TTT 23 Meet Journal Entry

TTT, or Teachers Teaching Teachers, is the first SUMC Meet of each academic year. While a great chance for everyone to catch up after the summer, its purpose is to pass on knowledge from our more experienced members and prepare everyone for the upcoming Freshers Meets. Read on to find out what shenanigans we got up to this year!

Ben C. (left) and Meet sec Marie (right)

 

Friday

We started strong with an immediate mix-up: we had booked a van instead of a minibus. Luckily the consensus was ‘vans are cooler anyway’, and it came in handy for the sheer number of potatoes that had been bought for dinner. While most people made the long trip up from Southampton, we had others travelling from Durham, Cambridge and Nottingham - Olly even flew in from Germany for the occasion! Upon arrival, everyone headed to the pub for some catching up and drinks. Liv (our resident crochet whizz) had made some delightful hats for us.

 

Saturday - Climbing

Saturday was spent at Bamford Edge, with gorgeous views and sunny weather.

Tom R. onsighted an E2 - 1st to the grade! Callum says “Well done Tom, what a beast.” Felix C couldn’t let Tom have all the fun and also climbed an E2 shortly afterwards. Ben C did his first trad lead after campussing a Severe on 2nd. Nicki led her first Severe, and Amber led a VS after much persuasion and was very grateful halfway up.

Multiple teams climbed Gargoyle Flake - a legendary VS with stunning photo opportunities. Jack was the first to lead it and says “Nicki and Ollie's good cop bad cop routine on the ground was the encouragement I knew I never needed”. As you can probably guess, our tactic was alternating positive hype (Nicki) with just plain being mean (Olly). Tom F. climbed the route some hours afterwards and while hanging by one hand, asked “How do I get back on?”. He presumably figured it out and later told us “Peter absolutely bitched his way up Gargoyle Flake (almost died) and apologised later on for whining,” to which Peter replied, “I’m not happy about this statement but I can’t disagree.”

Climbing Gargoyle Flake, Bamford Edge - Tom F. (left), Moi (middle), Olly and Sasha (right)

Marie got a nut stuck on a route; both Tom F. and Callum abseiled down, fought a holly bush and spent 20 minutes trying to get it out. After their two failures, Marie abbed down and got it out in 2 mins - what a legend.

In non-climbing related updates, Zak tried his first SUMC-Meet-cheese-and-pickle-sandwich - “Oh yeah, it was alright,” he said. This is a serious understatement. Felix W. poured orange juice on Callum and somehow (unfortunately) got his hands on an air horn. Upon request, Tom F. showed Moi things that we can’t mention here. We are unsure as of yet whether this is a new service he is offering.
 

Saturday - Evening

Returning to the hut found our Meet sec Ollie who had been waiting in the cold for hours, with only his PC and monitor for company. When asked about his wet weather plan, Ollie shrugged. The older members present headed to the freezer aisle in Co-op (the pub again), leaving the youngsters to make dinner.

Meet Sec Ollie and his spag bol

Dinner was vegetarian spaghetti bolognese with a side of spam (at Tom F’s request). The spaghetti was.. interesting, with words like "gelatinous" and "why is it in large lumps?" being thrown around. Chris, widely considered responsible for the pasta debacle, says “Ollie put all the spaghetti in one pan and blamed me when it went wrong. Ben C. suggested we should use a second pan and other helpful ideas and we ignored all of them”. The tomato sauce was blessed (cursed?) with extra pasta, in the form of Minions and Peppa Pig shapes. Regardless, the dinner was very edible and even proclaimed “delicious” by the people who added large amounts of garlic salt and MSG. And by Jack, who had three pints of beer and was absolutely smashed.

Ben S. is a self-proclaimed spaghetti expert and Peter was hangry so neither were pleased by the meal. To help matters, Olly borrowed and broke Peter’s car in a record 12 minutes! The rest of us played the Pot game - which if you don’t know how to play, the pictures below may give you some clues. Or they may not.

Playing the Pot game - Rob and George (left), Moi and Jon (right)

The Pot game got competitive, with Moi and Jon, Callum and Ben S. employing the 'on the shoulders' tactics. This proved not to be a winning strategy, with Sasha and Nicki, Tom R. and Felix coming joint first – neither pair even using the step-out method!

 

Sunday

With everyone in bed by 1 a.m., we were awoken to vats of porridge, spicy baked beans and tuna mayo for breakfast. With one bowl per person, I’ll leave you to imagine the confusion.

Unfortunately, Sunday brought poor climbing conditions and we were resigned to a day inside. After a group effort to get the hut clean, we headed to Outside, a climbing shop and cafe in Hathersage. The (second) breakfasts were amazing and the climbing gear was gorgeous and expensive. From there, some people headed home and some people headed to The Foundry Climbing Centre.

Felix C. (left) and Ben S. (right) celebrating a good day of climbing

 

All in all, it was lovely to see everyone again and nice to have a relaxed meet before the chaos of the Freshers Meets! If you’re reading this and considering joining our club, please do. We’re a great bunch and get up to so much exciting stuff.

Much love - SUMC (Written by Nicki)

 

P.S. If you’re wondering what happened to the previously mentioned potatoes, I don’t have answers for you. They weren’t used in the meal.