A new direction for BCRA publications

Withdrawing from 'national body' activities
- including the production of a 'glossy'
news magazine - will allow BCRA to focus
on its core activity of promoting cave
science and education. However, without
Caves & Caving, BCRA needs something
to balance the academic content of Cave
& Karst Science.

We have decided that this balance can be
achieved with a new periodical covering
'popular science andTechnology' for
caving.

This new journal - Speleology - will also cover expeditions  and cave exploration, but the title Speleology is intended to reflect a bias towards the study of caves and away from
the reporting of news, which is achieved
more comprehensively than we can
manage by the bi-monthly appearance of
Descent.

 

The change of title also indicates
changes in the production process - you
will notice that we have 'scaled down' the
graphical style to something that can be
maintained by the volunteer effort we have
available at the moment.

BCRA Council appreciates that those
members who joined BCRA primarily for
its 'national body' role, including the
provision of Caves & Caving, may not wish
to support a purely science-based body.

But with the emergence of the new
national body, BCRA needs to accept its
revised role, and we are enthusiastic
about doing so. We expect there to be
some drop in membership of BCRA, but
we are confident that we can continue to
fulfil our charitable aims in this situation,
and to provide good value for money.

 

A full statement on BCRA's plans for publications in 2003 can be found at
www.bcra.org.uk/nnb/publications.html