[bigtuboflard]

Off topic I know but I'm an equally big fan of Doncaster Sheffield Robin Hood airport (or something like that) as a name, always attracted foreign visitors on the promise of disembarking in a forest surrounded by men in tights. Must be such a disappointment when they realise they're on an old RAF base somewhere south of Doncaster.


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[Falling Down]

Been a BMC member for ages.  Access negotiations, brilliant guidebooks since Niall took over after the Wye Valley debacle, public liability insurance whilst climbing plus good insurance deals for overseas trips. Climb Britain is fine with me.  Haven't looked at the logo but don't really care what it looks like either.

[Will Hunt]

Leeds and Bradford International Airport nearly got the go-ahead.

Maybe it should be British Upward Movement? When someone asked where you were going with that big mat thing you could just tell them you were off to do some bumming.

[psychomansam]

Meh

+1

Their email did make me think I'm not re-joining or contributing any money any time soon though. 

[duncan]

I don't mind ClimbBritain^TM. I sort-of see the point of the change, though many organisations seem to do fine despite having outgrown their original name. Mountain Equipment Co-op is still MEC despite now mainly selling yoga mats, MSR doesn't have much to do with safety any more.

The previous logo was an excellent piece of graphic design and the replacement is something a 23 year old thought looked cool and will be painfully dated in 5 years. 

The way the whole process has been handled is another example of the democratic deficit in the organisation. Consulting with membership relies on discussion at the local meetings. The London and SE is terrible at publishing their agenda in advance so it's impossible to know if something important will be raised. This is ludicrous for the 21st century and smacks of an organisation that's content to keep important information and decisions in as few hands as possible.

[tc]

The term "Britain" refers to England, Scotland and Wales. So we now have "Climb Britain" (for England, Scotland and Wales, I assume), "Climb Cymru" (for Wales) and the Mountaineering Council of Scotland (for Scotland).
"Climb Cymru" is only half Welsh, however, so perhaps this only refers to half of Wales.
 

[SA Chris]

Clymb Cymru?

[shark]

Since the BMC has broadened its scope to include hillwalking (something I'm still not convinced is a good idea),

This needs correcting - it is plain wrong. The term Mountaineering includes hillwalking and certainly always has done in the context of the BMC. In many member surveys over the years a majority of members have reported hillwalking as their main activity. The BMC has not widened its scope to include hillwalking, it has realised it has been neglecting a (arguably THE) core part of its membership.

There are several reasons why this happened, but perhaps the main one is that thirty years ago all but a tiny proportion of climbers were also hillwalkers. Not so much today. From an access team point of view though footpath closures and CRoW restrictions were and are taken just as seriously as crag access issues.

Yes. The more recent focus and effort on hillwalking is in effect making good a broken promise to actively represent and promote hillwalking whereas before it got little more than lip service.

The raised profile has I'm sure been greatly helped by Carey Davies being appointed as Hillwalking Officer three years ago. He comes across as one of the more driven, proactive and enthusiastic BMC staff members.

[shark]

Update from the BMC:

It's been a rocky ride this last few days, and it's probably fair to say we didn’t quite anticipate the level of interest there would be in our Climb Britain announcement. But, since then, we have been listening very carefully and this is what we’re proposing to do:

• We remain firmly behind Climb Britain and believe it is the right choice for the future of the organisation; the BMC has to keep moving on and stay relevant to new people as times change.

• We accept the need for wider debate so we’re proposing a period of active engagement in which we will get people together to discuss the issues; this will be done via the next set of Area meetings together with some specific gatherings of groups such as clubs and the GB Climbing Team if there is interest or demand. I will personally attend as many of these as I can, alongside the President and/or other senior BMC officials as and when they’re available.

• Climb Britain and the rebranding issue will then go back to the next National Council meeting (17 September) for further discussion and a decision on the way forward.

• In the meantime, we will keep the Climb Britain logo out there and will monitor feedback from members so that by September we should have a much better feel for how it's all working.

With thanks to everyone who has contributed on this so far, this is important and we are most definitely listening.
 
Dave Turnbull
CEO

[Fiend]

Name is rubbish and misses out one key aspect i.e. highlighting that it is a representative organisation with some gravitas e.g. COUNCIL.

Logo needs more goatse.

[ben]

   but Fiend was it you we bumped into at Ban-y-Gor last night with Mark ?

[Fiend]

  ....maybe..... let me just check the karma settings and see if I've offended you and been punter for it first, before admitting to that....

[Three Nine]

I just want to chip in helpfully here with:

[/FUCK THE BMC - WHATEVER IT CALLS ITSELFb]

[Paul B]

Given you won't contribute to bolt funds which you benefit from and think people are 'stupid' who spend their (free) time (voluntarily) re-bolting stuff I'd encourage you to pipe down.

[Three Nine]

FUCK BENNETT

[SA Chris]

Lovely Christian Boy he is.

[Paul B]

I see he's enjoying Bristol... 

[Three Nine]

 

[Doylo]

Time to head back up north. Belays and beaver await .

[Fiend]

He must be desperate, he even contacted me for climbing. I did offer to take him to North Pembroke to cheque could film him crying at the horror of it all, or us both dying as 3-9's mighty sport strength caused the whole cliff to collapse, but alas no 

[Three Nine]

Time to head back up north. Belays and beaver await .

i dont remember any beaver!

[dave]

Just caught up with this whole thing. The rebrand seems like absolute bollocks to me. Appeal to the "yoof" market etc. A marketing firm is 25 grand better off and we've lost what actually was a quite strong and historic brand. No doubt the same marketing geniuses would love to rebrand BMW as "vvvvvrrrroom CAR".

It doesn't really matter if the initials BMC originally stood for British Mountaineering Council, Bonners' Massive Cock, or BearGrylls Money Cash, the point is it had reached the point where "The BMC" was just "The BMC". Actually any smart marketing firm would have recognised the strength of the brand already and just suggested keeping BMC and quietly dropping any reference to it being an acronym any more (other brands have done this). Then you keep your brand lineage and don't have to buy new letterhead. In years to come "what did the letters BMC originally stand for" can be a question at a Peak area xmas quiz.

I get all the well intentioned reasons for it, but most if not all of the desired outcomes could be achieved equally well without a rebrand. Its what you do the matters, not what the name is. When Marathon became Snickers did the bar taste better because of a realignment of the product identity with a new global taste paradigm? No, it still tasted like a fucking shit ruined Mars bar.

Cadfael suggested Climb UK, but are there any early web adopters out there who remember Climb UK? If I remember correctly it was an early Matt Heason thing wasn't it, a sort of rocktalk competitor who UKC eventually bought the rights to the domain name, something like that? I won a free tshirt from them. So there you go, our governing body has been rebranded to sound like a doomed 1999 dotcom web enterprise.

Bag 'o shite.

[tomtom]

Blimey, a week away doing snow plods in't Alps and you've gone all uKc on us Dave!

[shark]

Time for your pills Grandad

[dave]

I'm up for hearing all the watertight reasons it is an amazing move, just everyone seems to be keeping them a secret.