This page contains information about trips, membership, sign-ups and refunds. Please read through this carefully before signing up to a trip.
Weekend Trips
We organise 2-3 weekend trips per term. The cost (covering transport, accommodation, and club supplies of milk, tea, coffee, hot chocolate and biscuits) is £57 for students, £65 for non-students. Membership is required to join a weekend trip (but you can wait to get it until you confirm your spot on a trip) and it lasts 12 months.
- Transport: arranged by car thanks to our volunteer drivers. We leave from outside Churchill College Porters' Lodge (marked by the black hat) on Friday afternoon at times ranging from 2pm to 6pm (times decided after people have expressed their preferred times when signing up) and generally returning around 9 - 11pm on Sunday. There are usually 5 persons per car so pack lightly!
- Accommodation: we stay in bunkhouses, barns and huts. Unless specified otherwise, they will include basic facilities (electricity, running water, heating, communal toilets and showers and an equiped kitchen), but we can't always count with having phone signal (nor wi-fi). They are typically for 25-30 persons, and most commonly we will sleep using 2 or 3 mixed-gender bunkbed bedrooms, although some huts use all their upper floor as a big bedroom in what’s known as alpine style beds.
- Food: Each person is required to bring enough food for the weekend (breakfast and packed lunches for saturday and sunday and enough snacks for the weekend). On Friday and Sunday evenings, we usually stop at a service station (the time and location of the stop is up to the drivers and may be quite late), so bring money or a packed dinner. On Saturday evening we cook communally.
- Saturday's dinner: Before the trip, anyone can propose to cook a meal, and will put this on a communal document, giving the menu and an estimated cost. Others on the trip then sign up to help cook (then eat!) one of the proposed meals. This makes Saturday evenings quite hectic and sociable! It is a good idea for two or three people to group together when proposing a meal group, as long as you can keep yourselves organised in the kitchen. Everyone in a meal group helps out with the cooking and washing up, and pays the cook for the ingredients (this is normally £3-£5).
- On the Bridgemas trip, the club normally organises a single huge meal group to cook Christmas dinner, with everyone helping out.
- Walks: On Saturday and Sunday we wake up at 7am and everyone takes part in deciding what to do. You can devise your own walk or sign up to one that has already been planned. Usually we split into four or five groups and end up doing a range of walks, of diferent lengths and characteristics. Route cards must be filled in for all walks and everyone must be signed up to a route card before leaving the bunkhouse. Each walking group is led by at least one experienced club member.
- Equipment: You do not need any fancy gear to join us, but a minimum we require you to have sturdy walking boots, warm clothes, waterproofs and a sleeping bag. You can find more information about the required kit in the Safety & Equipment section, the club also has some kit available to rent.
Do you have any questions? If you can't find an answer within our FAQs nor the rest of the website, we recommend you contact us or you come to meet us in a pubmeet, we'll be more than happy to answer any doubts you may have(:
Day Trips
Day trips are usually arranged for Sundays in order to avoid Saturday lectures. They generally leave early in the morning (before sunrise, even!) to get the travelling over, and normally cost in the region of £25-30. Popular locations include the Peak District, Shropshire Hills, and the Chilterns.
Vacation Trips
Vacation trips are longer, staying in bunkhouses or camping. This means we can go further afield, most particularly to Scotland. They are organised more informally, with the option to stay for as many or as few nights as you like. In past years, we have also helped arrange a trip abroad over the summer, which has visited destinations including the Alps, the Pyrenees and Colorado. The club does not (normally) organise transport for vacation trips, but will help to coordinate lift-sharing and advise on public transport.
Cooking on vacation trips is similar to on weekend trips, except that people are cooking every night, not just Saturday. Generally, those on vacation trips are even more responsible for their own food than on weekend trips. Don’t plan to go shopping during the trip — the nearest shop often requires a car to visit, and the drivers would rather be out walking than giving people lifts to the shops.
Signing up for Trips
We now arrange sign-up for all trips via email, or via a form on this website. Sign-up will be advertised by email and will close at a specified time, typically around two weeks before the trip. In the (most likely) case that there aren't enough places for everyone, places will be assigned by random ballot. Sign-ups may specify the names and email addresses of up to two people with whom they'd like to go, who must themselves also sign-up and give the names of the others in the group. In the case of such a signup either all or none of the group will be assigned a place, with the same chance as an individual sign-up. Signing up will be treated as an agreement to pay the trip cost, if assigned a place.
After the ballot, we will confirm places by email, and request payment by bank transfer. If anyone is unable to pay by bank transfer, we may be able to arrange alternatives. You will need to be a member to come on the trip, but you can join when your place is confirmed.
Refunds
Please see the Refund Policy