Being a Fresher and General Screw-Abouts

So reading Conor's lovely post inspired me to write something myself because why not. I wanted to share some of my own experiences of UCDMC. Conor is getting old and has been an important part of the club for a good while now so I thought I would write something from a completely opposite perspective... A Fresher. Hopefully this will turn out alright and maybe even convince a few of the next year first years to join our interesting establishment in September.

Considering I am substantially poor I didn't get the chance to go on a lot of club trips this year but I know next year will be different. So lets start at the very beginning. I think most freshers are scared of college, new faces, men with beards and an overwhelming amount of opportunities. I tried a good few things back in September in a desperate attempt to find a place of my own, including GameSoc, I&E, Rowing, Basketball, LawSoc and Trampolining but none of these even came close to the warm welcome I received when I decided to join the Mountaineering Club. From the moment Grá took my 20 quid I knew this would be an interesting experience.

The first few weeks were of course very hectic. Hundreds of people at the wall but the awesome thing was that not only the committee members but most of the older members were helping out the freshers the best they could. This meant that they pretty much didn't get any climbing done for the first month or so because they were belaying EVERY new member. I just thought it was nice of them. A lovely welcoming gesture in my opinion. Or maybe just an elaborate scam to retain as many people as possible to get more money and what not. Either way it was nice.

So as I said, I'm poor so the only trip I really got to go on was the Intervarsities in Cork. Have to say it was a great experience... well... the getting to know a few people was... the climbing was meeghhh. I'd say it was fun for the senior members but the freshers pretty much just had a bouldering contest as all four freshers that went flashed all the top ropes on the second day. The two top ropes look easy even on a photo:

 

Even though I didn't go on a lot of trips I did go to Dalkey which was really awesome and I'm definitely looking forward to going there a lot more in the Summer. One photo I really wanted to share is actually one of my favourite photos from this year. For those who might read this next year it's a photo of your Captain.... but for me.... it's a photo of our SAFETY OFFICER, Andy:

Even though I didn't get to go on the Fresher's trip to Glendalough I still went with a the UCDMC crew earlier this month:

I distinctly remember three things from this trip. First one was this child looking at Sean carrying the bouldering mat and saying that "that is a very very weird looking backpack". Second being this lovely boulder that we decided to start from a little cave under it:

And third being Excalibur on the way back to the car:

So that pretty much wraps it up. I had an awesome year with the club, definitely looking forward to the next 3 years and to the quirky adventures of the UCDMC.

Last thing that I want to add cause I'm freakin excited. I recently decided to make my own rack and yesterday I actually found a guy selling a few things (second hand because yet again... Im poor). Got all this for 200 euro which I thought was definitely a great price. The guy selling it said he is a big supporter of newcomers so he threw in an extra few things for free. All together I got 6 quick-draws, 8 gates, 3 120cm slings, 1 nylon really strong 120cm sling, nuts sizes 1-13, hexes sizes 1, 4 and 5 and a Prussik cord.

- Damian Grudzien