CUCC Expedition Handbook

The Bier Book

Basecamp essential records

Many essential records at base camp are recorded in the "Bier Book" and the "Sesh Book".

The Bier Book

Beer book This is used to record vital information:

Beer recordThe record of the number of beers (and other drinks) that each person drinks from the common store in the potato hut looks like this. This is used when the treasurer does the final accounts reckoning after the end of expo.

Nights camping

Nights record We use this book to record where everyone spends the night. This is important because this is used to record our tax liability which is part of our camping fee for the Gasthof. We have been visited by tax inspectors in the past, so this is not just a "nice to have".

This also records the number of nights spent at the bivvy and underground camp. We use this data to help us plan the food needed up the mountain for future expeditions.

The Sesh Book

Getting infomation on the number of people attending dinner is always difficult. Try to get this filled in a week in advance.

Management of the books during Expo

ASK the current expo teasurer if there are any special procedures for the current expo. Do not assume that what is written here in the handbook is the complete story.

As well as the obvious need to promptly record supermarket bills and shared meals in the sesh book, and to tick off bier as it is drunk, the entries in the sesh book should be transcribed into the bank of expo every couple of days. Keeping up with this data entry saves an immense amount of time later on.

Scanned copies of Bier and Sesh Books

Halfway through expo, and also at the end of expo, the books should be photographed (scanned) and uploaded to the server. Anyone can do this using the photo uploads form and then a nerd will put them in the right place.

For example, the 2016 expo bierbook and seshbook were scanned and can be downloaded (13MB and 5 MB) from here: expofiles/writeups/2016/

Expenses and money owed

As well as writing the amounts of money in the books, printed receipts for expo expenses need to be put in the envelope in the potato hut.

Each receipt needs

because matching up receipts with scribbles in the bier book is very time-consuming / impossible otherwise and you may not get paid back.

Both expo communal expenses and shared group expenses should be entered into your Bank of Expo online account. When you have typed it in, make a written note "BoE done" against that line in the book. (If you don't do this the expo treasurer will have to do it. And you want to keep the expo treasurer happy don't you?)

Creating the bierbook and seshbook before expo

The scripts to do this are listed in other scripts and documented in more detail in LaTeX scripts.

The "Folk" page of everyone who has been to expo at "expoers" automatically generates a bierbook-compatible list of people on the latest expo which can be used to generate the bierbook. This is available right at the bottom of the webpage:
Click here to see 'names.txt' input data for bierbook generation.


Back to other operations at base camp.