The British Caving Association

Minutes of a CREG Committee Meeting --- 26th August 2021 [sic] (via Zoom)

Apologies for the late publication of these minutes - the meeting was over a year ago. Another meeting is planned for the near future

In attendance:

• Mike Bedford – Chairman
• David Gibson – Treasurer
• Rob Gill – Secretary

1 Introduction

For some time, CREG affairs have been determined informally by email and phone calls between MB, DG and RG. It was thought that there may be advantages to holding more formal committee meetings, as and when required, and that this more open approach would make it easier for others to get involved.

2 Overseas subscription rate

The EU removal of Low Value Consignment Relief was resulting in the imposition of VAT and additional handling charges for postage of the Journal from the UK to EU. It had been noted that some other, non-EU, countries were also in the process of following suit. DG stated that the situation was complicated and in a state of flux, but the minimum likely additional cost could be addressed by raising the standard overseas annual subscription to £27.00.

It was regretted that this increase might cause some subscribers to not renew, but every effort would be made to encourage them to switch to a £4.00 electronic subscription. If new arrangements made posting of Journals unreliable or subject to further charges, affected subscribers would be offered a transfer of remaining credit to an electronic subscription. It was agreed that the change would be made with immediate effect and the Journal and web pages amended to reflect this.

Note: DG has posted more detailed notes on this situation on the CREG forum at http://bcra.org.uk/cregf and updates will appear there also.

ACTION: RG DG

3 Co-options to the committee

To best reflect the interests of the group, the committee would consider co-opting additional committee members. It was considered important that any co-opted committee members had an active track record. RG had identified one such candidate and they would be invited to join subsequent meetings.

ACTION: RG

4 Journal editor

RG had indicated a wish to stand down as Journal editor. Initial indications were that there is no obvious successor. The production of the CREG journal is a team effort with considerable input from others. It was agreed that RG would document the editorial role, as currently performed, to determine whether some tasks could potentially be redistributed, making the role easier to fill. In the meantime, we would continue to consider suitable volunteer(s).

5 Scope of CREG and Journal
For some time, CREG had been open to broadening its coverage to include all form of cave-related technology, in the absence of other journals regularly publishing in those areas. We often featured articles on photographic and surveying topics, and would be open to aspects of mechanical engineering and other areas. DG suggested that to give context to our surveying coverage, we should cover some of the fundamentals of surveying. DG would approach one or more established cave surveyors with a view to commissioning such material.

ACTION: DG

6 Social media

RG felt that some of the content of the CREG web page required refreshing and that we should seek a volunteer with demonstrable skills. DG considered that this was only part of a wider picture and that CREG's overall social media presence should be considered. As an example, BCRA had an active Facebook presence, though this required significant effort to maintain.

ACTION: This topic would be a matter for future discussion.

7 AGM

Because CREG, since 2007, has been managed as a sub-committee of BCRA Council, rather than a constituted group, it has no formal requirement to hold an annual general meeting. However, a meeting would bring potential benefits in terms of wider group involvement. We would consider holding an AGM at some point in the future, possibly in association with some other BCRA or BCA event.

8 Field meetings

The covid-19 pandemic was making it difficult to organise a field meeting and it was probable that the next meeting would have to be in a different format to mitigate risks. Currently, the earliest likely date for a field meeting is Spring 2022. It would be useful to discuss likely formats with regular attendees.

ACTION: RG would initiate wider discussion via email and the CREG forum.

9 AOB

DG had recently introduced voting buttons on the CREG Journal web pages so that we could gain an understanding of reader preferences. This was only attracting a few votes, probably because voting necessitates a return to the web page after the download and reading of the articles concerned. Over time it was hoped that this would provide useful feedback.

Update: Since that report, the voting buttons have been withdrawn as it was clear that they were not providing any useful data.

10 Publication of minutes

It was agreed that, once approved, minutes of committee meetings would be published on the CREG Forum.

ACTION: RG

11 Next meeting

Further meetings would be called when required.

Im not sure if it is better to post minutes in a single thread or to start a new thread each time, or to use a sub-forum. We'll see.

The BCRA CREG sub-committee met via Zoom on 2 Nov 2022. This is a brief report extracted from the minutes, as recorded by Tony Haigh.

