The CNCC Officer team is comprised of 6 positions:
The CNCC Officers are elected at our Annual General Meeting each year to serve for a period of one year.
The role of the CNCC Officers is to enact the wishes of our Full Members and Committee, as well as to work autonomously through the year and with the Committee to address any matters that arise. Officers are the first point of contact for people with the CNCC and as such they do much of the legwork of the CNCC and ensure all the day to day business is conducted as required.
The Officers can be any individual (club affiliation is not a requirement). They have no voting rights, and may choose to remain neutral in voting matters.
Below is an outline of the basic structure of how your CNCC is organised. More contact details and a list of area access coordinators can be found on the contacts page.
Officers should ideally be members of a full member club, but this is not a necessity. Officers should ideally be able to attend our three Committee meetings each year, and to provide input and ideas to help improve all matters related to Northern Caving and to enact the wishes of the Committee. It's a great opportunity to get involved in more aspects of the sport and to make a real difference to cavers across the region.
To stand for an Officer position, you must provide notification of your intention at least EIGHT WEEKS before our AGM. Providing notification is very simple; you should send an email (or write a letter if you prefer) to the Secretary. You should ideally supply a short, informal statement, telling us a little about you, your reasons for wishing to stand, and any other information you feel is relevant to your application.
This statement will be shared with all full members ahead of the AGM to allow an informed vote to be made at the meeting.
You should ideally attend the AGM to answer any questions.
All Officers are expected to:
Officers generally need to be well organised, with good communication skills, have a proactive attitude towards improving northern caving, and sufficient free time to invest into the role.
Note: Officers may ask to co-opt an assistant to help with their role if required.
Chairing meetings:
Welcoming attendees, ensuring meetings are well structured, kept on time and on-topic, ensuring the agenda is covered and everyone gets a chance to participate. It is often necessary for the Chair to reign discussions back to their original focus or proposal, and to bring discussions to productive and agreeable outcomes. As such, our Chair needs to have a good understanding of both northern caving, and the CNCC itself, including our processes. An authorative, articulate and diplomatic in-person presence at meetings is essential.
Organisational figurehead and representative:
Our Chair is one of the first point of contact for people getting in touch with the CNCC and as such should be regularly able to respond to email enquiries or forward them to the relevant Officer. The Chair is often considered the figurehead of the CNCC and as such should take a proactive role in engaging with other organisations, representing the CNCC at meetings/events, and offering support to other Officers wherever possible.
Requirements:
The Chair role typically requires 2-3 hours work per week, depending on the proactivity of the volunteer.
All our Officers are encouraged to work to help CNCC achieve our mission statement and to proactively bring new ideas for how we could be better supporting northern cavers and caving.
The Secretary should bring together all necessary resources to ensure meetings are as productive as possible, including ensuring the venue is booked, the date is advertised, and the relevant documents are written and made available on the public website within the necessary timeframe, including agendas, reports and minutes. The role should also involve working with the CNCC team to identify any possible agenda items that should be raised, and researching and disseminating information relevant to the scheduled discussions.
At meetings, the Secretary issues voting cards, provides an attendance register and take minutes.
The Secretary is responsible for all matters relating to membership, including maintaining regular communications with members and Committee, and helping to facilitate applications.
The Secretary is often a first point of contact in the CNCC and should be regularly email-active and provide a friendly and proactive front-of-house service for the organisation.
Requirements:
The Secretary role is probably our most time-demanding and requires 3-4 hours work per week.
All our Officers are encouraged to work to help CNCC achieve our mission statement and to proactively bring new ideas for how we could be better supporting northern cavers and caving.
The Treasurer manages the CNCC's finances, including issuing payments.
The Treasurer should prepare a statement of expenditure and income for each Committee meeting, covering the months since the previous Committee meeting, and AGM, covering the entire year since the last AGM, including arranging an annual audit of the accounts.
The Treasurer has discretion on smaller payments and so should work to ensure that funds are managed sustainably and used for projects appropriate to the CNCC’s core values. The Treasurer should bring any requests exceeding the discretionary level to the Secretary to schedule for discussion.
