CNCC Manual of Operations

Chair

The chair will facilitate meetings, from welcoming participants and ensuring a welcoming, open and friendly atmosphere, ensuring everyone gets a fair chance to have their say, engaging a wide variety of opinions, encouraging participation, steering discussions and keeping meetings on track and avoiding discussions from diverging excessively. 

It is totally acceptable for the Chair to have their own opinions and ideas, however, they must ensure that this does not bias their chairing of meetings, ensuring all points of view and conflicting ideas are able to be expressed and their merits explored.

General notes on chairing meetings

• For all proposals and votes, It is traditional to ask for a show of votes for, then against, then abstentions. However, in a zoom or hybrid meeting it is helpful to the recorder to reverse this order as it (usually) simplifies the count.
• Where there is nothing controversial within the reports the Chair can ask permission of the committee or members present to take the vote on acceptance of reports en bloc for a single vote at the end of the reports section. If there is a significant area of policy development in a report the Chair may single this out for a separate vote. Again this is with the permission of the committee members present.
• There is a consensus that meetings going beyond two hours duration rarely add to the productivity of the meeting. The Chair should endeavour to conclude circular arguments and keep the forward momentum of the meeting. Topics without a clear consensus can be revisited at a future meeting if an immediate vote is likely to cause deep division.
• Proposals that do not come with sufficient background information or detail on which to make an informed decision can be referred back to the proposer and asked to come back to the next meeting. The proposer could accept an amendment to their proposal to make it clearer or more acceptable.
• Once a proposal has been made in a meeting, and seconded, in general it must be either voted upon or redacted. Often in the heat of a discussion a proposal will be shouted and quickly seconded, before all have had their chance to have a say. The Chair must bear in mind that live proposal and not let it become lost, while also avoiding it from stifling continuation of the discussion.

Secretary

For all documents, previous versions can be found on the CNCC website and used as templates or sources from the previous Secretary. It is desirable to maintain consistency in the overall layout and presentation of CNCC documents wherever possible, although there is always some scope for each Secretary to make their own unique improvements.

Meetings

• Dates of meetings up to and including the following AGM are usually agreed at the AGM. These, along with times and locations should be published on the website. Dates can be adjusted if needed without re-engaging members (e.g. if there are any conflicts).
• Meetings usually take place on Saturday mornings. Committee meetings start at 09:30 am and AGMs start at 10:00 am. This is not a constitutional requirement.
• All in-person meetings until 2022 were held at the Hellifield Institute owing to good parking, railway station and ease of access. However, Hellifield suffers from poor acoustics in the main hall which means online participants struggle to hear, and poor wifi in the smaller room that has better acoustics. Both of these factors also now need to be considered when choosing a venue. Attendance is ~25 people for Committee meetings and ~35 people for AGMs.
• The Secretary should maintain a CNCC Zoom (or equivalent) account for online participation at meetings, including paying a subscription and reclaiming costs from the Treasurer.

Agendas & Reports

• Request agenda items: For Committee meetings this should be at least 8-9 weeks ahead (as the agenda publication deadline is 6 weeks) and for AGMs this should be at least 12 weeks ahead (as the constitutional deadline for submitting constitutional changes and also applications for Officer/Committee positions is 8 weeks).
• An agenda must be published online at least 6 weeks before the meeting.
• Approximately 2-3 weeks before a meeting, remind Officers/reps to submit reports.
• Approximately 1 week before meeting - Publish reports online and circulate online joining details to Committee and Officers (do not make online joining details public as this can result in  Zoom-bombing; Any non-Committee participants wanting to attend will need to email the Secretary to obtain the online joining details).
• Reports from officers must cover the period of time since the previous meeting (for an AGM, this will cover the entire year). This usually consists of a written report sent to the Secretary for compiling into a document which is then published alongside the agenda. As a minimum, this could be a verbal report given at the meeting, but written reports from all Officers are strongly desirable. Reports from co-opted officers are optional but welcome.
• The agenda will usually follow this sequence: 
  1. Welcome and opening remarks from the Chair
  2. Apologies for absence and confirmation of a quorum
  3. Acceptance of minutes from the previous meeting. 
  4. Declaration of conflicts of interest (agreed June 2022 to always include this).
  5. Any matters arising or updates on action items from the previous meeting (this is usually accompanied by a runthrough of all the action items from the last meeting).
  6. Reports (elected officers then co-opted officers). It is common to approve these en-bloc as a single vote at the end, although if any report includes a proposal, alternative approaches may be used at the discretion of the chairperson.
  7. Confirmation of co-opted positions and representatives (June committee meeting only; Usually these will have confirmed ahead of the meeting their willingness to continue in the position, so this is just a formality to accept them). ##
  8. All other agenda items with supporting documentation
  9. Reminder of date and time of next meeting
  10. Any other business?

