Hi Simon, and thanks for your good natured reply. In issues like this - and I mean with respect to the other BMC issues out there, it can be very easy for everyone to start throwing around claims that this/that is right/wrong etc, scoring hits, putting down etc etc; we all know the game. My view, and it is a strong one, is that there are great opportunities for collaboration between the BMC and *what's already there*. There are unhelpful connotations with words like "volunteer" and "professional", and the debate goes off into tangents that don't - I feel - deal with the essential perhaps constitutional considerations. It seems as though the BMC is giving validity to things as it chooses, rather than recognising and acting in support of what many climbers are already trying to do. I feel there is too much emphasis on the BMC. It's "our" climbing, not the BMC's. I'm concerned that some aspects of climbing will get promoted to the exclusion of much of what many hold dear - including our right to make climbing what we want it to be. That's my worry. I don't want climbing to be at the mercy of the BMC. I've spoken to some people recently, who assumed that some of the crowdfunded money would be going to support some of the individuals working on other crags - the Garys and Kris of this world. A lot of work can be publicised and applauded, without any awareness of where funding might otherwise go. In my opinion, we don't want that consideration unduly influenced from within the BMC, but increasingly it seems to be the case. What the BMC are doing seems increasingly irrelevant to so much of what climbing has meant to me. I don't have to recognise the clergy, to have faith.
