips as well, especially with COVID testing etc. which has added another logistical layer to trips. Concerns regarding leaders on trips not getting much out of it, as teaching for most of the weekend, and still paying for it. However, legally, we can not give financial reimbursement as we are volunteers so it would void insurance, so the only thing we can offer is pre-signup or first choice of beds etc. Additionally, leaders are still getting transport and accommodation at a reduced rate, and often leaders have learnt skills from the club so it is their way of paying back to the club. Better solution to this may be if people had more information about what was going on beforehand e.g. refresher sessions and plans for the weekend so there is less time going through this on the trip and attendees and leaders can then get more out of it.
62	Club Facebook group Space for anyone in the club to post anything and publicise information. Good to have more engagement from the membership, about things other than trips/lifts/climbing as well. Engagement from membership Currently there is a lack of engagement in the facebook group for various reasons. One is that it has felt very formal so need to push informal side and social aspects as well. Another is that lots of facebook group is currently alumni, so it could be daunting to post in a group this big. Planning on having a cull, so asking people to like a post if they would like to stay in the club by a certain date, and pinning this post at the top, so will do this at the end of the year ready for next academic year. However, still going to be intimidating regardless of this as the club is still very large, and there are still the same names posting, meaning people are further put off posting. Overall need to have another push on engagement in facebook – trips, lifts, fun etc. and has to be from everyone, not just committee as otherwise seems just as exclusive to committee. Hopefully this will come with a general push to include new members within the club as a whole, not just in the facebook group. Also had the discussion that lots of people don’t use facebook anymore so could we think of another platform to use. W would be open to using an alternative but currently there is not another suitable platform that we can think of to use. Could use whatsapp but there would be too many people to fit in a group. Instead, for the moment it might be better to have a push for engagement and joining facebook group on other social media as lots of people may not know it exists or know how to use it. Weekly climbing threads Weekly climbing threads designed to centralise lift organisation, and to share where people are going climbing. However, lack of engagement with this and confusion over its purpose. Could just do poll for a Saturday morning, and then do structured climbing without the poll on a Wednesday, so less confusion of people going to different places at the same time as a structured session. However, most people go on a Wednesday as they have the time so good to have information available for those who don’t want to attend the structured session. Could make it more clear so people know what it is designed for. Same group going each time when lifts offered, so would be good to try to get more people to accept lifts so it doesn’t seem like it’s the same small group of people and seems less daunting. Newer members said they would find it useful to post that you comment ‘now full’ when cars are full so people are less worried about posting if the car is full. Freshers may not want to get a lift with people they don’t know from Oldfield, so maybe need to have more people going from campus.