[tomtom]

I think its time for this image...

[petejh]

You read my mind TT.

..wait a minute.....

[tomtom]

You read my mind TT.

..wait a minute.....

:D

this is SO true...

[Crag Jones]

I know it might upset you that people go sport climbing and indoor climbing and bouldering nowadays, but nobody's going to make you do that stuff if you don't want to, Crag.

Will. I think you might have the wrong guy. I spend half my life sport climbing and indoors. Can't boulder for toffee though! My kids competed continuously for 2 years. I get the competition thing; do it myself in downhill mountain biking all the time. But I don't like the idea of a bunch of self appointed 'directors' telling the rest of the world what's good for me or you with neither of us having any effective way to object or change that; and that's what's on the table. Nice tin hat by the way. Send it on.

[Oldmanmatt]

+1 to Will...

[Will Hunt]

I know it might upset you that people go sport climbing and indoor climbing and bouldering nowadays, but nobody's going to make you do that stuff if you don't want to, Crag.

Will. I think you might have the wrong guy. I spend half my life sport climbing and indoors. Can't boulder for toffee though! My kids competed continuously for 2 years. I get the competition thing; do it myself in downhill mountain biking all the time. But I don't like the idea of a bunch of self appointed 'directors' telling the rest of the world what's good for me or you with neither of us having any effective way to object or change that; and that's what's on the table. Nice tin hat by the way. Send it on.

Fair enough, I must have mistaken you for a Pettigrite. My point still stands about the scepticism I hold for these contrary views. They sound like all the lies we've heard before which have been painstakingly discredited and discounted. Especially given the very reasonable response that Shark gave you on the other channel.

[shark]

Will. I think you might have the wrong guy. I spend half my life sport climbing and indoors. Can't boulder for toffee though! My kids competed continuously for 2 years. I get the competition thing; do it myself in downhill mountain biking all the time.

In that case your wiki entryneeds a major update as it doesn’t give that impression at all

I don’t have a list of the BMC30 but like Will assumed you were on it or at least closely in step with them. I think you should make a disclosure on your site given that you claim it is independent about your background and interest in setting up the site. I’d also suggest that you add that info to your UKC user profile.- in the spirit of openness, disclosure and transparency and all the things typically demanded of the BMC Exec, National Council etc.

Letters on your site are signed as coming from the collective 30 so I think there should be a list of who they are for those not in the know.

Simon Lee

[Will Hunt]

I can't stand this "BMC30" label. It makes them sound like some official body, or a notorious group of heroic rebels, when actually they're just twats.

[shark]

Answered my own question. The list of MONC signatories is here

Crag Jones isn’t on it

[Oldmanmatt]

Answered my own question. The list of MONC signatories is here

Crag Jones isn’t on it

Nice climbing though.

Hi Crag, I did Paget and Roots in ‘92.
Tough territory, left a bit of my foot there.

Still +1 to Will though. This change is for the better and the position of the 30 built on sand and misinformation.

Edit:

There doesn’t appear to be anything very controversial about that wiki, Simon. Plenty of us here have indulged in various aspects of “buggering around on varying sized lumps of rock and/or verycold water”. It doesn’t make you a hard-core Pettigrite. (Liking that word).

[Oldmanmatt]

I can't stand this "BMC30" label. It makes them sound like some official body, or a notorious group of heroic rebels, when actually they're just twats.

Actually, to me, it conjures up some awful ‘80s New-Ro band...

[Crag Jones]

Guys, the Wikipedia entry is a complete f*up. Despite some assertions I had nothing to do with it in the first place. Secondly one of my antagonists on UKClimbing decided to start radically lopping off any of the good bits everytime I wrote something he did not like to try and make me look like as much of a prat as possible. It's hilarious really. Have a look at the edit history and 'talk' page. I had not written up any profiles etc because I was trying to concentrate on the issues rather than give the impression of self-aggrandisement etc. Anyhow point taken, I'll put up a bit more beta and make an 'About' page on the web-site so that any contributors can do that as well.

[shark]

Anyhow point taken, I'll put up a bit more beta and make an 'About' page on the web-site so that any contributors can do that as well.

 

[Crag Jones]

In the meantime, excuse the 'cut and paste' job until I have a bit more time.
Caradoc 'Crag' Jones.

Climbing since ~ 1972, First Alpine Season 1975. Regular on-going rock climbing, winter mountaineering and expeditioning (2018).

