The President’s Mystery Meet, 21 – 22 Nov 2025
Niel Craig.
The Glasgow JMCS President’s Mystery Meet is a long-established tradition in the Club and marks the retiral of the outgoing President. In fact, if my memory serves me right, it was dubbed the President’s Retiral meet back in the day. In recent years the President now serves a term of 2 years so the moniker ‘Mystery Meet’ seems more appropriate that ‘Retiral Meet’ as you can’t retire twice. Anyway, that is splitting hairs. It’s difficult to pin an exact date on when the tradition for the President to host a meet to a location (usually a bothy) first started, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t exist when I joined the Club in the early ‘80s but I do remember organising a meet to Kinbreack bothy when I stood down as President in 1986. It’s a good opportunity for the President to introduce his or her acolytes to a favourite spot and ‘enjoy’ a meet to a location less well frequented by the Club and curb the softification of its members as a result of over use of comfortable club huts during the rest of the year. It has been a popular meet over the years and has only been missed from the calendar on a few occasions. It doesn’t even require a president as has been demonstrated on a couple of times when the host failed to turn up to their own meet! On the rare occasions that this happens, the meet has been dubbed the Mystery President’s Meet.
An unintended consequence of the meet is that the number of attendees could be construed as a measure of the popularity of the host, but far be it for me to introduce a competitive element into what should just be a social weekend.
The choice of venue can be interesting. Back in the day it would just be down to where the President fancied going or where he hadn’t been before. Little or no consideration was ever given to how long the drive was, how long a walk in was or what time we would arrive at the bothy. Nowadays there seems to be more consideration given to those who can’t swan off at 12 o’clock on a Friday, how far the destination is from the Central Belt and the length of walk in. Whether or not this a further softening of the club’s mettle or a more considerate approach, I will leave to the reader to decide.
Anyway, enough history and to the meet in hand. I decided to have my reitral meet at Glenbuck which sits about an hours walk from the car park at Bridge of Oich. Before I set off, I split a 20kg bag of coal into smaller manageable bags and left them under the car for those following in my footsteps. One old hand at this game, was an hour in front of me, possibly planning to arrive before me so as to avoid having to carry in extra weight. I set off at dusk with threatening clouds heading in my direction and up the wickedly steep track which eventually levels out and makes for a fairly pleasant approach to the bothy. Predictably the rain started and in the dark and on my own, the last half hour or so was a bit demoralising until I saw a light in the near distance, presumably from him in front wondering what was keeping me and where the coal was.
At the bothy I got settled in, we got the fire on and I was treated to a sumptuous dinner, in keeping with how an outgoing President should be treated. Over the course of the evening, the President’s acolytes arrived in dribs and drabs, with the last rolling in about midnight just as the fire was starting to heat up and everyone was about to turn in.
Saturday dawned with clouds on the tops and much wetness underfoot. We walked/squelched our way up to Carn na Larach, behind the hut then on to Carn Dearg. Myself and those of a similar disposition decided enough was enough and returned to the bothy while the rest of the party braved the elements and went on to do the neighbouring Carn Dearg. Back at the bothy more arrived during the course of the afternoon making a grand total of 9 and a dug on the meet.
Bothy meets in November inevitably involve long evenings. Those with little or no imagination will sit by the fire and get bevvied, retiring to their sleeping bags once all the booze and fuel is exhausted. Those with a little imagination and up for a challenge will while away the bothy night preparing and indulging in a bothy banquet (in addition to drinking and sitting by the fire). I had set those attending a wee challenge to bring and prepare a feast suitable for a retiring President to help while away the long bothy night. And I am pleased to say that everyone excelled themselves. Someone excelled in the catering front by preparing and cooking home/bothy made pakora for starters with another providing some excellent samosas. Mains was curry based and somehow the papadums were delivered to the bothy in one piece. If that wasn’t enough, a first-class sticky toffee pudding was conjured up with me bringing up the rear with a lemon and thyme drizzle cake (with cream of course). I think the team raised to the challenge.
The quality of the coal was the topic of a lot of the conversation over the course of the evening. There was ample but it seemed not to be generating much in the way of heat until we were all ready to turn in.
Sunday was a bit dull and with no other hills to climb in the immediate vicinity, we beat a relaxed retreat back to the cars after tidying up the bothy and thence to various cafes across the country on our ways home.
