Newsletter: Summer 2025
- BBRCC Admin
- May 23, 2025
- 9 min read
Welcome to our Summer Newsletter, full of news and updates from BBRCC - The Outdoor Club and its members.
Continue reading the content below, or if you prefer you can download the original PDF.
Upcoming dates
Sat 4th October 2025: Committee Meeting - 7pm - Cae Groes
17th-20th October 2025: Raven Crag Working Party - Clean out gutters, tidy garden and paved areas, painting of hall and stairs.
Sat 31st Jan 2026: AGM - 4.30pm - Cae Groes
Sat 31st Jan 2026: Annual Dinner
Sun 1st Feb 2026: First Committee Meeting of 2026 - 9.30am - Cae Groes
Full list of dates will be published on the website as they are announced.
Working parties
Consider volunteering on one of our forthcoming working parties. Spend one day helping out and enjoy another day free on the hills. Accommodation is free for volunteers and it’s a great way to meet other members. If you are interested, please contact the booking secretaries for the property or Keith Southwell for Cae Groes (keithjsouthwell4@gmail.com) or Dave Mobbs for Raven Crag (dave.mobbs2@gmail.com). Dates for working parties in 2025 will be published on the website as they are announced.
BBRCC Annual Dinner 2025 was a great success
As always, the BBRCC Annual Dinner was enjoyed by all who attended. The staff at The Princes Arms were wonderful and accommodating. Thanks to Michael Raymond for organising the meal and John Harding for finding and liaising with the speaker. We enjoyed a lovely three course meal which was followed by an engaging 45 minutes listening to Olly Sanders - sea kayaker, climber and Piolet D’Or nominee - as he pulled various props out of his bag and entertained us with exciting and hilarious stories such as spontaneously paddling across the Irish Sea, warding off a bear in Greenland and adventures in India, Nepal, Patagonia and Peru. View Olly’s website here: https://www.rockandseadventures.co.uk/index.php/about/about-rock-sea
Many thanks to all who attended and we plan to run another meal next year.
Keep an eye on our website, socials and newsletters later in the year to book in for the Annual Dinner 2026.
A note to members regarding bookings
Dear members,
The booking system requires you to enter various information, including your membership number
and email address. Some people have struggled to find their membership number - there are two ways to find it -
1. The original welcome email that was sent to you when you joined the club
2. In the reference field of your annual subscription Direct Debit, which should appear on your Bank statement on or around 23rd January.
Please also remember to advise our Membership Secretary (bbrccmembers@yahoo.co.uk) if you
change your email address, as the booking process will check the email address on the booking
against the one we hold on our membership database.
Hopefully this will help to streamline the booking process for you and the Booking Secretaries.
Our new ‘Welcome Packs’
We are pleased to introduce brand new Welcome Packs to both properties. These packs contains all the information you will need during your stay including parking information, fire safety, breakages/ damages reporting and wifi information. They are also available on the website. We hope you find them useful!
Electric Car Charging
With the rise in electric/plug in hybrid cars and the surging cost of electricity, it is not within our budgets to allow these to be charged at either of our sites. All electric cars now come with maps which provide information of the nearest charging points but from experience I have found the following to be best positioned and most useful.
Raven Crag
- Booths Windermere - has numerous fast charging points (up to 150KW) and is usually en route to or from the clubhouse.
- Booths Kendal - Both CHAdeMO and CCS charging 4 of each - 50KW. Post code LA9 4DG
- Sainsburys Kendal - CCS charging only - 4 chargers super fast - up to 300KW. Post code LA9 6DL
- Booths Keswick - Both CHAdeMO and CSS - 6 of each speeds from 60KW to 120KW. Post code CA12
SEA.
