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40th Anniversary Dinner
1st March 2003
Speech by John Seymour

Hello everybody, and welcome to the Walking Club's 40th birthday bash! It is a great honour to welcome back so many prominent figures from the club's history, as well as the highest tally of current members for years. Being a mathmo, I feel it necessary to reel off some statistics, so here goes:

• There are 74 of you in here total, with exactly half being ex-presidents
• Between you, at least one representative from every committee since 1984 is here tonight
• Hopefully around 95% of you are well on the way to getting trollied

Anyway, many thanks to Jeremy, Bill, Geoff, and Keith for giving us a fascinating glimpse into the ways of the club when they were at Oxford. Now it's time to drag ourselves back to the present for the OUWC Review of the Year:

Where shall we begin? - Well, the day after last year's dinner seems sensible, when our illustrious president Rich travelled north for some hangover-busting walking in the fresh Yorkshire air. Unfortunately he had celebrated his triumphant dinner speech a little to excess the previous night, so he found an unsuspecting telephone box to evacuate his stomach into. I'm glad you've all finished eating! Come back next year to discover what happened to my half-digested meal...

Now, last year Rich thankfully refrained from mentioning the time when I drunkenly mistook my desk and tutorial work for a toilet, but I'm not as kind, so will continue with last October's Halloween Party: It was £1 a drink, so someone needed to sit with the drinks to take money from the scary-looking punters. Being helpful citizens, Rich and Laura R volunteered to share this task. Unfortunately, however, there were jugs of ludicrously strong cocktails sitting temptingly in front of them, so when the end of the party came, their purses were several pounds lighter and they were 20 sheets to the wind. This had a profound impact on both their nights in very different ways:

• Rich left Linacre, took a few steps, then launched into a spectacular somersault down the drive into a large tree; that weekend he led a trip to the Peak District with a nose that even Rudolph would be proud of! After the acrobatics he proceeded to queue up at Maxwells, only to be refused entry for being too drunk by the same bouncer who later that term chucked a whole group of us out when he caught Laura craftily stealing the odd cocktail cherry from the bar. Tut tut!
• Back to the Halloween Party, and Laura reacted to the excessive booze by pulling me - something that thankfully neither of us regretted, and we've been together ever since!

Talking of which, there must be something about Halloween, as Simon P and Katherine got together at the previous Halloween Party. Congratulations also to Heather & Andrew Thompson (known as "Tompo" by his schoolmates by the way), and of course Rich & Frog who are also still together since last year's dinner, and to Ben & Deb, the club's newest relationship!

Let's now rewind to a committee meeting last term, held all the way up in St Hugh's last term: After debating the colour of the forthcoming club mugs for at least 2 hours (or so it seemed), and other pressing issues, we chilled out afterwards with some drinks in Ric's room. Just when Chesney Hawkes' "I Am The One And Only" started playing for the umpteenth time, Dave turned the volume down. Far from taking offence at the music (though he probably did), he did so to announce to us his engagement to Rachel! This brilliant news definitely put our arguments over yellow or blue mugs into perspective... Please will you all join me in a toast to their 2 weddings this summer - one in Oxford, one in America - and their every happiness in the future: To Dave and Rachel!

Of course, they are continuing a wonderful tradition in this club: Past president Phil Morgan is unable to be with us tonight due to his stag-do, but I'm delighted his fiancé (and another past president) Ceri Owen is here. We have several already-married club couples in attendance today too.

There is another couple with us: special guests Howard and Shirley Jeffs. For those of you who don't know him, Howard is the University Area Safety Officer for Sport - so Howard, if you're worried by any of the antics I relate, please pretend you didn't hear them! Over the last few years, he has guided us through implementing numerous new measures to make our activities safer, as well as to ensure that the club is in the optimal position to defend itself if something ever should go very wrong, in this age of litigation. Being a very keen mountaineer himself, Howard has repeatedly gone the extra mile for us (if you'll pardon pun!), so I would now like to take this opportunity to thank him on behalf of the club for all his hard work, and good humour, in helping maximise OUWC's chances of being around in another 40 years: Please all raise your glasses to Howard Jeffs.

One of the most important changes brought about by Howard, and Rich as Trip & Safety Co-ordinator last year, has been the new regular leader-training programme. Mountain Leader training in Snowdonia last December was memorable for many reasons:

