The flagship event of the year, combining a black-tie dinner with opportunities for hillwalking in the heart of the Lake District. We returned to Langdale (High Close) YHA, the location of the Twentieth Anniversary Dinner, with nearly 100 new, existing and old members. The somewhat wet weather failed to dampen the enthusiasm of the attendees: hills were climbed, a wonderful dinner eaten, vast quantities of alcohol drunk, songs sung, willows stripped, mascots chased and a fantastic time had by all.

Here is a photograph of the group taken just before dinner:

Further group photographs taken by Toby can be found at this link.

Photo albums from some of the event attendees can be found by clicking the following links:

• Philip Withnall
• David Pettit
• Andrew Williamson

After some fantastic submissions for the Twentieth Anniversary Journal, the plan was to produce one this time around that was bigger, better and not just run off by the nice reprographics lady at Michael's school.

Members past and present rose to the occasion and produced some wonderful material, which was skilfully assembled and edited by Michael, Sarah and Bethan. The journal was distributed to all who pre-ordered a copy at the Anniversary Dinner in February.

Although we would like to make the journal available online, transforming the material into a suitable format is a large and time-consuming job and so there are currently no plans to do this. However, there are still some hard copies available for purchase at £3 plus postage (free if you can pick it up from Cambridge) so if you would like to see if you can still get one, you can try contacting a member of the organising committee or the current CUHWC committee.

25 memorable hills from 25 years: your stories published in the Anniversary Journal

Following a great suggestion from Bethan Gudgeon (Social Secretary 2010), we have gathered stories from club members across the years to form a collection of 25 classic "Silver Hills", published with pictures and route descriptions in the Anniversary Journal.

From the best day out in Britain's mountains to memorable scrambles, afternoon strolls, epics, the most exciting hills for kids, they all come with a personal story.

Many thanks to all those who have contributed!

We have produced a Twenty-fifth Anniversary T-shirt, if nothing else to add another collectable to the growing assortment of CUHWC T-shirts! If you didn't get your hands on one at the Anniversary Dinner, the club is organising a second order - contact the social sec if you'd like one.

Here is the design:

A club-and-duffer effort to summit all 214 Wainwrights within the anniversary year.

Update 4th October 2014

The challenge has been SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED, as you will see from the map linked below! Thanks to all who participated and especially to Joe for keeping the records and keeping us on track. Watch this space for a more detailed write-up of the project (promised by Michael if anyone cares to pester him about it), and in the meantime you can see who did what by hovering over all the green dots on the map.

Tell us what you've done

If you've climbed a Wainwright since the beginning of October 2013, enter it on the database so we can all see who's done what, and how we're doing!

Enter as much detail as possible, and you can of course add your stories and links to photo albums!

Click here to update the list.

See how far we've got!

Click here to see the map.

The red dots will change to green once they've been 'bagged'.

Please note that the map is updated manually. Drop Joe Hobbs (jlh79 [at] cam [dot] ac [dot] uk) an email if you've made changes recently and want the map updated!

May Week saw a crowd of current and past members enjoying a sunny(ish) Garden Party and punting trip. All the details are below for those who missed it... (The eagle-eyed among you will notice that the event picture still shows the 2010 Garden Party - we'd like to update this, so if you have a good photo of this year's event please send it to the webmaster.)

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Remember sipping champagne and enjoying strawberries and cream on a Cambridge college lawn, watching the punts go past? Relive your student days (or at least the sophisticated bits!) by joining fellow hillwalkers from across the years at a summer Garden Party.

Dr James Hickson invites you all to join him and the current club for the CUHWC Garden Party on Saturday 14th June in Pembroke College gardens.

Duffers of all generations are more than welcome - we very much hope you can join us!

Garden Party details

Our fabulous annual Garden Party is coming up to kick off May Week from 2-4pm on Saturday 14 June. Set in the beautiful grounds of Pembroke Fellow’s Garden, this promises to be a special way to celebrate the club’s 25th Anniversary (following on from the memorable Langdale Trip in Lent). The price of a ticket will be £8, with vast quantities of delicious food and plenty of Pimm’s to help you soak up the afternoon sun (we hope!). If there’s anything you’d particularly like to cook or bring along that would be fantastic and we’ll be able to pay your back for the cost of ingredients (see below), or just come along to the most fun that hillwalkers can have whilst in Cambridge!

