[shark]

Could the BMC do more with regards funding, i think so.

I agree.

But when the majority of members put Access work first and Comp climbing last as a priority (admittedly a more uptodate survey is required) where do you think the money should be allocated proprtionately?

If more indoor and comp oriented climbers signed up as BMC members then priorities will change. Chicken and egg I know.  In the meantime commercial sponsorship is a potential way forward.

[shark]

Suspect yob knows more than I do about this, but there have been some quite specific BMC failures in this department.

I'd rather not know and just start with a clean slate. I am very conscious that there has to be internal support and accountability in place for us to meet our obligations to Sponsors before signing anything up.

[Johnny Brown]

Okay fair enough. Just make sure your intended sponsors don't get bored and wander off in the meantime.

[shark]

Okay fair enough. Just make sure your intended sponsors don't get bored and wander off in the meantime.

If you have specific companies in mind can you drop me a PM

[mrjonathanr]

If Climbing became a permanent Olympic fixture then that would up the ante considerably for the sport and the climbing industry.

Will charm an audience but still a minority interest so will be unlikely I expect.  Even then revenue would be heavily skewed by medal prospects ie could experience some success and then drop off sport England radar if other sports seem a better medal prospect, so impacting on public profile. I'd be surprised if it really became established..

[Oldmanmatt]

If Climbing became a permanent Olympic fixture then that would up the ante considerably for the sport and the climbing industry.

Will charm an audience but still a minority interest so will be unlikely I expect.  Even then revenue would be heavily skewed by medal prospects ie could experience some success and then drop off sport England radar if other sports seem a better medal prospect, so impacting on public profile. I'd be surprised if it really became established..

Quite. Look what happened to the British Weightlifting Federation.


All posts either sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek or mildly mocking-in-a-friendly-way unless otherwise stated. I always forget to put those smiley things...

[Teaboy]

What did happen to the British Weight Lifting Federation?

[Oldmanmatt]

What did happen to the British Weight Lifting Federation?

Sorry, assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups, it was widely reported at the time. Lack of Olympic medals, lead to:

http://britishweightlifting.org/statement-british-weight-lifting-uk-sport-tokyo-2020-funding-decision/

Whether that was appealed or reversed, I know not.


All posts either sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek or mildly mocking-in-a-friendly-way unless otherwise stated. I always forget to put those smiley things...

[T_B]

I suspect it's inevitable that indoor climbers and comps will end up with a new representative body, separate to the BMC. It will be more commercially focussed, as the sponsorship opportunities associated with this new, mass audience are obvious. Indoor climbing is so far removed from mountaineering, hill walking and the outdoors, it seems artificial to me to pretend we're talking about the same user group. That will leave the BMC to focus on what its members want I.e. Access, without all this agonising over what their responsibility to comps/indoor climbing is. Indoor climbing will be even further removed from what we know as climbing in a few years as walls become a mix of climbing/gym/parkour etc.

[Oldmanmatt]

https://www.grough.co.uk/magazine/2017/02/28/british-mountaineering-council-board-faces-no-confidence-motion#

The more I think about this, the less I understand it.

It's not like the old gits have Facebook, after all...




All posts either sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek or mildly mocking-in-a-friendly-way unless otherwise stated. I always forget to put those smiley things...

[shark]

I suspect it's inevitable that indoor climbers and comps will end up with a new representative body, separate to the BMC. It will be more commercially focussed, as the sponsorship opportunities associated with this new, mass audience are obvious. Indoor climbing is so far removed from mountaineering, hill walking and the outdoors, it seems artificial to me to pretend we're talking about the same user group. That will leave the BMC to focus on what its members want I.e. Access, without all this agonising over what their responsibility to comps/indoor climbing is. Indoor climbing will be even further removed from what we know as climbing in a few years as walls become a mix of climbing/gym/parkour etc.

