We Are What We Do

Derek A. Smithson

I was sent a copy of the S.M.C.  Journal because it contained a report on their president’s attendance at the symposium of the Slingsby Institute.  Their president obviously enjoyed the experience, as did the member of the F.&R.C.C.  who has written a report in their journal.  Last year’s A.C.  Journal carried a report of our doings in Norway and Michael Smith can tell you of all the interest engendered by the meet in Bolivia.  We are holding a meet in the Himalaya this year and the mountaineering world will be interested, if we let them know in a suitable format.  What we do on meets provides the image we project on the world.  This decides our membership and our appeal, so let’s stop our traditional introspective peering and go and do things.  I find it difficult to accept that fiddling with the rules will make a really serious and lasting improvement to the quality of the club, and it is quality that counts.  I’m quite sure a psychologist, particularly if he was American, could explain our attitude problem in enjoying all male society and the guilt that makes us keep discussing the position.  I was once again guilty of standing talking in the bar with other members at the December meet, and being self- congratulatory.  “What a wonderful club this is,” we coo-ed.  “What a great collection of friends, real friends.”  On another occasion, together with some of the more elderly members, we agreed that we did not dare to leave the club because its members seemed to live to such a great age.  Then there is the divorce rate, which seems to be much lower than average.  We do our wives and girl friends a favour by leaving them to go to meets and things.To quote Emerson, ‘Whoso  would be a man must be a non-conformist.’^[1]

Clapham Beck waterfall

Let us hope that the committee continue to arrange for a meet calendar that does not only cater for the popular and politically correct, that gives us meets of originality as well as tradition, that will attract the apparently egocentric, self- opinionated, generous-hearted males so commonly seen at meets.  

Post Script:  Continuing further into the S.M.C.  Journal I was fascinated by some articles and bored by others.  What I also realised is that if I hadn’t been sent a copy I would not have found out.  Do we want the Bulletin to contain the indices from Club Journals as they are sent to us and put in the library?  Most of us don’t want to give the full day necessary to browse in the library to discover all the interesting additions^[2].