The Treasurer is responsible for submitting notice of expected costs to the BCA, and preparing the annual BCA claim, both in-accordance with BCA policies, and is expected to participate in the BCA's Finance Committee.
Requirements:
The Treasurer role typically requires 1-2 hours/week on average as a minimum.
All our Officers are encouraged to work to help CNCC achieve our mission statement and to proactively bring new ideas for how we could be better supporting northern cavers and caving.
The Training Officer should work to identify where the CNCC can help meet any training needs of northern cavers. This may include first aid, rigging, SRT, rescue, surveying, conservation, amongst others.
This role requires a particularly proactive individual, to organise a well-populated diary of training workshops each year. This will include working with trainers (e.g. instructors, clubs, companies, or experienced individuals), venue booking, advertising (with help from our Web Administrator), coordinating attendees and finances.
The Training Officer does not specifically need to deliver training - simply organise/coordinate events.
The Training Officer should also support new-to-caving initiatives by arranging our ‘Venture Underground’ sessions either through clubs or local instructors, to ensure CNCC continues to promote novices into caving.
Requirements:
The Training Officer role requires 1-3 hours/week, depending massively on the proactivity of the volunteer.
All our Officers are encouraged to work to help CNCC achieve our mission statement and to proactively bring new ideas for how we could be better supporting northern cavers and caving.
The Conservation Officer should facilitate all matters related to cave and countryside conservation. This includes responding to reports of conservation issues (including in-cave conservation, walling, entrance collapses, footpaths, gates, stockproofing and more), and seeking opportunities to support the conservation needs of our region.
The Conservation Officer does not need to actually perform conservation work (but is welcomed to do so), but should coordinate our team of volunteers. This includes drawing up a programme of work (by identification and prioritisation of projects), and ensuring they have the necessary skills and equipment to carry out the work safely and effectively.
The role may involve liaising with other organisations (e.g. Natural England, National Trust, Yorkshire Dales National Park, Farmers and Landowners) to arrange permissions for any planned works.
The Conservation Officer is also encouraged to work with northern cavers to support projects being performed outside of the CNCC umbrella, and to promote initiatives to help educate cavers about conservation.
Requirements:
The Conservation Officer role requires 1-3 hours/week, depending on the proactivity of the volunteer.
All our Officers are encouraged to work to help CNCC achieve our mission statement and to proactively bring new ideas for how we could be better supporting northern cavers and caving.
The role of the Access Officer includes working towards improvements to cave access across our region.
This includes ensuring any access agreements that the CNCC hold are kept up to date and relevant, and where possible seeking to increase access availability. This also includes proactively seeking to improve access at other restricted sites, and responding to reports of access issues encountered by northern cavers.
The Access Officer should forge good relations with other access organisations including Local Access Forums and the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
The Access Officer should ensure all cave access details on our website are kept up to date.
Requirements:
The Access Officer role typically requires 1-2 hours/week on average.
All our Officers are encouraged to work to help CNCC achieve our mission statement and to proactively bring new ideas for how we could be better supporting northern cavers and caving.
The Individual Caver Representative (ICR) is a Committee role (not an Officer position). However, unlike all other Committee positions, the ICR is a named individual, so this role has strong parallels to an Officer position.
Duties include:
Providing a voice and representation for cavers in our region who are not represented by the clubs who are on the Committee, and who are mostly involved in caving outside of a club structure. This may include cavers who are club members but who have minimal involvement with that club and who feel their views or needs are not being addressed by current CNCC representation.
The ICR should engage as widely as possible with the northern caving community, via social media (in particular, UKCaving) and try to connect with cavers from outside of traditional club structures.
The ICR should also work to identify any aspects of CNCC's business where non-club cavers could be better included.
Requirements:
The ICR role typically requires 1-2 hours/week on average, but this will vary with the proactivity of the volunteer.
All our Committee are encouraged to work to help CNCC achieve our mission statement and to proactively bring new ideas for how we could be better supporting northern cavers and caving.
