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It’s your BMC, and we need your vote (Read 26571 times)

Oldmanmatt

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Interviews with both pres candidates up on the other channel... I was drawn to highlight these sections...

#facepalm

Quote
How can the BMC encourage more female participation in organisation and events?

When I started climbing female rock climbers were certainly a rarity, but I am pleased that there are now several women climbing both as mixed and same sex pairs.......

Women are certainly capable and I feel that it is important for their own self esteem for them to know that they have been chosen on merit, rather than to meet a quota.....

I agree that more female participation is needed to better represent their interests because there are important differences between the sexes.
 

You know what annoys me most about the “they were a rarity” line?
They weren’t.
In the ‘70s when I started climbing, there were plenty. I pulled out some photos of my “gang” of climbing kids/families (days at the Cheesewring or Kit hill, pasties for lunch and cooking sausages over a fire at night, or biving under the rocks below Cemetry gates in the pass) and it was entire families that climbed. I know my Mum and my Sister did (my sister was the first girl on a Coastguard Cliff rescue team in Devon). I don’t recall my Mum ever leading anything, but I know she would follow my Dad up HVS (possibly a Diff or two at Idwal).
There are a couple of old friends that come into the bunker to train, every Thursday lunch time;
69 and 72, very definitely female. Full of tales of climbing with their Uni club in the ‘60s (and some interesting encounters with the odd “Rock Star” (they were both fashion magazine editorial staff)).
Most of their stories seem to involve other women, bitd, having epics on long Alpine choss-fests.

In the ‘80s, when I went to work at the Southwest Adventure center, it was run by Ron and Moira (Don, Ron’s original business partner retiring a year earlier) and Moira was every bit the climber.

No, they weren’t  rare, merely ignored.

lagerstarfish

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I tried to vote yesterday (using my phone) and it just "hung" with some rotating circles when I clicked the final button until it eventually timed out

I will try again today

anyone else had problems?

tomtom

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I tried to vote yesterday (using my phone) and it just "hung" with some rotating circles when I clicked the final button until it eventually timed out

I will try again today

anyone else had problems?

Who did you vote for...

danm

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Worked fine for me today, using Chrome.

GraemeA

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I tried to vote yesterday (using my phone) and it just "hung" with some rotating circles when I clicked the final button until it eventually timed out

I will try again today

anyone else had problems?

Who did you vote for...

I voted Alex Messenger for God.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2018, 12:38:05 pm by GraemeA »

spidermonkey09

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Andy Syme doing a Q&A on UKC now if anyone has questions.

lagerstarfish

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I tried to vote yesterday (using my phone) and it just "hung" with some rotating circles when I clicked the final button until it eventually timed out

I will try again today

anyone else had problems?

Who did you vote for...

Brian Blessed

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That reminds me of a great joke on t'other channel.

  "Hat Dude -  on 17 May 2018
In reply to Shani:
> Blessed's onsight of London Wall in '81 remains the benchmark for all celebrity climbers.

It's little known that Brian's ascent was recorded on camera by a well known  frequenter of these pages. Unfortunately, on topping out, Brian dislodged a large block which hit the photographer, who was only saved by his camera taking the brunt of the blow. Sadly the impact destroyed the camera and its pictures, however Brian's cry of relief on discovering the photographer was unharmed, has become a thing of legend."

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/ben_fogle_summits_everest-685071#x8785756

Offwidth

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I don't like bullies and after being threatened with legal action for defamation and mulling over this for a few days  I've decided to stick up a section from one of Bob's recent emails here, just in case anyone still really things he can't use modern electonic communications and webpages and that he has stopped interferring with his dirty tricks behind the scenes. I think it speaks for itself on why this option vote is important.

