2024 AGM & Annual Dinner

Date: Saturday 23 November 2024

By popular request of members, we are returning to The Castle Green Hotel, Kendal, LA9 6RG. The hotel is 2.75 miles from Oxenholme station.

This year's event coincides with the 2024 Kendal Mountain Festival, allowing those members with an interest to take in a talk or film screening during the weekend.

The order of events is:

15:00  AGM in the Kendal Suite.

16:30 - 17:30  Presentations on the impending release of Denise Evans' autobiography and recent AC expeditions.

18:30  Cash bar open in the Function Suite (where the dinner is taking place. Cumbria's finest real ales will be available.

19:30  Dinner. Our principal guest is Tom Livingstone.

^{Livingstone and climbing partner Aleš Česen on the summit of Gasherbrum III following the first ascent of the west ridge} 

Tickets for the three course dinner are £45.00 per person, reduced to £30.00 for those under the age of 40 on the date of the dinner.

Members can now buy dinner tickets for themselves and their guests, paying in either of the following ways:

• Online by logging into the AC website, navigating to the 'Events' tab and selecting 'AGM & Dinner Booking' from the drop-down menu.
  
  
• By cheque, made payable to 'Alpine Club', and sent in the post to the Honorary Secretary at 55 Charlotte Road, London EC2A 3QF

When applying for tickets, please specify any dietary requirements.

Tickets will be posted to members in the two weeks before the event. 

Favourable B&B room rates have been arranged with the hotel as follows: £155 for a double/twin room for one night, and £260 for two nights. £125 for a single room for one night, £220 for two nights. For a third or more night, the rates are £120 per night for a double/twin room and £110 for a single. These discounted rates will be held until the end of October, so you are encouraged to book soon. Call 01539 734000 and quote 'Alpine Club'.

We look forward to seeing you there.

What Would Lucy Say?

‘What would Lucy say?’ is an exhibition which marks two key anniversaries in the history of the Alpine Club, namely the 50th Anniversary of the AC voting to admit women and the 50th Anniversary of the merger of the AC with the Ladies’ Alpine Club.

The ‘Lucy’ in question is Lucy Walker, the first woman to climb the Matterhorn who, despite this achievement and having already had, by 1870, many successful alpine seasons, could not be elected to the Alpine Club because of her gender.

The exhibition title could equally have been asked of a number of Walker’s contemporaries, women who climbed seriously in the second half of the 19th century and before the founding of the Ladies’ Alpine Club in 1907. The exhibition highlights a number of these women and their climbing achievements.

^{A 19th Century Edward Whymper engraving showing AC members in Zermatt - Note Lucy Walker watching on from the doorway.}

It is interesting to note that there was no official Alpine Club rule against the admission of women, applications from women candidates were simply not welcomed on account of their supposed physical and moral deficiencies in the matter of mountain climbing. The exhibition places these attitudes in context, with comparisons made with other alpine clubs, organisations and societies.

The lead up to the vote, and its eventual passage, are explored, including details of the women who joined prior to the vote and the rather embarrassing tale of Tschingel, the mountain-climbing dog who was reputedly the Club’s first female member.

With the admission of women to the AC, a merger with the LAC had a sad inevitability. The exhibition deals with the history of the LAC, its founders, key members and their achievements over the lifetime of the club.

^{Lizzie Le Blond, founder and first president of the LAC}

^{Sally Westmacott, the first woman to be officially admitted to the AC, shown here climbing in Iceland}

The final section of the exhibition is a celebration of where we are now: the place of female AC members within the club and in the wider mountaineering community.

In curating this exhibition, as with all remembered anniversaries, we hope to prompt discussions of the past and a fresh evaluation of the present. What would Lucy say, indeed?

The exhibition is housed at the Alpine Club's Charlotte Road premises. It will run from 12 November 2024 to 13 February 2025 and is open to visitors from 10:00 – 16:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as on London lecture evenings.

Visitors are kindly asked to book in advance using the form below so that we can ensure the necessary level of staffing. Failure to do so may lead to you being turned away.