Llanwrst
- Zip World Forest - 2 devices only - no info available - nearest. Post code LL24 OHX
- Betws-y-Coed Gwydyr Hotel - also 2 device only CARE these are often blocked by local markets
- RHUG Estate Farm Shop - 12 CCS and 8 CHAdeMO 60KW to 120KW. Post code LL21 OEH
As time elapses more units come online and the above is not an exhaustive list. I recommend you check availability before arriving as often they are closed for upgrades or maintenance. List by Phill Moore
Guidance for the charging of equipment containing lithium batteries
At a recent committee meeting there was a long discussion around lithium batteries, primarily around e-bikes following numerous articles in the press and TV. In general terms we are surrounded by products that contain lithium batteries from e-cigarettes to cars, and all can have the same outcome if abused or not used correctly. It has been decided that we will only allow OEM branded products on any BBRCC premises. By this, we mean products that come complete with compatible battery and chargers and are sold in the U.K. with a 3 pin plug, product warranties and manufacturers backup.
So for example, if you have bought a battery from an online site and separate products from different online sources and built your own product (this could be an e-bike) you must not bring this onto, or charge, in any BBRCC site.
The committee has agreed that all e-bikes that fall into the legal category of EAPC also commonly known as PedLec i.e. motor output max 240 watts and max assist MPH 15.5MPH max supported speed can be charged on BBRCC properties. However, to do this the battery must be removable from the bike. Bikes in general cannot be stored in BBRCC houses as they are potentially blocking access/exit routes. Please do not charge your batteries inside the Cae Groes barn.
If you have an e-bike which is propelled by trigger or twist grip and not wholly by pedalling, this is
essentially a motorcycle or moped, not an EAPC and is actually illegal unless it is registered, taxed and insured and so would fall under the same rules as members cars. The committee reserves the right to change this policy without notice.
Exciting news about Cae Groes apartments
The apartments have undergone a massive upgrade over the past few months with new kitchens fitted. These now include a full size oven, grill and 4 ring hob, full size fridge with freezer compartment, under sink water heaters and new high-quality cupboards and worksurfaces.
We have also been able to install showers to each of the apartments so no more cold walks over to the shower block! All the walls have been freshly plastered and painted. We have removed the 50p meters from the units due to the higher electrical capacity now required, so please bear this in mind and remember to switch off items when you leave.
We have installed a new main door to the Main House with a window to allow some natural light into the hallway and fitted new door to the barn.
The beautiful new apartments are now ready for booking, just in time for Summer.
Member Feature
This is a regular feature where we talk to a member of the club. We hope this will build a sense of
community and help you get to know other members using the properties.
Terry Leary
I was born 77 years ago and lived in east London until I was eleven. We used to go to Hackney Downs Park to see grass, pretty flowers and trees – then we moved to Nottingham and I discovered I could catch a bus to the heart of the Peak District. My love of the countryside, especially wilder areas, started then and I still have a soft spot for the Dark Peak, with its heather, moors and bogs.
In 1972 I was working for Barclays and they relocated my job from London to Radbroke Hall in
Cheshire. Suddenly I was living on the edge of the Peak District with Snowdonia only ninety minutes away by car. I joined BBRCC a couple of years later and Radbroke Hall Mountaineering and Climbing club started about then too.
We would often go to Cae Groes for weekends and also further north for Scottish weeks organised
by the BBRCC committee. For several years we used to have a winter climbing week in February
alternating between the Glencoe/Ben Nevis area on the west coast and the Cairngorms on the east
coast. We also visited Skye for a spring week for several years. My memories of Skye in the first week of May are wonderful: no midges and either hot sun or snow!
We were young and having fun. Winter in North Wales was always good. I remember climbing a semi-frozen waterfall with Mike Trude. We were leading through and, at one point, when I looked up I saw Mike spreadeagled with his left arm above him and his right foot out to the side. Water was running down into the left sleeve of his cagoule – and coming out of his right trouser leg! I decided to find a different stance.
On another occasion Mike and I climbed Parsely Fern gully (or was it Clogwyn Y Person arete?)
on Crib y Ddysgl. It snowed all the time and after we unroped and started walking away from the
cliff-top, chatting about the climb, we realised we had our heads very close to one another. That
was because we were in a true white-out. When I held my arm straight out I couldn’t see further
than my elbow. Then we realised we had little idea where we were.