Posted UKC 10.39 today.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/crag_access/bmc_again_sorry-685194?new=8800291

andy popp

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What an unholy mess. I realise I'm a complete outsider and I realise that deliberate wreckers have been at work for months, or even longer, but this is starting to look like an organisation in potentially serious trouble. All organisations depend on having legitimacy with "stakeholders." If I were an ordinary member who generally thought the BMC was a good thing and was broadly supportive of modernisation I think I would be starting to lose my faith. I can imagine funding bodies might be starting to feel the same. The organisation has shown little ability to mitigate what looks (from the outside) like a crisis.

kelvin

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What an unholy mess. I realise I'm a complete outsider and I realise that deliberate wreckers have been at work for months, or even longer, but this is starting to look like an organisation in potentially serious trouble. All organisations depend on having legitimacy with "stakeholders." If I were an ordinary member who generally thought the BMC was a good thing and was broadly supportive of modernisation I think I would be starting to lose my faith. I can imagine funding bodies might be starting to feel the same. The organisation has shown little ability to mitigate what looks (from the outside) like a crisis.

Wadded

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What an unholy mess. I realise I'm a complete outsider and I realise that deliberate wreckers have been at work for months, or even longer, but this is starting to look like an organisation in potentially serious trouble. All organisations depend on having legitimacy with "stakeholders." If I were an ordinary member who generally thought the BMC was a good thing and was broadly supportive of modernisation I think I would be starting to lose my faith. I can imagine funding bodies might be starting to feel the same. The organisation has shown little ability to mitigate what looks (from the outside) like a crisis.

Hopefully the vote will do that on next Saturday. I can't see there will be much sympathy for sour grapes legal action if Option A wins the vote by a clear margin. The organisation has spent a year in pretty careful consultation with almost everyone interested and has compromised even at the last, with Jonathan and Crag, but the likes of Bob just keep plugging away in his secret emails with bullshit bile. The idea that one of our area volunteer officers is a hooligan under the full control of an evil executive in order to extract revenge on Bob (with the dregs of a shandy!) is pure tin-hatted madness (thats what one of the letters claims... others can back that up). In contrast, someone can easily do something they later regret when already annoyed and then suddenly on the recieving end of very personal and sexist insults from Bob. I'm the one mainly doing the defaming according to Bob... find me anything I've said thats not based on what we actually know about what he wrote. I can email most of the letters other than the beergate one (which is obviously probably libellous).

Does anyone seriously think government would buy this collection of misinformation, in the context of the things Bob and his mates have said on the record about the BMC being in thrall to Sport England,  let alone against a strong majority membership vote (which it will be under any circumstances even if it doesn't make 75%+)? It would be like brexiters complaining to Brussels about a government bending to remainers. I'd add other people on the BMC side have good contacts in Westminster as well, and know what Bob represents is hardly going to go down well.

Having said all that, I do think members need to take this at least as seriously as they did the MoNC, as much because a good margin over the 75% vote is best this time for Option A with the legal threats. No one is claiming this is anything other than the best compromise under tricky circumstances but it enables the BMC to get on with its good work rather than spending another year navel gazing on the basic articles (that are common to any body getting any government funding). To the average member the organisation will remain pretty much unchanged.

andy popp

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I want to stress that I was talking, above all else, about perceptions (I've no doubt that the organisation has been working hard to overcome these challenges, and I've no doubt the wreckers are behaving completely egregiously). In particular, my final sentence should have read: "The organisation, from the outside, has shown little ability to mitigate what looks, from the outside, like a crisis." Perceptions do matter unfortunately, even if there is little rational underlying them and the BMC will appear to many to be unable to assert control. It goes without saying I want the BMC to survive and prosper.

Sidehaas

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(to Andy and Offwifth):

For what it's worth I agree with Andy. In addition, as this whole thing has gone on I have felt more and more that the internet discussion has benefited the renegade group because they have been able to nitpick and find inconsistencies between different peoples' posts far too easily, as well as accusing people of personal vendettas. It all has the effect of making the BMC team appear unprofessional.
I think serious consideration should be given after this is over to an effective ban on internet/social media posts about any significant BMC issues by people who work or volunteer for the BMC, except in a controlled and coordinated manner. I know it would be awkward to implement and people wouldn't like it, but the organisation would provide a much more coordinated and professional perception to the readers. The occasional posts written on ukc by Dave Turnbull himself are a good example of what should be out there, without everything else.

shark

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Interesting that you would prefer a managed message. The way things have played out on UKC has offered those outside the inside circles a real insight as to what’s actually going on. I can understand that the organisation might want to leverage greater media control but I’m surprised that individual climbers would see that as a good thing even though the truth of what is going on can be ugly. No different to Westminster.

andy popp

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There has to be a happy medium between a completely managed message and the complete shitshow that is that thread on UKC.

