News about GOC

Bookings for the AOG

Posted 01 April 2013

The Annual Outdoor Gathering (known as the AOG) is the largest GOC event at which around 200 members from around the country meet up for a weekend of outdoor activities and socialising.

Bookings for accommodation are now closed, however you can still attend the event if you make your own accommodation arrangements.

The 2013 AOG will be based in the beautiful spa town of Buxton in the spectacular Peak District national park on the weekend of Friday 12 July to Monday 15 July.

Full information about the event is at www.goc.org.uk/events/aog.

New Calendar Feature on Website

Posted 26 April 2012

A new feature has been added to the website to allow users to download calendars to their personal management programs such as Outlook or Googgle Calendars. The calendars can either be downloaded as static text files for import into such applications, or can be linked into programs so that they are synchronised frequently with update. To find out more, and select which calendars you wish to connect to, visit the Calendar Options page which can be accessed from the Events menu or the Events by Group pages. Currently this feature is only available to members.

GOC is now a Limited Company

Posted 12 April 2012

Following a decision of the 2011 AGM, GOC has now been incorporated as a Company limited by Guarantee, with its existing office-bearers and committee as Directors of the Company. This should not change the way the club runs but does offer legal protection to its members and office-bearers. Further information can be found here.

Revised Countryside Code for England and Wales

Posted 12 April 2012

Natural England have just published a revised edition of their countryside code, designed to help respect, protection and enjoyment of the countryside. Further information can be found on the Natural England website.

Goslings join GOC

Posted 21 January 2012

The London gay swimming group Goslings, which has been operating a weekly swim at the Oasis heated outdoor pool, Covent Garden, for over 30 years, and has been an Associated Club of GOC for some time, joins up fully as a Specialist Group within GOC starting from February 2012. About a third of regular Goslings are existing GOC members already, and full integration will be mutually beneficial. Goslings' GOC coordinator is to be Jeremy, mainly West Kent GOC; and Olawale, mainly Sussex GOC, is also on the new Goslings committee. Several of the other Goslings will also be well-known to wider GOC from past AOGs.

Goslings Swimmers will have its own group webpage here and full details of their year-round Thursday swim will appear online. Goslings have exclusive hire of the Oasis each Thursday from 8.30 pm to 9.30 pm   So, once the spring weather finally arrives, why not dig out your cozzie, and GOC membership certificate to benefit from the members' rate, and join them one Thursday evening?

Photography, The GOC Website and Outdoors

Posted 30 August 2011

The subject of members appearing in photographs (and videos) of GOC events has been raised recently and is something which can raise strong opinions. Most people are perfectly happy to be photographed on a GOC event, and some people look forward to appearing in Outdoors, whereas a few do not want their photograph published or even taken. We want to encourage photography on our events as it forms a great record of what we do and is useful to publicise the club, but we don't want to offend anyone's privacy.

The advent of compact digital cameras and phones with cameras means that there is much more scope for photography than in the past. It is also easier than ever for photographs to be distributed and made public on social networking or photo sharing websites - uses which are beyond the control of GOC. You should assume that photos taken on a GOC event will not remain private.

If you do not want your photograph to be published, the most reliable way to ensure that is to avoid being in photographs. Posed photographs of a group of people in particular are likely to be sent to others and can often end up published somewhere, so if you don't want that please arrange not to be in the photo - the easiest way to do that is to offer to take the photo. If you become aware that someone is taking photographs and you do not want to be in them, just tell the photographer.

Photographers should give people the opportunity to opt out of photos if they want and not take un-posed photographs of people unless they know that they will be happy with that.

We are always keen to have new photographs for Outdoors so ask people to send them in, any we receive may be published without notice and please note that any photographs published in Outdoors may be also used on our website or for other publicity purposes.