## Co-opted positions include, but are not limited to: Webmaster, PR/Communications, various representatives to BCA sub-committees, Youth Representative, Anchor Coordinator, Regional Access Coordinators (previously known as a permit secretary), Officer Assistants, etc. New co-opted roles may be created (or abolished) as required.

Minutes

• Soon after the meeting, the previous meeting draft minutes should be updated with any changes and then re-published as final approved minutes (remove the draft minutes).
• Ensure all minutes documents clearly state ‘draft’ or ‘final/approved’ or words to that effect. Historically this has been done on the first page, and for draft documents as a background watermark across each page of the document.
• Minutes should be written in a timely manner. A good goal is for this to be done by approximately three weeks or less after the meeting but there is flexibility in this.
• It is perfectly fine to have a ‘buddy’ to provide a sanity check on minutes documents, or to contact meeting attendees to help clarify any details while writing minutes.
• Once complete, draft minutes should be emailed to attendees (Committee and Officers for Committee meetings, or all members and Officers for AGMs), who are given approximately one month to review the minutes and share feedback, before the draft minutes are updated with any requested changes and made public on the website (this was an agreed procedure at the 2015 AGM for all meetings moving forwards). These published draft minutes will receive final approval at the following meeting. 

Annual General Meetings

• First notification of the AGM (normally held in March) should be publicised well in advance, usually in December (~12 weeks ahead of the meeting), to all full member clubs by email, as well as via the CNCC’s various media channels. This should include a call for any member clubs wishing to stand for Committee and individuals wishing to stand for Officer/IC representative roles to submit notification (deadline is 8 weeks ahead).
• Notification to stand for a position needs to be no more than a positive statement from the individual or club representative to the Secretary, however, statements to include in the AGM documentation should be encouraged. It is traditional for long standing Committee members to need a few reminders, usually a few days before the 8-week deadline.
• AGMs usually begin at 10am, compared to the 09:30am for committee meetings. The historic reason for this was the higher attendance, from further afield, thus allowing a little more travel time before the meeting.
• For an AGM, the “previous meeting” means the previous AGM. The June committee meeting will reference the January committee meeting as the “previous meeting”. Reports should be reflective of this and report everything since the relevant previous meeting. 
• Remember, at an AGM, there is technically no Committee in place during the meeting, so no decisions involving only a Committee can be made. 
• All full member clubs are invited to attend AGMs, and have voting rights. Therefore, ensure any meeting correspondence for AGMs are shared with all member clubs, not just the Committee. 
• Voting forms should be printed and made available at the AGM, for Committee and Officer elections. Examples of these voting forms should be included in the AGM’s minutes to help with future transparency of how voting was conducted.
• Once voting has been completed and the outcome verified, the completed voting forms do not need to be retained. For those attending online, an appropriate equivalent approach to allow votes to be submitted should be designed.
• In order to be allowed to vote, club representatives must provide the Secretary with authorisation from their club. This is to prevent people turning up and pretending to be representing a club (it has happened in the past). Historically this has been a printed letter presented at the meeting itself. Nowadays, this is usually in the form of an email from a club official or from a known or confirmed club Officer; If the voting rep is also a club Officer they can just give themselves permission in advance. No matter how hard we try, getting clubs to standardise on any fixed procedure for this is impossible, so in reality the Secretary is encouraged to use appropriate common sense in administering this system and to be personally satisfied that all voting reps have authority of their club.

