Participants

Absent

Jonathan Mitchinson (JM) – Chair

Kate Evans (KE) – Secretary

Rob Cook (RC) – Walking Secretary

Will Jones (WJ) – Walking Secretary

Alex Everest (AE)– Climbing Secretary

Bethany Kippin (BK) – Orienteering Secretary

Kai Pheasant (KP) – BUCS Captain

Sebastien Morales Feliu (SMF) – Web Secretary

Conor Smith (CS) – Gear Secretary

Kate Callaghan (KC) – Social Secretary

Hugh Sanderson (HS) – Postgraduate Secretary

Harley Beattie (HB) – Voting Member

Matthew Rochester (MR)- Treasurer

Laura Bosomworth (LB) – Welfare and Inclusivity Officer

Jonathan White (JW) – Climbing Secretary

Item

Original item date

Brief description of original issue + update

Further action required from

7

20^th August

New SU Sport membership

Insurance

How do we insure our members if we have centralised membership and ability to turn up to all clubs events?

Some climbing sessions, sunday walks and some orienteering events already open to public and not covered by BMC insurance as low enough risk.

Grace period of 3 months covers 1^st semester, then if they want to join in 2^nd semester then we may need to charge for people to add them to insurance, or we will be back to normal and we can charge as usual. Contact details needed for this 3 month period.

Separate insurance through British orienteering which is £20 as one off payment. Individuals need to pay additional amount (£5 under 20 and £10 over 20) to be personally insured but club is insured if we affiliate the club.

BUMC/SU Sport members

Currently we have 2 membership options, a prospective and a paid membership option.

Paid membership is £5, however there is no way to upgrade at the minute from prospective to paid. At the minute have to wait until 3 month period is over and it has expired, or contact SU and get them removed as prospective members then ask them to rejoin.

Prospective membership is covered under the SU general

sport membership and is just a case of filling out a form.

20 members on the prospective member list so need to contact them.

At the end of the 3 months, they are removed as a member of BUMC on the SU page, so will need to be removed from the teams page, probably managed by us.

Also they will be able to rejoin as prospective member but wont be covered by grace period of insurance so will need to look into this.

How are we convincing people to be a BUMC specific member

Prospective member covered for 3 months under trial event so can offer free events to them under general SU membership. Currently have access to Sunday walks, weekly indoor climbing, virtual sessions, orienteering and running sessions.

Paid members get BMC insurance for the whole year, including outside club events, access to learn to belay and learn to lead, any day trips (sally in the woods, cheddar etc.) (wild camps with small capacity if possible) and access to gear and Facebook group.

JM acting to solve the upgrading issue

KE to contact these members and alert them of prospective membership, the difference and get the to complete survey for insurance, then find out if they want to become a full member or not, in which case need to email SU to get them removed so they can re-join as a paid member.

8

20^th August

Update on conversation with climbing walls

Mostly bouldering but potential to use local climbing e.g. sally in the woods however, personal cars needed to get there.

Informalized learn to belay or learn to lead on e.g. contact us if you want to learn to belay or want to learn to climb?

TCA

Extended taster sessions (shoe hire etc. included), to be arranged in order to spread out across universities and enable to make smaller groups. With reduced contact hours, the tasters could be not on Wednesday. Regular beginner sessions needed throughout the whole year.

Attempts to contact TCA at the moment about capacity on Wednesday afternoon climbs, and turning up with 6+ people at a time as we cant do much about it

Redpoint

Learn to belay and learn to offered by their coaches to teach members on shorter course (3 hours not 5 hours) with 8 sessions of groups of 4 people per day, but charging £30 per sessions so blow to members and a blow to inclusivity. Reduced rate already so not prepared to reduce it much more as it barely covers salary of teachers.

Caution with club clothing and managing taking groups of people and other people going anyway. Any hard limits on number of people we can take? Maybe we don’t take people as a club and assume groups going at a similar time? No organised freshers events and need to reinforce guidelines on facebook as we are representatives of BUMC and UoBath so need to be considerate of government guidelines.

JW to follow up with TCA about this

10

20^th August

Mentoring

Potential for mentoring groups of new and old members so that people can have other people they know within the club, and information passed up and down (e.g. climbing, walking etc.) via our members/mentors? However, reduced inclusivity with this if we mentoring is informal or not publicised as increased barriers to those who want to join? Can do it in a ‘contact us if you’re interested’ way? Need to see how we get on in terms of numbers and engagement. No need if we have lots of people coming to events but may be worth it if we have poor engagement.

When we host an event (within facebook group), should have the person who is running it be introduced so that you know who’s their for questions/queries (email address/contact details) so people have a familiar face/someone to go to for advice/ etc.

Item

Discussion/Description

Action required from

13

Budget
 

We have budget for insurance.

No money for activities so if we want to put down deposits for next years trips then we will have nothing left – currently Freshers trip, Peaks and Christmas trip from last year money has gone out.

Online speakers may need to be paid from activities budget.

Gear budget has been halved.

Prospective membership should save club money in terms of membership as not paying for those people who only turn up to 2/3 events.

