Membership info/join us

About the BRCC..

We are a small but fairly active club formed in November 2001 by cavers for cavers and are based in North West England caving mainly in the Yorkshire Dales but occasionally further afield. We aim to further our members interests in all aspects of the underground world, what we don't do is become bogged down in unnecessary bureaucracy - we have a constitution to lay down a few simple rules but we do not have a committee as such as we feel there is no need for one to go caving - the club consults all members on any matters arising.
From our very beginnings we have been a very online based club and continue to be so to this day, most of our members have joined us after having seen the website and most of our news and information is passed to members via the website and the forum. This allows us to keep costs down and helps keep the club and its running efficient.

When it comes to organising trips we don't stick to the classics or trade routes all the time as we like to explore the less frequented caves and pots out there, we also explore mines occasionally. If you would like an idea on what we get up to then take a look at the log book for some short notes on every trip we do or visit our dedicated trip reports section for a number of big reports from the past few years. A few of our members have an interest in underground photography and a significant quantity of these photos are held on our caving-trip photo archive on Flickr and the other activities archive on Photobucket with non-caving photos (offroading, MTB-ing etc).
Trips are organised on a reasonable number of weekends throughout the year, most commonly on Saturdays, some on Sundays and there is even the occasional mid-weeker - we also have a number of weekends away each year to places like South Wales or the Mendips. Although the club doesn't organise any expeditions abroad some of our members do venture on ones organised by others. Usually after a caving trip we visit a local hostelry to relax and perhaps discuss the days events or even future events and other club matters (map and pub-notes available in our members section). The number of caving trips the Club and its members organise is somewhere in the region of 40 a year!

Some of our members are also interested in other outdoor pursuits - walking, scrambling, climbing, off-roading, mountain biking etc. Whilst the club will not organise trips of this nature we do encourage our members to organise activities such as those and are welcome to promote them via the clubs forum in the members section. The same applies to the organisation of any type of social activity, although we do have what is becoming an annual event around Christmas / New Year - a night away at a pub with fine food and ales (sometimes after a caving trip), usually in the Yorkshire Dales area.

We have membership of the BCA which gives us access to permits for caves and any publications they produce, which are added to the library. Also via the BCA we now have public liability insurance to allow us access to a few caves where proof of this is required. Membership is open to cavers only (we don't have a social membership option, if you want to know why, ask and we will reveal all) - see the membership pages for more information on the benefits of joining us.

The club believes in promoting conservation and we have joined Descent's "Adopt-a-cave scheme", through which we have adopted Skirwith Cave and the Caves of Storrs Common. The club also believes in responsible open access to caves - we feel that sites should not be gated (unless conservation issues dictate otherwise), that we shouldn't have the permit system and public liability insurance should not be asked for or required to gain access to any caves.

For some questions and answers about caving and the club, visit out FAQ pages, alternatively try our Search page to look for something specific.

There's a brief history available of the Black Rose (old and new) that quickly covers the Pothole Club history and the Caving Club history.