I don't see it as inevitable. There are a number of alternative options. It occurs to me that you could retain the BMC as is at the centre and have wholly owned closely managed, subsidiary bodies reporting  in. The indoor body (perhaps called Climb Britain?) is the NGB for competition climbing and manages the GB Team. The Access side could be more formally grouped under the Access & Conservation Trust which is a BMC Charity which possibly is underutilised currently in terms of its charitable status. The Commercial side could be more formally defined as separate wholly owned limited company with certain financial benefits to the limited compoany status related to VAT reclaim. The Mountain Training, Club support could be grouped under an Associates arm which supports those organisations that want an affiliation. The overall strategy could be to aim to place the place the BMC at the centre of the hillwalking and climbing communities and therefore be the organisation that hillwalkers and climbers naturally want to join which is the stated mission. Each body would reach out to the community in different ways and different audiences and the bodies would form separate identities and goals and growth strategies appropriate to their area which are more easily understood internally and externally.

Im sure there are alternatives. Many schemes and structures are good in theory. The execution, change management and ongoing management and dealing with unintended consequences are the things which will ultimately make things a success or otherwise.   

[El Mocho]

I suspect it's inevitable that indoor climbers and comps will end up with a new representative body, separate to the BMC. It will be more commercially focussed, as the sponsorship opportunities associated with this new, mass audience are obvious. Indoor climbing is so far removed from mountaineering, hill walking and the outdoors, it seems artificial to me to pretend we're talking about the same user group. That will leave the BMC to focus on what its members want I.e. Access, without all this agonising over what their responsibility to comps/indoor climbing is. Indoor climbing will be even further removed from what we know as climbing in a few years as walls become a mix of climbing/gym/parkour etc.

I don't necessary agree, I think that as things stand it could well be the case but I think this is something the BMC should try to stop from happening. To paraphrase Northern Yob "Indoor climbing is the future if British climbing" is probably true to an extent. I was in the walls in London a few weeks back and chatting to people. One of the last Sats in January was the busiest day the Castle has had, think between 1,200 and 1,400 people through the door. That same day the other walls also had some of their busiest days. People estimated there were around 10,000 people climbing in Greater London that day. A lot of these people don't have a great interest in going outdoors but I don't think this is because they don't like the idea more that they don't really understand it. The walls themselves seem to do very little promotion of outdoor climbing (and why would they) and the BMC/local climbing clubs have an incredibly low profile at the walls. Is this a problem? I think it is for a couple of reasons: "...London mini bus arriving at plantation on a sat morning..." the (indoor/new) climbers who do find out about outdoor climbing tend to hear about the honeypots, they watch the online vids of Dave cruising the Joker and think "I'll have some of that", they don't necessary have the skills to go and do routes at Stoney/Almscliff/Cromlech let alone Gogarth, Scaffell, Pembroke... so these convenient, well documented and safe/bouldering venues get busier. At the same time there are probably fewer and fewer people learning to climb outside - as a kid I started climbing outside (my parents were climbers + pre the rise of indoor walls) but for kids/new climbers now the indoor walls will be a massive draw. More climbers climbing indoors, more climbers bouldering at Plantation etc, fewer climbers with trad skills and appreciation of getting shit scared, trad crags getting overgrown, routes dirty, more people going on bouldering trips to SA, fewer people going chossaneering on the Lleyn, Malham full to bursting point, insitue draws left all over the place, access issues due to overcrowding/insitue gear/litter/lamping sessions at all the popular crags from people who maybe lack the education on outdoor climbing. I would love to see more people at the more obscure trad crags (invested interest: I work for a gear manufacturer), love to hear about Aidean Roberts (insert next "the future" name here) onsighting all Caffs routes and declaring them piss, would love to hear about even more members of the BMC declaring access to crags being the most important thing. The future Houlding (and whoever the other 3 were) is undoubtedly in a climbing wall somewhere but if we're not carefull that's where they might stay. The BMC should engage with the wall culture, support comps but also promote the diversity of climbing, provide inspiration about trad, bouldering, winter climbing, sport... and most importantly provide a route for the young indoor climbers, who want to, to get climbing outside. What Caff is doing is great but it's only a tiny amount and he'll be working less next year.