1. Frying-pan Skiing: Plas-y-Brenin outdoor centre were always asking for trouble by putting the exit of their bar at the top of the dry-ski slope... Not having skis or a sledge, we had to improvise, and after a disastrous trial-run on the Orange Book (which was scarred for life as a result), we grabbed a frying pan from the kitchen, which worked a treat!
2. The Marquee: For the expedition part of the course we had to camp overnight in a remote valley. Unfortunately we took one of the club's 4-man tents without checking it beforehand: It was short of guy ropes, and was only designed for coastal camping with short showers and calm breezes... So, not for the mountain camping with snow and gales that we actually used it for then!
3. Barney: We were subject to many brand-spanking new Barney-isms, such as:
   • "I'll remember that next time I'm shipwrecked at the top of a mountain"
   • "Bah, humbug... Ha! Bum-hug!"
   • "Isn't it amazing how running low and flying low have completely different meanings?"
   • "I don't need my family jewels"
   • "I aim to appear in the Orange Book as little as possible but am spectacularly bad at doing so". How true, Barney!
4. River Crossing: Rich, Tompo and Per were the gallant souls who did river crossings in freezing conditions whilst the rest of us watched on. Whereas Rich and Andrew had gritted teeth throughout, Per was in his element, and even went for an extra swim in the perishing water: In Sweden the men have saunas followed immediately by running outside and jumping naked into the snow... I'm proud to be British! Of course, this wasn't a one-off: He also took dips in the Irish Sea last spring in Pembrokeshire, and in Snowdonia in October (during that weekend of hurricane-force storms we had). Per, you are officially a madman!

Hopefully the current evolution of the club will mean that trips like last September's unofficial jaunt to the Pyrenees can become proper club trips in the future... Eleven "heroes" went to the Benasque region for a fortnight of hardcore walking, the ‘peak' being when we conquered Pico de Aneto, the highest mountain in the Pyrenees at 3404m above sea level. The holiday also involved much drinking - you can't argue with vaguely drinkable red wine for the equivalent of 36p a litre! - and arguing over who was the most heroic: This was definitely not Andrew P, who got scared going up a church tower in Barcelona, just in front of a 4-year old kid. Apparently he doesn't trust Spanish architects; I just think he's a wuss! Talking of Andrew, who incidentally was recently voted the least-likely club member to pull within the next 6 months, I deem it necessary to raise my concern over his sheep obsession: He has mentioned the woolly creatures on 17 separate occasions in the Orange Book in the last year... and he dares insult the Welsh for it!

Ahem, anyway, the holiday culminated in a few days swimming and sunbathing on the Med, and all in all it was an unforgettable trip!

Now it's time to talk about the biggest single liability the club has to deal with. OK, I've just mentioned Andrew P, so the second biggest liability: Minibuses! Where do we start? - Well, there's last March when Toby Jackson turned right into the fast lane of oncoming traffic on a dual carriageway, before Deb and I screamed and he careered over the central reservation onto the correct side. No wonder he moved to Peru soon afterwards!

Then there are the various bumps, scrapes and minor crashes, courtesy of people such as Simon S, Laura R, and the ever-reliable Gordon Riddell a.k.a. Crash Gordon. Or there are the numerous navigational blunders which occur with amazing regularity when Rich is giving the directions: For example take the Lakes trip the other weekend, when we travelled round the same one-way loop in Lancaster three times before finally finding a car park.

However, this year the #1 minibus incident had to be the Yorkshire Dales debacle last June, when the Engine Management System packed up, resulting in a maximum speed of 30mph. The delightful Eric Houdebine, our official chain-smoking Frenchman (doesn't every club have one?!) summed it up perfectly, "I think this bus is ready for the bin, huh, huh, huh". We eventually got back to Oxford at dawn on Monday morning - surely a club record?!

There have been many fantastic trips over the last year. Unfortunately one that never got off the ground was the Forest of Bowland, which got cancelled three times! At first we thought it was the Phil Roberts effect, but the club's self-professed "two northern charmers", Ben and Ric, also failed to pull the trip off... Who will next dare to try and break the Bowland jinx??

Thankfully there has been no equivalent failure on the socials front: 75 people came to the annual ceilidh, and Deb flukily got dry weather and lots of people for each of her outdoors-based socials as president last Trinity.

One memorable occasion was May Day, when Phil R got a large group of us inside Magdalen to watch the choir welcome in the spring, on a beautiful Wednesday morning. Surely something had to go wrong: Phil was in charge! - And yes, soon enough it did, when he announced he could get us all into Magdalen college breakfast. We thought it slightly peculiar when we collected our fry-ups and no-one was on the till wanting money. "Never fear", Phil said, so we took our food into the hall and started devouring it. It then began to dawn on us that everyone else in the room was wearing a fluorescent jacket... they were the policemen who had been helping with the May Day event! So, to recap, about 12 of us were illegally chomping away at bacon and eggs that we hadn't paid for, in a hall containing half of Oxfordshire's police force: Classic! Much argument followed between Phil and the college's assistant bursar, and we all ended up paying extra, but it was well worth it for the entertainment value! Just to confirm, we have paid New College for this, and we're not all about to be arrested...

I should stop there so we can go and continue celebrating in the Long Room. I would like to thank you all for your support of the club, whether that was in the past, or present, or indeed will be in the future. Particular mention should go to the committees, leaders and drivers from the past year who have been unfalteringly dedicated to their respective commitments throughout, and the other two recent presidents, Deb and Rich, who I'd like to thank with a toast: To Deb and Rich!

And now to my final toast, to the reason why we're all here tonight: Remember, life begins at 40, so please raise your glasses to the future of Oxford University Walking Club!