THE CASTLE CHRONICLE # 3

The committee met on 14th September and this is the latest update to let you know what we have been getting up to.

Recent club highlights have been the successful summer trip to the Alps and the visit of climbing legend Catherine Destivelle. Special mention to Rosa who bravely followed Catherine up Right Unconquerable!
Upcoming away meets are planned to Crianlarich (New Year ‘24), Capel Curig (Easter ’24) and Braemar (May ’24).

Dates for your diary:
• Mick Fowler, veteran of many adventurous mountaineering expeditions, will be giving us a talk at the Grouse Inn on Thursday 16th November from 7.30pm. Mick’s talk is free but “Pie and Peas” will be £11. More details to follow.
• The club AGM will take place at the Norfolk Arms on Thursday 23rd November at 7.30pm. This will be followed by an outdoor-themed quiz with lots of magnificent prizes!
• Bookings are now being taken for the Christmas meet on 2nd/3rd December. This will be at Coldwell Outdoor Centre up on the Pennine moors above Burnley.
• This year’s ceilidh was great fun and another is planned for 23rd March 2024.

Clubroom matters:
Vanda and Paul have spearheaded an impressive revamp of the clubroom. This has included repainting, installing matting in the entrance and a general declutter and tidy-up. A poster for a talk to the club by Don Whillans is to be framed and hung in the clubroom.
If you have any bright ideas for events or activities to make more use of the clubroom please let the committee know.

Changes to the committee:
Several members of the committee are standing down this year. Chris Lunn is standing down having had the unenviable task, as president, of steering the club through the difficult pandemic years. Lin is standing down as vice-president – her finest hour was surely knocking heads together to reach agreement on the future of the clubroom! And Gemma is standing down as membership secretary after doing a fantastic job encouraging new members and promoting the club via social media.
There will now be three places on the committee available. If you are interested in joining the committee please let us know. This is a great opportunity to get involved with moving the club forward to a bright new future!

Review of club communications:
A reminder that the aim of this review is to:
• Simplify communications to make life easier for administrators.
• Reduce the confusion caused by having multiple communication methods.
• Give our communications a more up-to-date look to appeal to younger club members. and make the club fit for the future.
Option 1 is to use MeetUp as the main platform for club communication. The trial of MeetUp will now be paused. We are grateful to all club members who took part in the trial and completed the questionnaire. This has given us useful information about the pros and cons of MeetUp which will help us with our decision-making. Thanks are due to the team who were tasked by the committee with organising the trial and put a huge amount of effort into this.
Option 2 is to make administering the website less time-consuming and make some sections of the website, such as the message board, more user-friendly. The committee will now investigate options for and the cost of making these changes to the club website.
The committee is planning to make recommendations for club communications at the AGM. Please let us know if you have any suggestions for how the website could be updated.