Dundee University Rucksack Club

Minutes of Committee meeting 09/08/06 1900 to ~2130

Present

Mhairi Martin	Sarah Brotherstone
Jon Bowyer	Allan McCulloch

Apologies

Julia Capper    

Andrew McKenzie

Miriam Brown

1. President’s Report

1.1 Minibus hire

A meeting was held with David Nicol (Manager of Enterprise) to establish terms for minibus hire. In order to reduce the potential for problems / mistakes with billing, it was agreed that bills would be paid on Monday upon return of the hired minibus by cheque.

1.2 Membership Price

It was agreed that the membership price must be increased next academic year to £25 to help offset overall increased club expenditure and accommodate overspend from the previous year.

1.3 An email was sent to the committee by a member with the following comments on the last committee minutes.

• Concern over changing constitution / safety policy. To clarify there will be NO changes to the safety policy. The constitution will be updated with only minor amendments (e.g.  changing wording such as summer term to second semester)
• Pub change – The comments have been noted and were considered

1.4 Fresher’s pack

It was decided that an A5 fresher’s booklet will be produced this year to replace the A4 sheets provided in previous years. This will be more durable and easier to keep for reference. It was proposed that it should contain the following sections:-

• Club History / Background
• Meets info
• Social Events Calendar
• Safety policy
• Constitution
• Munro tick list
• Gear kit list / Gear store location
• List of courses e.g. Conville
• Information about Climbing competitions

1.5 Lecture suggestion

On reviewing historical minutes (from 2000), a suggestion to request RAF Leuchars mountain rescue to do a lecture was made. It was felt this was a good suggestion. The VP has plans to find a slot for this after all other lectures have been organised.

1.6 Courses Funding

It was proposed that funding for courses could be split 3 ways

• Club
• Sports Union
• Personal contribution

This is to be pursued with the Sports Union.

1.7 Honorary Positions

Andy Pat has agreed to take the position of Honorary VP.

Dave MacLeod has agreed to take position of Honorary VP

2 VP Report (Sent by email)

2.1 Navigation lecture.

The navigation lecture will be given by Roger Wild (MCofS) and will take place on Wednesday 4th of October.
Venue and time TBC
The navigation practice meet will be Sunday the 8th of October (possibly on Lawers Range)

2.2 Safety and Good Practice seminar

This lecture is again to be given by Roger Wild and will take place on Wednesday 1st November
Venue and time TBC
This is the pre-amble for the winter skills and safety seminar to take place at Glenmore lodge on the 18th and 19th of November, but other members not attending the seminar will find it beneficial to attend, and will be encouraged to do so.
Places will be available for the seminar, and I will start to take names of interested members shortly after the slideshow.  I am not aware of a limit on numbers.

2.3 Avalanche lecture

This will be given by Blythe Wright on Tuesday the 16th of January.
Venue and time TBC
The Winter Experience is on Sunday the 11th of January and will give members a chance to see some of the conditions talked about in the lecture (weather permitting) hopefully helping to bring it more into context.  

2.4 Pre-winter experience DVD
With the avalanche lecture during the week before the winter experience I would suggest showing the DVD during semester one.  It is often the case that new members with no experience of winter walking experience snow before the winter experience, perhaps by showing the DVD in mid to late November we can help to make this group more aware of the dangers and pitfalls of winter mountaineering….

2.5 Slideshow
The slideshow is all but complete, and has been piloted on my sister… she hates hill walking, and admitted to being just a little jealous and wanting to go out in the mountains!!  Just a little re-arrangement of pictures to be done.
The slideshow will be Wednesday the 20th of September
Venue and time TBC, I will get this booked in the next week.

2.6 First aid
After considering several options, I am in the process of organising a course to be run on a Saturday.
There are several reasons for this:
The club does not have funding to pay for an expensive course, and although money would probably be provided by the sports union, this is not guaranteed, so I did not want to commit the club to anything at this stage.
It is likely that a larger number of members will be able to take part (maybe as many as 25 to 30 TBC), whereas a more expensive course would be seriously limited where numbers are concerned.
I am waiting to hear back from the man who I have contacted regarding this.
I will conduct a kind of sign-up the week before, and any remaining places could be offered to other outdoor clubs (such as the canoe club) I imagine that several places would be available if this number is anything like what the man agrees to take.
Suggested dates for the course were Sat 21st Oct or Sat 4th Nov, I await a reply.
I am still looking into offering a certificated course at a later date for those who are interested.

