BCRA NEWSLETTER JULY 2025
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In this newsletter
• 2025 BCRA Science Symposium and AGM
• BCRA Publications
• British Cave Science Centre at Poole’s Cavern
• BCRA online seminars
• Cave and Karst Science Issue 52(1)
• Hidden Earth 2025 Update
• Bid for 2029 UIS Congress Update
• BCRA Membership
• Next Council Meeting
• Supporting BCRA
2025 BCRA Science Symposium and AGM
The 36th Annual Cave Science Symposium will be hosted by Professor David Richards, Linda Wilson and Professor Fiona Whitaker at the University of Bristol’s School of Geographical Sciences, University Road Bristol on Saturday 11th October 2025. We welcome everyone with an interest in caves and karst science. This will be a live in-person event but will also be streamed online, where possible. The BCRA AGM will be held in person and online at the end of the morning session. Following the symposium, an informal evening meal will be arranged for those who are interested. Further details will follow. Field trips will take place on Sunday 12th October in the wider Bristol area, including the nearby Mendips.
Call for Abstracts Oral and poster presentations are invited on all areas of cave and karst science
Those wishing to present at the Symposium should provide a title and an abstract of up to 300 words and indicate whether an oral presentation or poster presentation would be preferred. This should be sent to David Richards (david.richards@bristol.ac.uk) by 15th August 2025. Please include “BCRA” in the subject line of your email.
Registration There is no registration fee but donations would be appreciated (we suggest £5 - £10 for non-students) to help cover the cost of the event. Donations can be made on the day or online at https://bcra.org.uk/bookshop/donate.html). Registration details will follow nearer the time.
Student Travel Grants Support with travel costs will be available for students who provide a talk or poster and, subject to demand, it may be possible to offer travel support to other student attendees.
Further information Details of the venue and local facilities in Bristol as well as details of the programme and field trips will follow in the second circular. For enquiries concerning oral or poster presentations please contact David Richards (david.richards@bristol.ac.uk).
A sign-up link for the event, field trips and Saturday evening meal will be available nearer the time.
BCRA Publications the BCRA has a number of high-quality publications for sale. One of our more recent publications is about the Gower Peninsular.The Gower Peninsula is located in south-west Wales, surrounded by water on three sides, with Mumbles Head as its most easterly point. The peninsula has possibly some of the most beautiful karst landscapes in the British Isles, and its cliffs and valleys contain almost 200 caves, with a high proportion of them considered to be of historic importance. The peninsula has been designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
Many of the caves in the limestone valleys of Gower are easily accessed and can be explored by following the six walks outlined in this guidebook, which is illustrated in full-colour, with over 60 location photos. There are chapters on geology, glacial activity, cave formation, and cave archaeology.
This is available to purchase with more information available on the BCRA website
The British Cave Science Centre (BCSC) at Poole’s Cavern, Buxton, Derbyshire is a unique open-access science facility that aims to promote British cave science by offering an open access cave research facility for the science community. Alongside providing a safe working environment, the cave science centre already has a wide variety of “baseline” climate monitoring, from which high-resolution data is being produced. This data is available to anyone who wishes to use it, promoting the development of high quality science projects backed by years of monitoring data. More information is available at https://www.cave-science.org.uk/
BCRA Online Seminars The online seminars will re-commence in September and more details will be available nearer the time. Please see the BCRA website for further details. If anyone can deliver a seminar later this year or in 2026 please contact the organiser Emily Tilby.
Cave and Karst Science. The latest issue, 52(1),has been mailed to those who have opted for a printed copy .If you have not received your copy please let us know An online version is available on the BCRA website. The Editors are keen to receive suitable material for future issues so please get writing!
2025 Hidden Earth Update The dates for Hidden Earth have been announced as 26th-28th September 2025 in the same venue as last year at Llangollen Please check with the Hidden Earth media outlets and website [ https://hidden.earth/# ] for further information . If you wish to submit a lecture/presentation / workshop ,you can now do this on the Hidden Earth website . Details of the various competitions are also available on the website.
Bid for 2029 UIS (Union Internationale de Speleology) Congress.
The bid to host the 2029 UIS Congress in Britain is progressing well. The committee has agreed that the University of Birmingham is the preferred venue for the main event and the dates will be 22 – 29 July. The weeks before and after the main event will see a series of speleocamps at venues across the country. As part of a promotional video to be shown in Brazil (and at Hidden Earth if the bid is successful!) Bartek Biela and assistants spent the evening of Friday 2nd May filming in the British Cave Science Centre at Poole’s Cavern. The film is now complete and will be shown in Brazil as part of our bid
BCRA membership . If you haven’t renewed your membership, or wish to join, go to the membership and subscription section of the BCRA website or upgrade your BCA membership through Just Go.
The next BCRA council meeting will be held on 10th September 2025 from 20.00 to 21.30 hours via Zoom . Further information is available on the BCRA website
Supporting BCRA.
Members will note that there has been a lack of field meetings since the end of Covid restrictions and we encourage anyone willing to organise a meeting to contact the secretary.
IT Support
As those who use the BCRA website will know, it has grown over the years thanks to a major time commitment from David Gibson. It now contains a large amount of important information but accessing this is not always easy. BCRA would welcome support from anyone with the time and expertise to improve, or possibly even to re-write, the site. If you feel that you can assist with this or other aspects of IT then please contact the secretary: bcra-secretary@bcra.org.uk
The next newsletter will be at the end of August 2025