| CHECC 2004 |
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As part of the ticket cost some basic food was included in the form of cereals and toast for breakfast, sandwiches and a BBQ on the Saturday night. This was supposed to be delivered by Tesco.com after we had ordered it on the Internet. I knew it was a big order but the Internet service happily let me put in large quantities, processed the order, presented me with a bill and took my card details (though the transaction wouldn't be processed until the food left the store). The food was ordered about a week in advance and I received confirmation emails so I assumed everything was fine. However on the way up to the seminar on Thursday I thought I'd ring and check everything was ok. I was rather shocked to find that this was the first time Tesco had looked at my order. Apparently they don't look at the orders until the morning they deliver. I was put through to the store, which was to deliver the order where they told me bluntly 'no way' as it was far too large and included large quantities of many items such as bread and beans. I was told that Tesco.com are targeted at delivering normal groceries not catering for large groups and that if they were to fulfil my order then other shoppers in store might miss out. The fact that 120 hungry cavers might miss out seemed to make little impression! I then spoke to the manager at Tesco.com in an effort to find some sort of resolution but they weren't interested in delivering any of the order even just the normal quantities! I then spoke to the manager at Tesco.com in an effort to find some sort of resolution. I suggested they deliver half the order, a quarter of it or just the items of which there were only single quantities as you might expect in a normal weekly shop. All were rejected as taking too much time. In short Tesco.com were not prepared to even discuss the matter, appalling customer service from the countries largest supermarket. What annoyed me even more was that if I hadn't called to check up on the order then I wouldn't have known about it until it didn't arrive! I arrived at the Helwith Bridge pub distraught and told Colin the landlord my predicament. After a quick phone call he drove me up the road to the Post office/village shop in Horton-in-Ribblesdale. The Post Office uses a wholesaler and Carolyn the proprietor was fairly confident she could get everything. I handed over the list and left it in her capable hands, my faith in humanity restored! Carolyn came through with the food on Friday morning and it was much better quality than the Tesco value stuff I'd ordered anyway. So in the end it was a good result for all concerned - except Ttesco! The first groups of cavers arrived from 4pm onwards and by 10.00pm the pub was absolutely heaving. It was great to see so many cavers from different clubs mixing and talking and after the earlier crisis with food I was beginning to get my confidence about the weekend back.feel the weekend would work out after all. On the following morning, I was awoken at 8.55am by Nigel Ball and Adam Evans (my alarm was set for 9.00am!). We'd hired the two CIC's for a training session at Inglesport and in their company I strolled into the hut to see people tucking into breakfast. Nigel and Adam spent all day at the wall, seeing one group in the morning and one group in the afternoon. The session was billed as basic SRT for novices with the intention of training up many of the freshers who have recently started caving. We were restricted by the number we were allowed to have at the wall but we still managed to put about almost thirty cavers through the session on Saturday. Most of the rest of theremaining 'delegates' went caving and a large number of trips to suit all abilities were put on. Saturday evening started with the Beer Ppong competition. which This involved sixteen teams of two, competing at throwing ping pong balls into each others drinks. A successful hit was rewarded by the, forcing their opponents to drink themopponent having to down their drink. The final was in front ofattended by a huge crowd in the main room and was a hotly contested affair between ex-members of SUCC (now living in Cardiff and having more to do with their caving club!?) and Kent UCC. The ex-students won but as the highest ranked university team Kent took the star prize. The rest of the evening was arranged around a stomp and BBQ. A marquee had been erected out side the old school house and a tarpaulin above the bbq's. With these we were able to cook and party outside despite the wind and the rain. Simon Love from Southampton brought his disco kit complete with lights, strobe and smoke machine and after the bbq turned the marquee in a dance floor. Competitions such as body traversing, bucket drinking, body rigging and a squeeze machine took place throughout the night, whilst people danced and drank. An arrangement was made with the Helwith Bridge for people to bring their drinks across to the hut, which ensured we didn't run out of beer. The stomp also saw a live performance of the soon to be very popular "gun's don't kill people, ramblers do!" inspired by a similar song by GLC. Sometime around four o'clock the party wound down and I headed for bed but I understand there was still plenty of drinking going on over an hour later! On the Sunday there were more caving trips and training all day at the wall, this time billed as a general session open to all. Despite the alcohol induced slow start to the morning we got a group off to the wall in the morning and other people dropped in for a bit of training or advice throughout the day. In total roughly sixty cavers received some sort of training over the weekend which meant we achieved an increase on previous years thanks to running sessions on two days and using two instructors. The hope is that making free training available to university clubs will go some way to alleviating the pressure put on by universities and student unions. The most recent example of this being the SUSS fiasco, something we are still trying to fight. For those too hung over we did several presentations including the one on the Berger, Yunnan 2004, a trip to Romania and Matienzo. We started off with a video about the Yunnan 2004 expedition, then moved onto the Berger and it was all was going well until I started my presentation on Yunnan. About halfway through there was a loud crash from outside. We ran out just time to see the marquee going past the window and into the road taking down the telephone line in the process! Fortunately all the disco equipment had already been removed so no serious damage was done to that. However twenty orf so very hungover cavers then had to dismantle the marquee as it lay in the road with the wind trying to drag it away. Suffice to say Sunday was seriously extremely windy and I had to rescue another couple of smaller tents as they were blown around the campsite. The only positive thing was that it forced us to tidy the remains of the party up outside. I did finally manage to finish my presentation after lunch without anymore interruptions. The seminar finished up officially aboutat 4.30 with a short closing ceremony thanking everyone who helped put the event on and I was surprised by a present everyone had chipped in for. Thanks must go to all the people who helped me put on the event and in particular the following people. James Bouchard All the sponsors: For more information on CHECC and the seminars see http://www.checc.org/ Competition winners: Body Traversing - SUSS Note: None of these photos are actually mine - they have all been taken by various other people and friends. So firstly thanks and secondly if you want me to take them down, all you have to do is ask.
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On the 26th-28th Nov the Council of Higher Education Caving Clubs (CHECC) put on the third university caving seminar. 