• David Gibson, Mike Bedford, Rob Gill and Tony Haigh were present. We welcomed Tony Haigh who has been co-opted to the committee.
• DG reported that we had changed to a flat rate for overseas subscriptions. However, the margin built into the last price increase has been virtually used up through increases in postage costs.
• RG reiterated his desire to stand down as CREG Journal Editor.
• DG has contacted several people active in CSG to see if they wanted to write anything for us. All were supportive but did not have anything to offer in the foreseeable future.
• The feature in Descent did not result in any increase in subscriptions.
• We still need a volunteer to administer an Ebay shop for the sale of CREG journals, as a means of avoiding the VAT problem with the EU.
• DG reported that the journal was just about breaking even. Fewer people are taking the on-line Journal, the reason is unknown. The price of the journal and its page count will need to be reviewed soon.
• Membership demographics indicate that long-term members are dropping off the list and overall membership numbers are falling. We discussed some ideas on how to stem the fall in subscribers. We wondered if we could ask BCRA Librarian if there are any similar publications to the CREG journal. The BCRA has a journal exchange program with some 50 clubs participating, and we wondered if there were any items that covered similar material to the CREG journal. Our general view was that people out there are doing things but either don’t want to share the information or are not interested in writing it up properly.
• 2023 CREG Field Meet/Technical Symposium. DG suggested we hold a hybrid event with talks on one day (on-line and at the Caving Library in Glutton Bridge) and field activities on the other. This could be a dress rehearsal of a technical format for future BCRA events.

The BCRA CREG sub-committee met via Zoom on 21 Dec 2022. This is a brief report extracted from the full minutes that were recorded by Tony Haigh.

David Gibson, Rob Gill and Tony Haigh were present. Apologies from Mike Bedford

Matters Arising

• BCL had not been able to suggest any international caving journals with content similar to CREG’s.
• We noted that although there are some potential cave-related projects that would suit undergraduates, which CREG could promote, this would be difficult because (as DG reported, via BCRA Council) universities seem reluctant to allow undergraduates to go underground for such activities.

Discussion

• The next CREG Field meet will be a hybrid event with on-line talks and field activities. Too early yet to get a date in the Editorial of the next Journal, but late May looks the likely time window. Need to check for clashes with other events. The on-line event could be separated from the field meet if necessary. It’s BCRA’s 50th anniversary in 2023, so some special seminars are planned, CREG could offer to participate in this.
• We discussed ways of promoting CREG via, say, information booklets or a CREG Facebook page. The BCRA Facebook page has a large number of followers but activity is generally low. It had also been suggested that we consider changing CREG’s name, to attract a wider audience, but the consensus was that it was too late to do that.
• We will make an effort to get the CREG Journal publication date back on track.
• Date of next meeting 18 January 2023 at 15:00

The BCRA CREG sub-committee met via Zoom on 19 Jan 2023.

Introduction

• Mike Bedford, David Gibson, Rob Gill, and Tony Haigh were present.
• The minutes of the previous meeting were approved.

Matters Arising

• No further progress towards fixing a date for a meeting or seminar. David Gibson to post something to CREG-announce to try to gauge interest and recruit volunteers to run the meeting.
• CREG Booklets - we need to decide on topics. David Gibson to look at the search log on the web site to see if that generated any ideas.
• Facebook - Tony Haigh had forgotten that he had already set up a page some three years ago. See CREG Facebook Page. It is not very active!

Discussion

• We wondered if any of us would be able to attend the forthcoming CSG field meeting, with a view to reporting some of the material in the CREG journal. David Gibson reported that he had contacted several people in the CSG but there did not seem to be any enthusiam for this.
• Tony Haigh to write two pages on use of VNA for next journal; other material still required.
• Date of next committee meeting 15 March at 15:00 - postponed till Wed 5 April at 1500 - 4 April: postponed again

Items for Meeting #5

Matters Arising from #4: CREG Search Log - David Gibson reports ...

I took an extract of the log from November 2022 to the present, and checked it was "clean". There were around 800 lines, plus 1000 lines of what was a phishing attack from a Russian ISP. Of the 800 lines - quite a few were clearly phishes of some sort. Of the remainder, the search terms used - in alphabetic order - were as follows, and I think quite a few of those were probably my searches. e.g. I remember looking for Eggleston, Rentergem, and others. Its irritating that the log fills up with such enormous amounts of rubbish. I could try to add a "bot" detector, or I could limit the search to subscribers.

air_flow, beacon, Box, communication, compass, CREG_Journal_28, eggleston, ferrite, ferrite_rod_antenna, ferrite_transmission, field meet, flow, gibson, Hidden_Earth_Timetable_Display, Laser, lheureux, Lidar, lm317, micro heyphone, mike_bedford, nicola, pease, photography, poole, Quarry, really_w, Rentergem, single-wire, Subphone, wand

Matters Arising from #4: CREG Facebook Page - David Gibson reports ...