Sure some crags are busy but a) encourage people to the crags which aren't and b) if you don't like lots of people there are plenty of crags you can go to which need more traffic.

Sorry, maybe had too strong a coffee

[shark]

Grest post. Keep drinking strong coffee

Sure some crags are busy but a) encourage people to the crags which aren't and b) if you don't like lots of people there are plenty of crags you can go to which need more traffic.

The ultimate pithy riposte to those who whine about increased participation 

[cheque]

(indoor/new) climbers who do find out about outdoor climbing tend to hear about the honeypots, they watch the online vids of Dave cruising the Joker and think "I'll have some of that", they don't necessary have the skills to go and do routes at Stoney/Almscliff/Cromlech let alone Gogarth, Scaffell, Pembroke... so these convenient, well documented and safe/bouldering venues get busier. At the same time there are probably fewer and fewer people learning to climb outside

 More climbers climbing indoors, more climbers bouldering at Plantation etc, fewer climbers with trad skills and appreciation of getting shit scared, trad crags getting overgrown, routes dirty, more people going on bouldering trips to SA, fewer people going chossaneering on the Lleyn, Malham full to bursting point, insitue draws left all over the place, access issues due to overcrowding/insitue gear/litter/lamping sessions at all the popular crags from people who maybe lack the education on outdoor climbing....

The BMC should engage with the wall culture, support comps but also promote the diversity of climbing, provide inspiration about trad, bouldering, winter climbing, sport...

This is basically a post I've tried to write on this thread a number of times but failed.

[Bonjoy]

Grest post. Keep drinking strong coffee

Sure some crags are busy but a) encourage people to the crags which aren't and b) if you don't like lots of people there are plenty of crags you can go to which need more traffic.

The ultimate pithy riposte to those who whine about increased participation 

I guess youd lump me with the whiners. I actually agree with all of El Mocho's post. It boils down to quality rather than quantity for quantities' sake.

[northern yob]

Amen to that Ben! I really hope the BMC gets its shit together, action rather than hollow promises... It has to start to engage with the "indoor" crowd, otherwise a split might become inevitable.

[danm]

+1 Ben.

[dave]

If only a video of Dave cruising the Joker actually existed.

[shark]

Just did a basic split into a new thread as most subsequent posts related to the No Confidence motion which I also added as a front page article.

New thread here:  http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,27926.msg547374/topicseen.html#new

[lagerstarfish]

are Climb Britain t-shirts available yet?

[T_B]

Is the BMC really not interested in promoting climbing etc to the masses?

If so, then why do they create this kind of content?

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/top-six-spicy-scrambles

I don't believe for a minute they are only interested in trying to get those who already climb/scramble/hill walk to become members.

An update on the 'Mend our Mountains' campaign would seem overdue, if anyone is reading this!

[Johnny Brown]

I feel pretty up to date on Mend our Mountains. Kinder, Exmoor and Brecon work already done, others ongoing:

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/articles/tag/mend%20our%20mountains

I seem to remember the biggest circle on the Venn diagram of BMC members self-identified as hillwalkers. How isn't that content aimed at them?

[T_B]

I seem to remember the biggest circle on the Venn diagram of BMC members self-identified as hillwalkers. How isn't that content aimed at them?

So who is this targeted at? BMC members who are self-identified as lazy boulderers?

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/8-tips-to-get-ready-for-hillwalking-spring-bst

That's excellent about Mend our Mountains. I had (wrongly it seems) assumed that the actual work had been held up by red tape etc. Odd that there's hardly been any follow up since the campaign a year ago.

[Johnny Brown]

Umm, again how is it not content for hillwalkers?

Maybe they've been a bit remiss in not emailing MOM updates directly to contributors, I don't know. Plenty via @BMC_Walk on twitter.