New Secretary sought - and other opportunities

[David Gibson]

Our recently-appointed Secretary Vince Simmonds has had to resign from the post, and from Council, for personal reasons. Hence, we are seeking a person to fill this important post and to contribute to the future of the Association as we enter our 50th year.

As you will know, BCRA is a registered charity, and the Secretary is one of our trustees and a member of our governing Council. The Secretary handles the day-to-day administration of the Association and the communications with our members. In doing this they work with other officers, particularly the Chairman, Treasurer and Webmaster. The BCRA Council meets six times a year, with five of those meetings being via the Zoom platform and the other being a longer face-to-face meeting at the British Caving Library in Glutton Bridge, Derbyshire. It is not our Secretary's role to take minutes of these meetings, as that is done by a separate administrative officer, but there are a number of other important tasks that the Secretary performs, which would suit an experienced administrator.

In common with our other trustees the role of Secretary is a voluntary one and inevitably requires a time commitment. We seek an individual with a passion for caves who subscribes to our aims. You do not need to be a trained scientist or a professional academic, nor even a caver; but knowing something about administration might come in handy. If you are interested in helping BCRA and supporting British cave science then please contact our Chairman, John Gunn.

In addition to the post of Secretary, if there is someone with a background in accountancy would like to take on the role of Treasurer, then we would be interested to hear from you. This would enable the current Treasurer to assume another role within the Association.

Further opportunities: The posts of Secretary and Treasurer are essential to the operation of the Association and holders of these posts are trustees and members of our governing Council. However, there are other opportunities to support BCRA that do not require the same level of commitment (and would not require you to be a trustee or council member). One such post is the Meetings Coordinator who oversees and takes responsibility for publicity and organisation of meetings. This includes the annual Cave Science symposium, and our field meetings and workshops. This is usually done in collaboration with other volunteers and members of Council.

We would also like to hear from anyone who has experience of editing, particularly the laying out of publications and proof-reading, and is prepared to undertake tasks on a voluntary basis.