Contributing Garden Party food

If you're feeling keen, we'd love you to bring along something delicious to share! Once you’ve signed up to attend, head over to the cooking wiki. The idea is that you bring along some of your own food along in a group or as an individual and we’ll pay you back for the cost of the ingredients. Whatever you come up with will be most appreciated, and don’t worry Hillwalkers aren’t fussy! If cooking is not for you, not to worry, we’ll be just as glad to have your company.

Punting details

And if the Garden Party isn’t too much fun for one day, then it will be followed by Overnight Punting with a BBQ, even more drinking and other festivities on Grantchester Meadows. There will be fun flying everywhere in the form of frisbees, sparklers, and all those other things you just didn’t quite get the chance to do during Exam term! We’ll then punt back to Cambridge in the dark. The price for this will be £12 to cover the cost of everything (except the fun – that’s free!).

We’re sure you’d like to come to both, which all in all is a bargain for just £20, but if you’d like to come to one or the other, we’d be delighted to have your company too. Please email the current social secs, Jade & Marcus (cuhwc-social at srcf.net) and either transfer the appropriate amount to the club account (account no: 00572720 // sort code: 30-91-56), or send a cheque, payable to 'CU Hillwalking Club', to John Ockenden's pidgeonhole at Clare Colony, to secure your place by Friday 6th June.

May bank holiday saw a number of duffers attend a camping meet at Rydal Hall in the heart of the Lake District (thanks to Niall for organising). We trust everyone had fun! The original details are below, for anyone who wants to know what they missed...

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A Lakeland camping trip for everyone, whether you are two years old and will happily spend a whole day exploring a rock pool, or a student with too much energy wanting to tick off several tens of HuMPs in one go.

This will be based at Rydal Hall, from Friday May 23rd 2014. We would expect most people to arrive on Friday 23rd, some on Sat 24th. Some people would leave Sunday or Monday, others stay through to Wednesday or Thursday. (If you wish to stay beyond this you may be asked to move your tent.)

We're provisionally booked on sites C8-12 (see map) and we need to confirm the booking, with a deposit, by mid-November.

If you'd like to come, please let Niall (niall.mackay at york.ac.uk) know, with numbers (adults+children) and which nights you want to stay.

Please also send a deposit (£40 total per family or £20 per person). Contact Niall for bank transfer details or an address to send a cheque to.

You can also book directly with Rydal Hall closer to the time, but are not guaranteed a space near us.

Michael Fordham, Dave Farrow and Jo Smith are three ex-Presidents (2005, 2009 and 2010) still living in Cambridge and regularly turning up the Castle on Thursday evenings to drink beer and talk about the good old days. 2013 President Vicky Ward completes the line-up, providing valuable current-club perspective and advice.

PLEASE NOTE THAT SOME OF THE BELOW E-MAIL ADDRESSES ARE NOW LIKELY OUTDATED. Contact a member of the current CUHWC committee if you would still like to contact one of the below individuals and they may be able to help. [AW, Feb 2017]

We can be contacted as follows:

General enquiries: cuhwc-anniversary [at] srcf [dot] net

Dave: dsf29 [at] cam [dot] ac [dot] uk
Jo: joannecarolinesmith [at] gmail [dot] com
Michael: maf44 [at] cam [dot] ac [dot] uk

By post: Dave Farrow, Emmanuel College, Cambridge CB2 3AP

Of course, we couldn't do all this alone. We've co-opted a number of (mostly willing) volunteers to help us out with various bits of organisation:

• Joe Hobbs is in charge of recording our Collective Wainwright Bagging efforts
• Greg Chadwick is organising the catering for the Anniversary Dinner
• Becky Howard is organising the decorations for the Anniversary Dinner
• Mark Jackson has been persuaded to provide some displays of club history and statistics for the Anniversary Dinner
• Ruth Pettit is on hand to cover any Anniversary Dinner-related issues that need dealing with in person while we're stuck down south
• Sarah Hammond Ward and Bethan Gudgeon are helping Michael with the journal and co-organising the Silver Hills project
• Niall MacKay is coordinating the Family-friendly Camping Meet
• 2014 Social Secs Marcus Taylor and Jade Cuttle are coordinating the Cambridge Summer Garden Party

If you'd like to contact any of the above, use the general enquiries email address and we'll make sure it gets passed to the right person.