The Rucksack Club is managed by a committee elected annually from the membership at our AGM as specified in our club constitution. The committee hold regular meetings throughout the year to look after the club’s affairs, organise the events and make sure everything runs smoothly.
Committee 2019/2020
Hamish Kerr
President
Daniela Federer
Meets Sec
Primrose
Vice President
India
Minutes Sec
Hal
Gear Sec
Duncan
Climbing Sec
Julia
Transport Sec
Samuel
Treasurer
Emily
Social Sec
Bjarne
Media Sec
Committee Positions
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The main role of the President of the club is to liase with the relevant bodies including the Sports Union and the Mountaineering Council of Scotland as well as with the club’s committee members to set the agenda of the club for the year.
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The specifics of this will vary but include ensuring that all of the Sports Union’s required paperwork is provided in the correct manner and on time. The most important aspect of this is ensuring that the Sports Union is provided with the club’s up to date membership details at all times.
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You will also be responsible for making any applications for financial support deemed appropriate to the Sports Union for things such as buying new equipment or subsidising Mountain Leader courses for club members.
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Arranging and setting the agenda of committee meetings so that all other committee members understand what is expected of them is also a key part of the role.
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Attending Sports Union council meetings once a month during term time, usually with one other committee member, to keep abreast of changes and upcoming events.
Duties involve working closely with the President to organise and delegate matters to maintain the club.
Required to step up as stand-in President if the President is unavailable. If the President was to resign, it is the Vice Presidents duties to call for an election of a new President.
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The Vice President is required to liaise with the meets and skills secretaries in ensuring all club members attending meets are of the correct competency, or will be under supervision of suitable committee or club members.
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Further, it will be the Vice President’s role to provide advice on activities, including dissuasion from potentially dangerous activities, in the best interests of the club and members
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Your role is to coordinate and organise training and safety within the club (although climbing is left to the climbing secretary)
This includes but is not limited to: navigation, winter skills, scrambling, first aid
The Vice president should take lead in organising several opportunities for members to learn and practice skills in a protected environment.
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Organise a navigation training course with Ancrum at the start of first semester
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Organise a winter skills training course with Ancrum for the start of second semester
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Promote and organise attendance to MCofS SMART and Winter Skills weekends
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Organise skills talks.
The Vice President must to the best of their ability:
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Liaise with the president in matters of organisation
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Be competent in providing advice to members about DURC activities
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Ensure members venturing on meets are safe to do so
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Organise and promote training opportunities for members
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Attend sign-ups meetings promoting good practice and safety.
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Attend committee meetings.
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The role of the minute’s secretary, although small in the club, is essential to documenting the events and progress of the club throughout the year.
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Attending all meetings and logging the minutes of these meetings.
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Keeping an up-to-date list of all members who have signed up, noting whether they have paid or not and then making this list available when organising insurance with MCofS
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Type up new membership forms and storing in a secure location
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Storing these minutes in a clear and concise manner so they can be understood by others ie. use appropriate language
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Organise rooms for committee meetings when required
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In charge of the income and expenditure of the club, the Treasurer is responsible for ensuring the books balance and they may be held responsible for any financial misconduct. The Treasurer is the key person in applying for funds and must present the accounts at the end of May.
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Attend Treasurer training at DUSA;
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Keep accurate and current accounts, including receipts and other supporting documents;
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Collect and sort money on a Wednesday night for trips, and reimburse individuals who purchase items on behalf of the club (fuel for drivers etc.).
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Set the budget for the year.
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Be responsible for deposits and withdrawals from the bank as well as the online banking account.
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Be a cheque signatory.
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Create the funding proposal for the Society Funding Council and attend all the meetings required;
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Have ownership of the Society receipt book for cash transactions.
The meets secretary is responsible for organising all the parts of a rucksack club meet. This includes the transport, any accommodation, selecting locations, ensuring we have drivers and dealing with weekly sign up.
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Dates and Location
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Start this in the early summer to ensure that you can organise huts to fit in a 3-4 week rotation with day meets in between. Roughly 1 weekend trip per month.
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Day meets should try to stick to approx 3 hours drive time, typically Ben Nevis/ Arrochar is the furthest we will go in a day.
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For the fresher meet, try to pick somewhere with lots of different options. Glen Clova, Blair Atholl and Crianlarich have been used in the past.
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Accommodation
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All the huts in Scotland can be found through the McofS directory. (http://www.mcofs.org.uk/assets/media/hutsdirectory.pdfhttp://www.mcofs.org.uk/assets/media/hutsdirectory.pdf)
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The more popular huts get booked up early, so book these as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.
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Consider the size of the hut, don’t select a small hut at start of year or for expected busy trips.
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Most require deposit at time of booking, some require rest of money before, but most are paid when the keys are returned.
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Most huts will provide all the information with facilities, and if we need to bring anything that it might not have.
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Weekly Sign Up/ Meets book
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Weekly sign up occurred on a Wednesday night at the club social, typically a 8:30pm start.
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Excel works best for the spreadsheet, other office based software can mess with all the formulas that can affect how it works.
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Ensure everyone who sign up pays the correct amount, or money is collected on the day. Also responsible for ensuring refunds are given out to who is due them.
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Refund are given to people who cancel the night before (at the latest) where people on the reserve list can get places. No shows don’t get refunds as someone on the reserve list would be missing out on the trip.
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Ensure that the meets book is kept in good condition and completed by everyone before they depart on their chosen route, ensuring they have written down where they are going and with who?
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Encourage people to draw/write in the blank pages for stories to be recorded for future memories.