I suggested we kept going uphill until we were on the top of Crib y Ddysgl and then it would
be fairly easy map and compass work to go down. Mike didn’t like that idea because it was
beginning to get dark, the snow was getting deeper and Crib y Ddysgl’s south cliffs were very
near its top. He suggested contouring westwards and finding the Snowdon railway. “In eighteen
inches of snow?” I dubiously asked.
We agreed to compromise. For fifteen minutes I led uphill and then for the next fifteen minutes
we contoured west. When Mike was leading, every now and again he would stop and scrape
away the snow with his axe (ineffectually in my opinion). During his second turn, Mike found
the railway line (!) and we easily followed its vaguely flat bed to the quick descent via Cwm Glas
Bach to the different world of the valley – where there was a gentle drizzle and we met a woman
walking her dog. We were covered in snow bobbles and icicles and she couldn’t believe we’d
been ‘up there!’
Sometimes we were very lucky. When I tripped over my crampons on the summit of Buachaille Etive Mor, after Nobby Clarke and I had climbed the North Buttress, I turned a full somersault and only stopped at the edge because a loop on my rucksack caught on a rock. I insisted on roping up again and didn’t allow Nobby to untie until we were down on virtually completely flat snow. I haven’t forgotten his gentleness and patience. Another time, Trout challenged me to a running race along the Crib Goch ridge wearing heavy boots and rucksacks and neither of us fell over the side.
I have memorable failures: when Richard Gibson climbed Island Peak in the Himalays in 1982, I
turned back near the top. When Richard organised the Andes trek in 1989 we all failed to climb
Auzangate (a last minute change of plan meant nobody knew the route up this 21,000ft peak –
although some other smaller peaks were bagged). The Matterhorn in winter conditions wasn’t
doable, although Richard and Skinner reached a point higher than the Solvay hut, only about 500ft
from the summit. Nobby and I gave up much sooner and had drunk lots of schnapps by the time the nearly-supermen joined us.
Just once I attempted to do the Cuillin Ridge on Skye in one long day but my partner decided it
wasn’t the right day for him and we dropped down the side about three-quarters of the way along.
I failed to reach the summit of Mont Blanc to celebrate my sixtieth birthday because a storm was
coming in too fast. My guide insisted we turn back only about 500 metres from the top – although to be fair that final push would’ve taken well over an hour.
I also had some successes: walking the Welsh 14 in fourteen hours; doing the Langdale Horseshoe via Bowfell, with Vera Rowe and Mike, starting and finishing at the Brittannia in Elterwater. It was a very hot day and we all ran out of water. At the end we men collapsed on the grass and allowed Vera to go and buy six pints of shandy for the three of us. I went up Kilimanjaro’s tourist route to Uhuru Peak summit to celebrate being 50 and recommend it as a good walk.
My love of the Dark Peak often drew me back to Kinder Scout and I set myself the challenge of walking in a straight line across it, from Hayfield via Crowden Head to where the rivers Alport and Ashop meet, using only map and compass. On my third attempt I was successful. If you think you’re a good navigator I suggest you try it.
John Harding often used to organise weeks in the Alps and one year a wonderful week of glacier
walking was topped off by reaching the summit of Cristallina.
My best success was when Barclays’ said it would close the Sports Club in January 2000. I persuaded the Sports Club chairman to give us our year 2000 Cae Groes and Raven Crag budgets in December 1999. We applied for a mortgage and gave the money straight back to the bank as our deposit. If that ruse hadn’t succeeded the bank would have sold the houses elsewhere and BBRCC would have collapsed.
I’ll finish by thanking my wife, Joy, who is not a hill person, for letting me out to be a child possibly too often and to say that I’m extremely happy that BBRCC is flourishing. My advice to young people today is to walk and climb on the hills as often as you can – and push yourselves! You won’t know what you can do unless you try.
Terry Leary