Karakoram: 1st  Ascent of Hunza Peak and 1st  British Ascent of Biblomotin. Africa: Kilimanjaro via new route 'The Stiff Upper Grip' TD,  Mt. Kenya, 1st  Solo ascent of Diamond Couloir. Torres del Paine: 1st Ascent and solo of E. Wall of Peneta (not to summit) and ascent of North Tower. South Georgia: 1st Alpine ascent of Mt Paget the islands highest peak via new route and 1st ascent and solo of Three Brothers, 1st ascents of Mt. Pelagic, Mt Baume, Mt Ashley and Starbuck Peak during various ski mountaineering traverses, 1st Ascent of Mt Nordenskjold, the 2nd highest peak on the island. Antarctica: Mt. Italia – Weinke Island 2nd ascent via new route. Himalayas: Solo ascents of lmjaTse and Pokalde, Everest  via N. ridge non guided from Tibet (5th British Ascent of this route and the first Welsh ascent of Everest), Winter traverse of Zanskar Gorge. Western Nepal reconnaissance expedition x2 with JFA. E.Greenland: 1st Ascents of S.Ridge of Ritterknegten and W. Wall of Faushorn. N. America – Rockies: Lotus Flower Tower, One day traverse of Tetones. Alps: Croz Spur, Dru Couloir,  NE Pillar Direct of Courtes and assorted classic routes and 4000m summits. 

Rock climbing to E4 and Scottish ice VII. (Led early ascents of Fly Direct, Labyrinth Direct, Gemini. Solo ascents of Zero, Smiths Route (Ben Nevis) etc. Best clean leads on UK rock eg Il Duce Tintagel, Godspell at Blackchurch, America at Carn Gowla; Zukator, Cream and Silly Arete at Tremadoc. Amanita Muscarina and Think Pink at Avon, Grand Alliance in the lakes. Many first ascents on rock and ice in UK from Dover Chalk right up to Orkney and Shetlandic Odysseys.

I am chairman of the South Georgia Governments Expedition Advisory Panel which advises that government on the suitability and preparations of expeditions applying to visit that sub-Antarctic island.

Current Club affiliations: Alpine Club.

Others:
UCNW Bangor Mountaineering Club ex Leader (=President)
North London Mountaineering Club ex Journal Editor and ex President
British Mountaineering Council – ex Vice President and Company Director, with special responsibility for the Youth and Access and Conservation Committees.

Background:

Born and brought up in rural mid Wales. 1958
School at Tregaron County Secondary . 1970- 77
Studies at :University College of North Wales at Bangor for joint honours in
Marine Biology and Oceanography 2(i) 1978 - 1982
University of York, MSc Biological Computation 1990
Married, with two children (boy -14, girl-17, as of 2018).
I have worked long stints as a lumberjack, labourer, climbing shop sales assistant, newspaper reporter, television presenter, interspersed with periods of climbing and travel. More in the career sense (see attached CV) I have worked both as a fisheries researcher / inspector and lately as a self employed IT specialist in various fisheries research and management roles. These have included long periods of work in the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. I have completed several television series for S4C with Alun Hughes where I was the presenter for all of the various climbing / travel programmes. More recently involved in the development of online database systems for medical project management.
Languages: English, Welsh and Spanish 
Television Productions:

1) An ascent of the Totem Pole, Tasmania
2) A winter traverse of the Zanskar Gorge in the Indian Himalayas. This was winner of the Patagonia’s Best Environmental Film award at the Kendal Mountaineering Film Festival.
3) First ascent of the South Ridge of Ritterknegten, East Greenland.
4) An ascent of the Rabado Navarro route on Naranjo de Bulnes, Picos de Europa, Spain,
5) An ascent of Silly Arete, Tremadoc, Wales.
6) Two programme series on an ascent of the Lotus Flower Tower, Cirque of the Unclimables, NW Territory, Canada.
7) Six part series ‘Summer Midst Winter’ on South Georgia, the voyage there, its wildlife and history and the first ascent of the ‘Three Brothers’.
Two part series on the wildlife of the Torres del Paine including rare footage of Pumas in their natural habitat there.
9) ‘On Top of the World’ a Leo Dickenson Film featuring the first (1995) Welsh ascent of Everest.
10) Numerous short programmes and interviews.

[Offwidth]

Blimey Crag... a holiday to UKB. You do realise that this site is said to be "Dire at every level; ugly, primitive, juvenile and offensive". Good on you...  I welcome recruitment here to boost numbers at the NW BMC area meeting.

[SA Chris]

In the meantime, excuse the 'cut and paste' job until I have a bit more time.

