The first trip of the year had us stomping through the mighty halls of Aggy, crawling through the unnecessarily tight squeezes of Eggy, and enjoying the beautiful Welsh countryside in good company. All the boxes were ticked: comforting damp darkness, minibus songs, and the finest games known to cavers. Also Chris invented a questionable new addition to the game repertoire, Laura got lost many a time, and of course Matti cooked the eggy bread to perfection.

As we begin the new academic year, let's give our new committee their much overdue welcome. Congratulations to the new committee for ending Matti's reign as Supreme Leader and for thwarting RON's rise to power.

And, as always, our commiserations to the winners of the following awards:

Herman Herz: Julien, nominated for staring into the face of death as he slowly but surely slipped off the ledge in OFD’s Edward’s Shortcut into the pit below. Credit to Astrid for leaping into action to prevent disaster.

For Evans' Sake: Chris, nominated for expertly watering the plants by the path in the Wormwood Scrubs with a perfect parabola of urine while gracefully in motion on his bike, even executing a corner effortlessly mid-piss.

Wretched Rabbit is open again so we had to go back! We exchanged with County Pot and were out in good time. A breakaway party had a FAAB trip to the bottom of FOUL Pot, also getting out before the forecasted heavy rain. Sunday held another successful exchange trip, between Boxhead and It's a Cracker on Leck Fell. A cracker of a weekend.

While typically not deemed worthy of documentation, this year's attendance at the annual Hidden Earth national caving conference unfolded with such astounding drama that it insisted on being immortalized in the written epic saga of Panda-monium.

A chaotic but surprisingly successful start to the year with a trip to Whitewalls in Wales. Two epic trips to Daren and Aggy were followed by an equally epic photo session in Eggy.

Training, caving, canyoning - this weekend had everything! On a sunny weekend in Yorkshire ICCC learned to keep them warm and stop the bleeding, that there's always been a canyon 10 minutes from Kingsdale, and that it's possible to do more than one activity in a day.

A rare example of a successful exchange trip: Simpsons <-> Swinsto, with a cheeky parallel Turbery pullthrough leeching off of some Swinsto rope before disappearing down Valley Entrance. The Sunday hosted a relaxed Out Sleets Beck trip before the bus carried us home.

Big caves, pretty stals, expo caving, via ferrata, turnips, beaches, BBQs and el bombo - this brilliant tour to Cantabria had it all - Bamboléo!

The final trip of the term meant we wanted to do something challenging, and it had been a while since the club had tackled Gaping Gill so we trudged up the long walk up the fell only to descend back down again. A cheeky trip to Hensler's Master Cave was also undertaken, and the Main Chamber was spectacular as ever. Crickets were eaten, Bar was derigged, and everyone made it home safely, only to be assaulted by some intensely flavoured burritos. Many people decided to go caveless on Sunday, so just one group took on Shuttleworth to admire the dizzying array of pretties.

For the first time in club memory we trekked to the faraway lands of Snowdonia to visit the gargantuan labyrinths that had been hollowed out beneath the barren lands. Highlights included a perilous zipline, a slightly leaky canoe, and hundreds of titanic caverns carved into the slate, rivaling Moria in majesty.