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BCRA awards the Arthur Butcher prize for outstanding and innovative contributions to cave surveying. The judges consider projects brought to their attention during the year, as well as all surveying work that is on display at the Hidden Earth conference. This year the judges decided not to award the prize. The award judges are now following a guideline that this award shall only be made in years where an exceptional contribution to cave surveying is brrought to the attention of the judges.

THE prestigious Tratman Award is given annually to an author for a caving-related, paper-based publication in memory of E.K. Tratman, who died in 1978, to recognise excellence and encourage future improvement - it is considered one of the UK's premier national awards. The Tratman Award is judged by a team of independent cavers - for 2018 these were: Joe Duxbury, Ric Halliwell, Alan Jeffreys and Martin Mills, with additional input from other cavers. The judging takes into account not only the standard of writing and the information presented to cavers, but also factors such as the publication's layout, print quality, binding and other factors. This produced a shortlist:

• David Drew for Karst of Ireland - a magnificent, scholarly work that, although it is not directly useful to sport cavers, is essential for a wider understanding of karst.
• Martin Ellis for his coverage of The Tham Luang Cave Rescue - a personal account in the Shepton Mallet CC Journal Series 13, (9), one of two shortlisted entries on the subject this year. Martin comes at the incident from a fresh perspective, and delivers a thorough and authoritative account of what happened behind the scenes.
• Tom Foord for his article In Search of Wadiland in Descent (265) for December 2018 (a second part appeared in 2019). His well-illustrated, informative narrative leads the reader clearly through the story of expedition caving in Austria and imparts the excitement of exploration.
• Chris Howes for Mission Impossible in Descent (263) for August 2018 (the following issues carried three more articles as continuations of the story), this being a very early, encompassing and widely praised timeline of the Tham Luang rescue in Thailand, written as it unfolded.
• Trevor Shaw, who is no stranger to the Tratman Award, for Škocjanske jame 1920-1940. a well-researched beautifully produced and eminently readable historical coverage of this Slovene cave.

Any author achieving a commendation here should be justifiably proud. Of these, the judges deliberated for many hours over which should be declared the winner, in the end the unanimous decision going to Tom Foord, the result being announced at Hidden Earth. Congratulations to Tom, who won a specially crafted trophy made by Ceris Jones that he will retain as a reminder of his achievement.

Citation by Alan Jeffreys, on behalf of the judges

Giles Barker lost his life while caving in Spain in 1992. An accomplished cave photographer, Giles was a member of the Red Rose CPC and Morgannwg CC. These clubs have annually, since 1993, funded the Giles Barker Award in his memory. This prestigious award – a hand-crafted statue of a cave photographer made by Ceris Jones – is given to a person or team connected with any aspect of cave photography in recognition of excellence and contributions to the field.

The award for 2019, the 27th in the series, was presented during the Hidden Earth conference in Wrexham and goes to Jeff Wade. Jeff has, over a decade or more, demonstrated a consistent body of work – he first won an award in the Hidden Earth Photo Salon in 2009 with a distinction for a colour print, and has subsequently gained numerous distinction and merit awards in both print and digital categories, proving a broad spectrum of ability, culminating in taking the top Premier Trophy in 2018. He has shown his photographic proficiency in challenging conditions in a huge range of locations from the Peak District to deep Alpine caves, with expedition caving from Europe to China, Mulu to Georgia, not only with his own camera but also helping others. Congratulations go to Jeff for his work and this significant award.

Citation by Chris Howes, on behalf of Morgannwg CC and Red Rose CPC.