ExCS has been, for the last 23 years, the place where people who used to go caving with CUCC now reside. Originally set up as a separate club to avoid having to borrow valuable tackle off CUCC, its nature has changed over the years. In the mid-80s it was a very active club in its own right, but it has declined a bit in recent years.

We have our own tackle, are a member club of CNCC, and have our own newsletters and dinners. (though there has been decidedly less of the latter recently, as people get bored of organising things.) Essentially, ExCS is a place where you can deposit your name and address in order to keep in touch in the years to come with the people you knew at Cambridge

We had a very successful dinner in the Lake District in March '94, at which many old faces turned up, and quite a few young and fresh looking ones too, including a minibus of rather confused-looking CUCC undergraduates.

New members might have to pay a membership fee to Adam Cooper. I say 'might' because the rest of us are currently enjoying a 'subscriptions holiday'. Newsletters are infrequent, but provided that you keep me up-to-date with your address you will remain on the mailing list until we run out of money, when you will be asked for some more.

CUCC is not really active enough, in the UK, to spawn a post-graduate club; and the question has been asked as to why ExCS insist of being separate from CUCC at all. Nowadays CUCC manages closer contact with its recent graduate members. This is partly, I think, because there has been a marked tendency for graduates to become post-graduates, or at least to remain living in Cambridge. This was not the case 15 years ago; and with a relatively small club, and an ever increasing age range, people start to pursue other interests. Some of the more extrovert members of excs/CUCC are amazed when I point out that some people simply do not want to go caving with students. There was a time when, as recent graduates, us oldies couldn't imagine that we would ever decide to stop caving. Similarly, we couldn't imagine that we would rather stay at home wallpapering the bedroom and having babies, than going off on ExCS weekends. But it happens and, as a result, the 'official' ExCS is less active than it was. 'Unofficial' or 'Young' ExCS are still doing things. They seem to get along quite well without a newsletter - they go on expedition, they turn up at ExCS dinners (ie. the so-called CUCC alternative dinner), they have caving weekends, they are in the Dales at New Year. If they actually produced a newsletter it is unlikely that oldie-ExCS would understand it! Perhaps, though, they feel a bit shy about calling themselves ExCS. I wish they would.

'Oldie' ExCS are in the news too. Vic Brown was part of the 'footsteps of Shackleton' expedition recently (as reported in the Guardian, and in the ExCS newsletter) and ...errr.. well, other people's names crop up in the media too, and even those whose don't just get on with quietly doing their own thing.

Anyway, there is this vast and haphazardly organised thing, to which you can belong; and if you give us your name we won't lose it. You might get a newsletter now and then; you'll get an address list; you might even want to organise your own event or write a newsletter or two yourself. You are very welcome to do so. This is our current mailing list. 'Lapsed' means that the member has been struck off for not letting us know if they still exist. 'New' means that the person joined in the last couple of years, (probably freeloading on the back of our subscription holiday!).

There are many more people who have come and gone over the years, and I also have a list of all CUCC life members up to 1988, whether on not they ever joined ExCS. Get your name on the ExCS will-not-get-left-in-the-pub list now!

The following are the important ExCS contacts at the moment:

Newsletter Editor - Mark Fearon
Treasurer - Adam Cooper
Tackle Store - Julian & Naomi Griffiths
Keeper of the Address List - David Gibson