MR to chase up and check with RH and JTK and huts as money for the trips shouldn’t have come out as potentially should have been paid for last year (need to check on emails)

14

Plans for trips/semester activities?

Not offering shared transport for club events so either have to do it around Bath and Bristol or say personal cars only/public transport only. Could potentially use buses and public transport then personal cars to take gear, or hire an MPV and shuttle people there from local stations if need be although this is intensive.

Wednesday afternoon climb – subject to conversation with TCA as may be restricted by who we can take and what we do once we are there.

Infrequent learn to belay sessions run on campus somewhere in small groups of 1:3 so that these skills are passed on. Really important to teach and have information passed down the club. Paid members only.

Orienteering nav training on a Sunday.

Occasional trad days outside e.g. fairy caves, cheddar gorge, sally in the woods. Need to look into transport for these though as official SU events need to be 30 and unofficial events need to be groups of 6 but could send multiple groups of 6 but would need to be separate.

Sunday walks every other Sunday.

Tuesday running sessions potentially as running important to orienteering. However, may be too many events so can see if we need them or not, if we are overwhelmed with people then can add them on but at the moment if BK can’t run then nobody to run the sessions at the moment.

15

What is our online offer?

Weekly discord pub

Usually Thursday as consistency with days are good and people might have things to do at the weekend, and it means that people know that socials are on that day and people can keep it free if they want to go. It would be good as well to get a consistent turnout as members not meeting in person etc. so need to get to know each other.

Fortnightly training sessions

Online nav, online rope work and an online speaker (ex-BUMC ISB instructor on winter mountaineering) every other week form Tuesday 13^th October. Potentially hang boarding, online coaching, basic first aid in future etc. but depending on engagement and who is turning up etc. can alter the sessions and online speakers accordingly. Open to prospective and paid members, however some may be paid members only, if restrictions on numbers e.g. first aid and online speakers.

S&C sessions

Weekly S&C sessions for consistency - so it can be part of your routine and can actually get stronger. Maybe Monday evenings?

How to we keep attendance consistent?

If we are doing lots of things in the week will attendance be poor? Might need to play it by ear and tone it down or up as necessary. Might also be worth as advertising as formal and informal so that things don’t get muddled and people don’t turn a training session into a social or something.

Hill running league on Strava in coordination with other clubs

Competition between clubs and could do a post and say if you want to do a run, do this run on this day and you can go together. Might be worth using facebook to do this?  

Facebook

Facebook group needs to be used differently – Allows current members and alumni to arrange unofficial personal trips. Alumni is strong and present on the facebook group, and lots of them live in Bristol and nearby surroundings so still attend events. If the facebook group content was done on teams then it would be hectic and it will become unusable as there are so many inactive or non-participating members in the group.

All official communication must go through teams and emails. Discussed potential of putting the official communications on the facebook group too, so that members are all aware and encouraged to attend. However, might not be the best idea regarding capacity and may confuse new members on the purposes of the facebook group. Also don’t want to create a situation where there are prospective members who feel like it’s a us vs them situation. Could always link teams to facebook as a reminder that this is where we are doing our official communication and this is where all the official events are being discussed. 12 voted for no communication on facebook. 3 votes for duplicated posts on facebook and teams - Can open up for discussion again if it becomes problematic.

KC and SMF to sort out handing over of admin rights or new discord channel and to advertise socials

LB to organise S&C sessions

BK to organise this

16

Alumni fund application

A dozen pair of new climbing shoes would be good to have as climbing inside and outside is not good in normal shoes.

CS to complete application

17

Event planning forms

Event planning form will be filled in once for each type of activity e.g. a Sunday walk or weekly climb. New form needed for each type of activity.

To deal with the liability issues then we will create a group leader list where people have signed off that they are competent to lead and that they have read the risk assessment so are aware of their responsibilities as a group leader. Doesn’t state competence, just gets leaders to accept responsibility and determine own abilities. Should probably be tracked so that if something goes wrong or the risk assessment changes then people are taken off or added on, and the form is redone/the responsibility must be re-accepted before they can run an activity.

Originally committee only, with secretaries who can add people at their own discretion but shouldn’t open up to everyone. Then can open up to others as needed as we progress through the year. Can also pick and choose these people from the trip forms on the basis of their stated experience e.g. climbing experience on google forms for trips, but should be assessed later on in person.

Secretaries to complete event planning forms and to sort out group leaders at their discretion

18

Transport

What info do we have

No info from SU – everything we do has to follow government guidelines and then BMC guidelines so shared transport should be avoided wherever possible but still allowed, and other precautions needed e.g. face masks and social distancing. It is up to us to decide if we want to use any transport and our own regulations that we want to enforce. However, there are no SU vehicles so we have to hire them but can only put 3 people of them in order to maintain social distancing.

Personal lift sharing

Idea to stick to similar groups of people who are lift sharing. Might be a good idea to put out a message saying that guidelines should be followed.

Caution with club kit and lift sharing /lots of groups standing together at the climbing walls

Put a post on facebook regarding the current government guidelines and saying that people need to follow guidelines.