Treasurer

• The constitution assigns a default position that the Treasurer can authorise any payments up to £500 without any further permissions, however, the constitution allows the Committee to adjust this default. 
• At the present time, there is an agreement (from the January 2021 Committee meeting) that £500 is the limit for the Treasurer to authorise autonomously, however, amounts above that can be authorised providing FOUR of the SIX elected Officers agree, and the other elected Officers raise no objection. This privilege is only to be used where the expense needs to be authorised urgently, is non-contentious, and there is insufficient time to consult and ballot the Committee. Wherever time allows, expenses above the £500 threshold should still be voted upon by The Committee. The constitution allows for this to be done electronically providing all responses are presented at the next Committee meeting as a record.
• Volunteers can claim mileage for any “approved CNCC business” at the HMRC rate (currently, October 2022, 45p per mile). This includes conservation works, anchor installation or other work. This is the wording used by the BCA, and individuals are left to interpret this and judge if they were travelling solely for CNCC business. As of the June 2022 meeting, it was agreed that individuals can also claim mileage for attending meetings. It is suggested that this is limited to Officers, co-opted Officers and one representative for each Committee member, and common sense be encouraged to ensure claims are reasonable and fair. A representative of a northern club claiming travel from South Wales, for example, might not be considered reasonable, when the club probably had numerous members much closer who could have attended. A club representative who has travelled to the area partly to attend the CNCC meeting, but also to enjoy a few nights of socialising and a caving trip, may not feel it altogether fair to claim travel expenses. Online attendance can be encouraged for any attendees particularly those who only have a small participation.
• The CNCC accounts presented to the AGM, in line with BCA requirements, must be scrutinised. This is not an audit, and does not require a qualified accountant. Typically this has been performed by a volunteer, who will provide the AGM with a positive declaration that they have scrutinised the accounts. The scrutinisation process should ensure that all money entering and leaving CNCC’s accounts over the last year can be tallied against legitimate expenditure and that all sums are correct. 

Anchor Coordinator

• The CNCC has an anchor policy which is currently on our website.
• In summary, any anchors which are not replacements for defective anchors, or urgent installations on safety grounds, must be agreed by the CNCC Committee before any work is performed. These should be added to a meeting agenda by emailing the Secretary no less than six weeks in advance of the meeting, although where absolutely necessary, it can be raised under Any Other Business or via an online consultation.
• All installers must fulfil the requirements of the anchor policy.
• Installers are encouraged to work together to discuss anchor placements, strategies, techniques, to provide training to new participants. The CNCC has an Anchor Coordinator to help bring together installers, coordinate installations, track/monitor anchor locations and installation data and to liaise between CNCC Committee and the active installers.
• The CNCC has a report defective anchor function on the website; This currently generates an automatic email to all installers and logs itself into a shared database, where installers can then see, comment on, and provide updates on that defective anchor.
• Traditionally, only CNCC approved/installed resin bonded anchors are displayed on our topos. As of 2023, the CNCC has agreed to display non-CNCC approved anchors providing they are resin-bonded stainless steel and they meet sufficient visual inspections.

PR and Communications (co-opted role)

• The CNCC must engage proactively with all cavers to promote our work.
• This is essential to maintain interest and support for CNCC and to encourage future participation.
• The PR/Comms Officer should manage our social media and be a spokeperson for the organisation.
• All news should be published in full on the CNCC website (with accompanying photos).
• The CNCC maintains a mailing list of individuals who should receive a monthly concise news update.
• An official newsletter ‘Northern Caving’ should be produced roughly every six months, bringing together a compilation of all news since the last issue. Printed copies should be sent to all UK caving bunkbarns as well as Inglesport Cafe and the British Caving Library. Costs for the production of around 60 copies (glossy and full colour) and postage are usually around £120 and are claimable from CNCC funds.
• The PR/Comms Officer should work to ensure a presence at Hidden Earth (and other major events).
• Additionally they should liaise with external bodies to promote our work and caving generally.
• Newsworthy items might include: Conservation stories, changes to access or reminders of ongoing issues, safety warnings, new or updated topos or cave descriptions, training workshops, initiatives to promote northern caving, anchoring, future or past meeting agendas and outcomes, website updates, any new CNCC services/initiatives, and other northern caving news relevant to CNCC's functions.