7. Conville course
This will be held in January, more details to follow… I am due to receive booking forms in September.

3 Treasurer

3.1 Royal Bank of Scotland has stated that it is unable to provide Internet Banking for the club due to the account type. Statement frequency has been increased as an alternative means of providing more up-to-date account information.

3.2 The name on the account appears not to have been updated correctly as statements from the bank are titled to Katherine Fishwick rather than Jonathan Bowyer. This will be checked.

3.3 Meet Prices

It was generally agreed that prices must increase due to the increased cost of huts, bus hire and fuel and to alleviate some of the pressure on the accounts caused by last year's overspend. Suggestions that were made:

· Increase current price of both day and weekend meets. Disadvantage of this is that nearby meets could seem disproportionately expensive.

· Having different costs for each trip in proportion to the actual cost to the club (Fuel, hut fees etc.) Concerns were raised that this may be too complicated for members, and it is hard to work out an accurate budget for a given meet since attendance can only be estimated.

· Have different price categories for nearby meets and far ones, to reflect different fuel costs. Also consider charging more for the weekend meets which involve higher hut fees.

JB and MM to investigate/discuss costs so that an informed decision can be made about the pricing structure.

4 Meets Secretary (in absentum)

4.1 One meet is still to be confirmed for the second semester.

5 Social Secretary

5.1 Sponsorship  / Change of pub

Drouthy Neebors has agreed to sponsor the club. This was the best deal available after checking out several possibilities. The deal includes:-

• Use of downstairs function suite area for our exclusive use on Wednesday Night however there may be exceptions such as new year / xmas where it would be booked by other parties. At these times a reserved section will be made upstairs
• It would be possible for us to hold lectures / quiz nights etc. in the function suite.
• On other nights of the week (e.g. Tuesday/ Thursday) the function suite can be reserved for the club (if not in use) if the club requires it after e.g. an evening lecture. Alternatively an area of seating in the main bar can be reserved.
• We will be able to meet at the pub for meets e.g. on Sunday morning. Drouthy’s have offered to open the pub up early (e.g. 6.30am) so that we can meet inside if desired. It was agreed that this will be very beneficial with the present campus building work preventing us from meeting at the Library.
• Drouthy’s mentioned that possibility of making up packed lunches for us for some meets (e.g. fresher’s meet).

Drouthy Neebors have also offered to use their marketing company to print out our meets card / freshers info etc. however deadline for this is very close (next week). SB to contact Drouthy Neebors to confirm we can go ahead with this.

5.2 Burns Supper

The Burns night supper would ideally be on Burns Night (Thursday 25^th Jan) however it will be expensive to hold it on this night. The main issue is the difference in price of hiring a band on Burns night rather than on any other night. It was agreed that the supper should be arranged to be as close as possible to the 25^th.

The Queens Hotel are to get back to us with their prices for burns night supper.

5.3 T-Shirts

A small number of T-Shirts are to be made for the committee for the fresher’s fair.  New members will then be able to place orders for T-Shirts in the first month.

All members will be able to order t-shirts, depending on the quality of the initial t-shirts will depend on where the second order will be placed. The possibility of walking quality t-shirts will be investigated.

6 Gear Secretary

6.1  AM still attempting to contact Alexei (previous Gear Sec) re getting gear audit information. AM will follow this up.

6.2 Gear Presentation (Slideshow). It was agreed this would be a short presentation covering kit required for club meets and kit available from gear store.

6.3 Kit List / Gear Store info / Directions to Gear store to be submitted to Mhari for inclusion in Freshers’ Booklet.

Date and Time of Next Meeting: Wednesday 23rd August 2006, 7:30pm - 1 Milnbank Gardens