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The key roles of the climbing and skills secretary are as follows;
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Organising the ‘free taster’ sessions on the ‘give-it-a-go’ days for the first 3 Wednesday afternoons. This involves liaising with Avertical World to organise dates and getting people to help you teach the freshers.
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To host climbing ‘training’ for a set 2 hour time, weekly at Avertical World. This involves; encouraging members to attend using various communication channels, being at the wall for those 2 hours to ensure that members who do turn up know what they are doing and can use their time at the wall most effectively and ensuring members practises are the safest possible.
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Organising instructed outdoor climbing courses through Ancrum for new members.
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Organise committee-run outdoor climbing meets to benny beg
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Sending out a paragraph by email weekly that describes possible climbing options for the location of the meet that is occurring that weekend.
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Organising a team and transport for the SSS Climbing Championships.
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Organising a team, accommodation and transport for the BUCS Climbing Championships.
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Encourage people to go the Avertical World Winter Bouldering Series. There are 4 comps.
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Attend all committee meetings.
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Attend all sign up meetings and promoting good practice and safety.
The transport secretary is responsible for organising all the different aspects of getting to and from each specific meet. This includes liaising with the meets sec. and the climbing and skills sec. to find out when and where buses are required to drive to. The transport sec. should also maintain a good and frequent relationship with the SU and ensure we have drivers and transport for every meet.
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Transport
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Very important to get sorted well in advance!
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Speak to the SU president and ensure all the SU paperwork is complete.
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Keep in good communication with the SU in case of any problems that may arise with bus allocation.
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Ensure all bus rules are followed to ensure the rucksack club doesn’t get any bus bans!
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Key collection
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This should be sorted on an individual trip basis: i.e. if it is a day meet and the meets sec is going along then the meets sec can collect and return the keys so long as the transport and meets sec have agreed on this in advance.
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Collection of keys either from SU office or ISE main desk during opening hours, or contacting other clubs to arrange time and location for when they return from their own trips.
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Keys are returned to either SU office or ISE main desk during opening hours, SU key dropbox, or passed onto the next club directly.
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Drivers
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Beginning of first semester find out how many members are capable of driving SU minibuses and organise getting as many of them as possible qualified with the SU, as long as the member is happy to do this.
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All drivers have to complete an SU test, which is quick and fairly simple. All drivers need to be at least 21 years old, and have a clean driving licence for 3 years.
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Ensure we have enough drivers for the number of buses we have booked.
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The key role of the position is to look after all the Club’s Equipment and to ensure that everybody has the correct equipment for each of the trips, e.g. clothing, crampons, ice axes and sleeping bags.
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The role involves making sure that all equipment that is owned by the club is safe to use, clean, repaired when needed, replaced when it unrepairable.
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You will also be responsible on deciding what new equipment needs to be bought and what old equipment needs to be replaced.
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Every week you will be required to open the gear store and distribute gear to club members who require it. A record of what gear has been taken out by which member must be kept and a deposit kept in the money box, in case that gear is lost, damaged or stolen.
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You will also have to collect gear that has been borrowed out. It is at your discretion when you do this but I would suggest that this is done on a Thursday evening, after sign up on the Wednesday.
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If no other committee member is available, prior to the club leaving on trips e.g. Friday night or Saturday/ Sunday morning, you will have to be present when the trip leaves Dundee, to ensure that crampons and axes are put on the bus, and when the club arrives back to Dundee.
Duties Involve hosting and advertising social events and designing and ordering club clothing.
Social Events:
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Formal Social events include; A Ceilidh, Christmas Dinner and Annual Dinner. However what they involve is up to the Social Secretary.
The Ceilidh most often occurs in the first semester but if there is demand a second may be organised for the second semester. Be warned – They are very expensive to run! – Abertay Student band where used this year and were the best value for money.
The Annual and Christmas Dinner should be arranged around exam periods at the Social Secretaries discretion.
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Informal events include; a freshers pub crawl, Pub Quiz, bonfire BBQ and any other events the Social Secretary wants to host.
The Pub Quiz usually happens in Semester 2 in the Sponsor Pub Clarks. The Social Secretary must host this or delegate another person to do this.
The Annual Bonfire BBQ is arranged so that people can walk to the fireworks afterwards.
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The role also involves liaising with the Sponsor Pub. The pub is Clark’s on Lindsey Street and the manager is Scott.
Club Clothing:
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The club has, in recent years, organised club clothing independent of the Sports Union due to the nature of the club and not requiring any official clothing for competition. It also works out cheaper for the individual.
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The design and clothing type is at the Social Secretaries discretion.
The Webmaster plays an important supporting role: he/she manages and maintains the club’s online tools, such as the website, announcements mailing list, events calendar, social media and the blog. So you aim to ensure all that stuff works, improve things where you can, and try to get people signed up, contributing, etc.
On a regular basis the Webmaster needs to check through incoming emails that have been flagged as spam (some are legit), deal with requests to join DURC Announce, ensure that questions are getting answered, keep an eye on Facebook/Twitter, and so on.
The Webmaster also has access to various statistical tools that can help to show where things are going right or wrong, and checking them over at some regular interval is recommended.
Some things you may not know:
1) You don’t *need* much in way of computing/web development knowledge, although it’s helpful. Updating the website or blog can be done using an interface that’s no more difficult or complicated than using, say, MS Word.
2) Everyone on the committee gets access to the website, calendar, Facebook page and so on. That means you don’t have to do all that stuff yourself: anyone can update pages, create events, etc.