At our AGM this coming March, our current chair, treasurer and access officer have indicated that they would like to step down, so we need new volunteers to come forward.
More information below, and also HERE.
Chair
Andrew Hinde has served as our chair since 2017, having helped navigate CNCC through a phenomenal period of change, keeping meetings friendly and productive. Behind the scenes, he has represented us to several other local organisations and has also been our representative to the BCA for most of his tenure, including through some difficult times. He is, rightfully, hugely respected within the northern caving community, not only as our chair but also for his conservation efforts too (which we hope will continue).
We are therefore looking for a new chair to help guide us through the coming years.
Some background knowledge of northern caving, and the role the CNCC has recently played is needed. We would strongly encourage anyone interested in this role to come to our next few meetings to start to get involved now, if you are not already a regular attendee.
The role involves chairing our meetings in-person to keep discussions focused, relevant and ensuring everyone gets a chance to make their point, and then bringing all of this together into an overall agreeable outcome.
Outside of meetings, being CNCC chair involves representing us, and northern caving, to organisations such as the National Park. Having time midweek to attend occasional meetings would be good, but we appreciate that for many this is not possible due to work, so this is an optional aspect of the role. More importantly, our chair is a primary front-of-house contact, so needs to have time to regularly respond to a variety of email enquiries.
Treasurer
Pete Bann has been our treasurer since 2015, with a short break over 2020-2021. He has expertly kept track of our finances, produced reports, and ensured our money has been well managed. This is perhaps the least glamourous of all our officer positions, receiving far less credit than the role deserves. However, without a good treasurer, the work of the CNCC would quickly falter. We thank Pete for his years of excellent service.
This is one of the few officer roles where substantial knowledge of CNCC and northern caving, although beneficial, is less essential. Good book-keeping skills are the priority, and sufficient time to prepare financial summaries/reports for each of our meetings, make online payments and submit our annual BCA funding claims and forecasts.
It is desirable for our treasurer to be able to attend CNCC meetings, although this is not always critical, and joining online is often sufficient unless there are complex financial matters to present.
Our treasurer is part of the BCA’s Finance Committee who meet online to discuss national funding distribution.
Our treasurer is invited to take a leading role in strategy and decision making as part of our core team, or to remain neutral and focus on the books and core treasury tasks, whatever is their preference.
Access Officer
Kai Trusson has been our access officer since March this year, and has impressed us with his enthusiasm. During this time, he has dealt with numerous enquiries and progressed several complex local issues. It is a shame he is unable to continue, but we are extremely thankful to him for stepping in this year in the absence of any other volunteers.
Now that CNCC facilitates very few permit systems, it would be tempting to assume that the access officer role is a quiet one. However, as we have seen with recent issues at High Birkwith, serious access issues can arise at any time. This is why we need a dedicated officer to address these situations.
We encourage our access officer to forge good relations with landowners and access forums (and to actively participate in these forums if time allows), and to champion initiatives that could benefit cave access.
In addition to this, our website database contains hundreds of caves, the details of which need to be kept up to date, and there are numerous caves where more details about access would be beneficial. Our access officer is encouraged, time allowing, to look for and respond to reports about such errors or deficiencies, to ensure we present as much useful and up-to-date information to northern cavers as we possibly can.
Familiarity with northern caving areas would be beneficial. Living close to the Yorkshire Dales would be good to enable in-person visits to landowners, however, this is not essential as we have local volunteers who can help.
Interested in working with us?
If any of these roles interest you, feel free to contact the current incumbent officer to ask questions.
Most importantly, please let our secretary know (secretary@cncc.org.uk) so that we can start discussions.
The CNCC team is an extremely friendly and supportive group. You are never on your own, and will be supported by existing officers. Informal discussions, ideas and assistance are always just a phone call or email away.