The President’s Report
as presented to the 103 rd AGM

All YRC years are special, but 1995 was doubly so because it was the year of the Himalayan Expedition. At the time of writing this report news has just come through that the climbing team are safely off Dorje Lapka and back in Kathmandu. The news is that the team did not reach the summit, a decision having been taken that snow conditions were too dangerous. Any first feelings of disappointment are soon dismissed. The safety of all the members is paramount and the climbing leader Jed Campion and his advisers are to be complimented on making a very sound mountaineering decision. Recent events this summer elsewhere in the mountaineering world bear out this judgement.

I feel it is not my place to report either on the Trek or the Climbing Expedition. This task quite rightly belongs to the Climbing Leader and Alan Kay, our Trek Leader and co-ordinator of the whole expedition. There are many people to thank and these acknowledgements will be made as the various reports unfold.  However I feel, as I am sure the whole Expedition members do, that this trip would not have got off the ground without the work of Alan Kay who researched it, organised it, did a huge amount of fund raising and also twisted the arms of his employers not only to give a generous donation, but also to waive numerous banking charges which normal expeditions would have had to bear. The Club owes Alan a huge debt.

Finally, it is a great credit to this Club that we were able to send 14 members, 1 prospective member and a guest to the Himalaya. Let us build on this success and, through the publicity it will generate, it should help to stimulate the recruitment of active new members.

To return to more mundane club affairs. The average meet attendance of 21.4 was only slightly down on the 1994 figure of 22. This level has been the norm for the past few years. This year was probably helped by the long hot summer which in turn helped to raise the climbing standards of some of our younger members. It gave me great pleasure when on the LHG meet in July Tim Bateman and Alistair Renton came in rather late for dinner to announce almost casually that they had climbed Kipling Groove on Gimmer, the climb that used to be the test piece of all the hard men of the 1950’s and 60’s.

Another most enjoyable meet was the Long Walk organised as a two day event in the Southern Uplands by lan Crowther. The two overseas meets in Mallorca and the Picos d’Europa were also highly successful and seem set to be repeated in the not too distant future. The one cloud on the horizon is the decline of the Spring Bank week in Scotland.

The Club must decide very shortly if a change away from Scotland is desirable, or indeed if the meet should be moved from a busy holiday period. Finally, my thanks are due once again to all the meet organisers who put so much effort into making our meets so successful.

Considerable time, effort and money has gone into the improvements at both our huts in 1995. This applies particularly to Lowstern where at considerable cost the electrical installations have been put right and at the last Committee Meeting approval was given for the installation of storage heaters, a de-humidifier and extractor fans to eliminate the humidity problem. The Hut Wardens will report in more detail, but at last LowStern will be a cottage of which we can be truly proud.

The Y.R.C. Bulletin is now well and truly off the ground thanks to the efforts of Michael Smith, our Editor and of course all the contributors.

One very interesting article was Arthur Evans’s account of the Corrugated Cracks and Janus climbs on Elidir Fawr in 1937. This was in Bulletin No. 3. Then in Bulletin No. 4 Tim Josephy describes how he repeated the climbs and is full of respect for such a lead before the 2nd World War using Alpine line, wearing tricouni shod boots and with no protection. As Tim writes, A.W.E. we stand in awe! Both gentlemen are here tonight, if they haven’t got together yet I am sure they will. These two articles alone convince me that the principle of a six monthly bulletin is the road to go down.

Last year we debated at length the issue of women in the Club. This caused many of us a lot of agonised heart-searching. The debate was conducted in relatively good humour. I think it was right to bring it out into the open. The decision was made and at the first Committee Meeting after the E.G.M. it was agreed that the subject should not be raised again unless there was a real groundswell within the Club and it came from the younger members.

All members will have read in recent circulars of the difficulty we are experiencing recruiting officers of the Club, particularly for the key posts of Treasurer and Secretary. Discussions will take place later in the meeting when the Secretary will outline how he would like his duties to be split. This is in line with how other Kindred Clubs operate. However, without volunteers coming forward all suggestions are worthless and this is a heartfelt plea from a President, who has himself served time, for members to come forward and help in any way possible. If these posts cannot be filled satisfactorily, and I support both incumbents in their determination to leave their posts next November, then the result for the Club will be a huge drop in standards in the management of our affairs.

The other major disappointment has been our failure to recruit new members. 1995 saw only one new member join the Club. There are at least four prospective members in the ‘pipeline’ and hopefully they and others will help to boost next year’s membership

Membership now stands at 185. There were two deaths in the year, Geoffrey Bates and Geoff Scovell and two resignations, Steven Goulden and Andy Wells. Membership is broken down as under:

	1995	1994
Honorary Members	6	6
Life Members	64	65
Ordinary Members	114	116
Junior Members	1	1
	185	188

C. D. Bush, President