I checked the details of the BCRA Facebook page. It is a) Public (Anyone can see who's in the group and what they post) and b) Visible (Anyone can find this group). Closed means nobody can find the group in a search. Even for a public group, you still have apply to join and be approved by an administrator before you can post. So I think CREG needs a public group. The BCRA group is at facebook.com/groups/britishcaveresearchassociation. The "scraping" thing I mentioned can be investigated if you post a message with one of the following URLs...

bcra.org.uk/cregj
bcra.org.uk/gen
bcra.org.uk/cs
bcra.org.uk/cks
bcra.org.uk/rv

i.e. Most of BCRA's publications folders send Facebook a JPG of the latest issue of the publication when it asks.

Meeting to Note: Storage of CREG Minutes - David Gibson reports ...

CREG minutes will be stored in BCRA's document store. I will prepare a summary of Tony's minutes, removing anything that refers to someone by name, and deleting some details that the public do not need to know. I'll put them on the CREG forum.

Meeting to Note: CREG shop at Ebay - David Gibson reports ...

I was going to post something to Facebook / CREG-announce about our wanting a volunteer to set up an Ebay shop but then I thought that I might as well do it myself, to find out how it worked. To remind you: the reason is that Ebay will charge overseas customers their VAT and prevent them from having to pay customs fees. A couple of CREG subscribers regularly complain about this. A BCRA member, who ordered a book recently, had to pay EUR 10 in fees for it. I have initially set up a page to sell CREG journals. It is not an ideal solution as we cannot sell "subscriptions" this way, only actual "products", so EU customers will have to become casual buyers. And if they do that, how do we know to count them in, when we count up the number of printed copies that we need? In addition to a page describing all this, there is a form for CREG subscribers to complete. That will go out in a notice to subscribers sometime in March.

We met via Google Meet (arranged by Tony Haigh) on 07-Mar-2024 to discuss two items, namely

• Arrangements regarding Rob's resignation as editor of the journal, to take place after issue 125 (March 2024).
• Plans for a field meeting in June

Minutes written by Tony Haigh.

Attendees
Rob Gill (RG), Mike Bedford (MB), David Gibson (DG) and Tony Haigh (TH)

Journal Editorship

1. RG has circulated a table of tasks required to produce the journal.
2. RG to issue journal templates to MB & DG.
3. RG has a list of contributors; some need following up.
4. It was pointed out that some articles submitted need a substantial amount of time-consuming editing effort.
5. DG thought some articles referring to data logging at the Cave Science Centre and published in Cave & Karst Science could be adapted for the CREG journal. He would contact some of the authors.
6. MB and DG would put together the June issue, but MB stated he was only prepared to assist in editing that one issue. TH stated he has no spare capacity to contribute other than regular BB feature and ad hoc articles.
7. It was therefore agreed that the June issue would include a statement that the CREG journal would cease to be published on paper immediately unless a new editor came forward. The group itself would, however, continue to exist. It was felt that relevant ad hoc articles/papers could still be published online - it would be a good service to continue to have a central repository to cater for future developments. Likewise historic articles could be catalogued for future reference.
8. A possible online model would see thinner-than-usual journals published online as PDFs, with readers invited to order paper copies via Lulu. However, DG said that preparing the files for Lulu is a bit of a chore.
9. DG would come up with some proposals regarding how we dealt with subscription fees; and would produce some accounts.

Field Meeting

1. We have a tentative plan to piggy-back on the NAMHO annual conference in June in Cornwall. We could offer a talk and organise a field trip. However, this depends on a volunteer stepping forward to organise all this because none of us wanted to take on the task. It therefore seems unlikely that the plan will come to fruition.
2. DG had not yet contacted NAMHO but would do so in due course.
3. It was possible that we could organise a streamed classroom event (e.g. like BCRA's monthly seminars and the Science Symposium) - either as part of the June event or as a separate event possibly hosted at the BCL. DG was prepared to handle all of the technical side of this but it would still require a meeting "co-ordinator" to run the event. Thus, again, it seems unlikely that the plan will come to fruition.
4. We would mention this plan in the March journal, and via the CREG-announce list