MCR 80th Anniversary and J-Rat Digging Awards 2016
MCR 80th Anniversary and J-Rat Digging Award 2016
This year the MCR will be 80 years old, and to celebrate we are having a party, to be held in Priddy Village Hall on Saturday the 19th November. The annual J-Rat Digging Award will be held on the same evening. All cavers will be very welcome to come along and help us celebrate! Entry will be free, but there will be a small charge for the food and a bar run by cavers selling local beer and cider.
A rough plan for the evening is:
- 1900 bar open and food available (to help us with planning this, it would be helpful if you would indicate whether you are likely to want food in advance, and if you require a vegetarian option)
- 2000 short introduction the MCR and a celebration of 80 years of cavers rescuing cavers. The local MP James Heappey has been invited along to say a few (non-political) words
- 2030 the J-Rat awards, compeered by Pete Glanvill, culminating in the award to the winning team at 2130
- 2200 through to midnight a cavers stomp with DJ Basher
Everyone is very welcome to come along and join in the fun. There will be some posters displayed in local caving huts, but if you want to help spread the word then please download a copy of the poster. If you have any questions please get in touch with the organisers by sending an email to
Join wreck and cave explorers Richard Walker and Christine Grosart, for an evening of discovery and adventure, to be held at Evercreech Village Hall at 19:30 on 26th February 2016.
Mars the Magnificent, the legendary warship of the Swedish King Erik XIV, has lain at the bottom of the Baltic sea for 450 years. In 2011, a team of technical scuba divers, after 20 years of searching, found the warship on the sonar of their search vessel. They made a first dive on the wreck to discover cannons, treasure and an almost intact warship, not seen by human eyes since 1564.
The National Geographic became involved to support the project
Richard Walker was invited to dive the shipwreck in 2015 and he tells the story of the famous ship and what it is like to dive her at 75 metres depth.
Christine Grosart is a caver, cave diver and explorer. She holds the end of the line in more than four caves in Europe - quite literally discovering cave passages where no human has ever been. In 2009 she visited the far reaches of Wookey Hole cave to earn the female cave diving depth record in a British cave. Christine's caving roots are in the Mendip Hills and she will be giving a talk with stunning images, about caves, cave diving and a cave conservation project in South Wales.
At the end of the evening there will be a raffle prize draw with proceeds going to the Mendip Cave Rescue and Somerset Air Ambulance. More information about the evening can be found at the following Facebook event https://www.facebook.com/events/889902494450941/
Hidden Earth is the UK's annual caving conference, and Hidden Earth 2015 will be held at Churchill Academy near Bristol over the weekend of 25-27 September 2015. More details about Hidden Earth can be found on their website. As it is being held in our backyard, Mendip Cave Rescue will have a stand in the main hall, so please feel free to drop by and say hello.