11) In summary "my ticklist is your wishlist"

[Crag Jones]

Well, slap me buttocks with an alpenstock! I've instructed my taylor to make me a hoodie so I can get down with you and the bros for a jolly spiffing time. 1st things 1st - what's a boulder?

[shark]

You haven't outlined your relationship with the BMC 30 though you do confirm you are an Alpine Club member above.

The Alpine Club appears (externally at least) as highly bound up with the BMC 30 given Pettigrew (and I assume most of the others) are members too though I gather the Alpine Club did not itself back the MONC..

There is a lot of baggage and history with the Alpine Club over the BMC and I have seen it described as the "Senior Club" (no idea what that means or entails) and that it could have effectively become the BMC but turned the opportunity down at the time (with some members regretting that ever since). As I understand it the website was initiated in order not to clog up the Alpine Club online discussions - is that right?.

Can you join up the dots please.

[Will Hunt]

The reason this issue is of paramount importance is that the argument is not about a particular decision,

IT’S ABOUT HOW DECISIONS ARE MADE AND BY WHOM

Please forgive the capitals, but that’s the nub of it. Those proposed changes will inevitably affect all future decisions, drastically reducing the scope for member input. That’s what all the fuss is about.

The ORG proposals are highly contentious in both respects in that:

a) they are saying that a board of directors should be primarily responsible for taking future decisions not membership bodies.

b) also that a high proportion of that board is ‘appointed’, not elected, and furthermore, those appointees can then go on to make further appointments, further reducing members potential to influence the course of the BMC.

"Give us your money and we'll decide what's good for you and whilst we're at it, we'll decide who 'we' are as well." sums it up really.

To add insult to injury, all this has come out of an Organizational Review that was meant to address the lack of accountability. Their conclusions are exacerbating the problem not alleviating it. They review did not engage the membership or be honest with them about alternative options or why the favoured outcome was pursued.

Even as we speak the already contentious proposals are being re-written so the need for the board to seek members ‘approval’ is being further reduced so they only need to ‘consult’ and ‘consider’ the membership. Beyond that a largely unelected body can do what it wants.

There has been a lot of stuff written on this. Please see:
https://sites.google.com/view/bmc-rr/reviewdocuments
before the turkeys vote for Christmas!

Look what you've done now. I've actually gone and read that bloody report. I can't really see anything wrong with it.

In order for the BMC to function we must give some authority to a senior group of people, in this case the board of directors. Those directors will be accountable to the membership through the President who will be elected by the members. I get the impression that some people want the BMC to be run as an anarchy, with every issue, down to what variety of teabags to have in the office canteen, being decided by a majority vote after two months of vitriolic debate on UKC. The votes would presumably be taken once a year at the AGM, which would last several weeks to get through the backlog of unmade decisions.

Could you point out a specific hypothetical circumstance which worries you, Crag? Presumably you are concerned that the board will make a decision which is not supported by the membership. Could you describe a scenario in which the fail-safes that the review recommends don't function and a decision by the board leads to a significant compromise of the members' wishes and the values of the organisation? Could you also describe what better system you might adopt which also complies with the Companies Act (bearing in mind that the way in which the BMC is currently governed is in breach of the law - presumably we are members of a criminally run organisation).

[tomtom]

I wondered what those people with 'no to PG tips' placards were doing parading outside the old church on Burton Road were up to...

[shark]

Look what you've done now. I've actually gone and read that bloody report. I can't really see anything wrong with it.

There's no turning back now - you are fated to become a National Council Assembly rep.

Here's the latest minutes

[Will Hunt]

That looks a little bit like this to me.

[Offwidth]

Another resource on this subject. Dave T's thoughts to the Feb NC meeting:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RA9dAK9sjsPWWjdOMavQdidqjWR7_BBK/view

[shark]

Another resource on this subject. Dave T's thoughts to the Feb NC meeting:

I thought you meant Dave Thomas for a second 

[Crag Jones]

You haven't outlined your relationship with the BMC 30 though you do confirm you are an Alpine Club member above.

The Alpine Club appears (externally at least) as highly bound up with the BMC 30 given Pettigrew (and I assume most of the others) are members too though I gather the Alpine Club did not itself back the MONC..

There is a lot of baggage and history with the Alpine Club over the BMC and I have seen it described as the "Senior Club" (no idea what that means or entails) and that it could have effectively become the BMC but turned the opportunity down at the time (with some members regretting that ever since). As I understand it the website was initiated in order not to clog up the Alpine Club online discussions - is that right?.

Can you join up the dots please.

See ol-'Green-Eyes' above + I can let you borrow my cat's tin hat, but you'll have to bring your own gaffa-tape. x.

more later.