The way things have played out on UKC has offered those outside the inside circles a real insight as to what’s actually going on.

Really? It would take a huge amount of patience - much more than I have anyway - to glean any real insight from that thread. The overriding impression is of disarray.

abarro81

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The threads are too long and rambling for anyone who isn't already quite involved to be likely to bother to glean any sort of insight IMO. I've based my vote only on the fact that people who I think are sensible and non-dickish are advocating the same option that the BMC is advocating - I have no actual clue on the substance of what is even being debated/presented.. and I would suspect that many (the majority?) are in a similar situation.

petejh

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^ This is it, in a nutshell.

Despite endless communications from the BMC and others in the debate I'm still unclear what difference either of the articles will make to anything. Except that one will result in sport england tier 1 and the other tier 3.

The amount of words that have been poured into this shit show by the BMC and by others without being able to make the issue clear, is proof in my mind that whatever this is about - and it seems to be about power - isn't worth my time trying to decipher.

Will Hunt

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What Andy and Barrows said. There's almost no meaningful discussion being had by a very small number of people. Much of it has the ring of Fake News about it i.e. Offwidth says one thing is true; Andy Say says that the complete opposite is true.

Despite endless communications from the BMC and others in the debate I'm still unclear what difference either of the articles will make to anything. Except that one will result in sport england tier 1 and the other tier 3.

To be honest, Pete, I think what you've just said is the nub of it. The mechanism for getting Tier 1 compliance is to invest responsibility in a smaller group of board/executive members - as any large organisation which wanted to have accountable decision making would do. This seems practical and manageable to me, and unlikely to result in mass corruption since there will be checks and balances in place.
My take on the Option B stuff is that a lot of the old guard do not like this shift of power because they see an organisation that they used to have a tight hold of (block vote and all that) slipping even more from their grasp (case in point - that insane article by the bloke who was bemoaning the fact that when he called the BMC office his voice wasn't instantly recognised, and he didn't personally know the person answering the phones: utter madness). Some of these people are apparently going to great and ugly lengths to try and keep things the way that they like them. There might also be some genuine concerns about corruption in there but this hasn't really been articulated.

That there is about the limit of what I have gleaned from what I've read and I don't suspect that it's too far off the mark.

teestub

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Really? It would take a huge amount of patience - much more than I have anyway - to glean any real insight from that thread. The overriding impression is of disarray.

Hear hear

galpinos

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I think one of the issues is that it's very dull stuff and full of business speak so pretty hard to invest in without the petty squabbling, he said she said rubbish.

In my opinion, you either vote for or against Option A, depending on whether you think it is a good idea or not.

I don't see Option B as a viable alternative as it doesn't actually seem to do what it says on the tin.

Tier 1 - There are a couple of issues here for me. There doesn't seem to be any information out there to say whether it does conform to Sport England requirements for Tier 1 or not. Even if it does, what is the point? Tier 1 compliance doesn't give us access to any funding and doesn't help the funded partners. If we are going to go down the Sport England road, do it properly or not at all.

Board Led/Membership led - The pro Option B protagonists say their option maintains the membership lead nature of the BMC. However, Sport England Tier 1 compliance requires it to be board led. There also seemed to be very little in the Option B articles that made it more mebership lead than the Option 'A' set up.

petejh

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To be honest, Pete, I think what you've just said is the nub of it. The mechanism for getting Tier 1 compliance is to invest responsibility in a smaller group of board/executive members - as any large organisation which wanted to have accountable decision making would do. This seems practical and manageable to me, and unlikely to result in mass corruption since there will be checks and balances in place.
My take on the Option B stuff is that a lot of the old guard do not like this shift of power because they see an organisation that they used to have a tight hold of (block vote and all that) slipping even more from their grasp (case in point - that insane article by the bloke who was bemoaning the fact that when he called the BMC office his voice wasn't instantly recognised, and he didn't personally know the person answering the phones: utter madness). Some of these people are apparently going to great and ugly lengths to try and keep things the way that they like them. There might also be some genuine concerns about corruption in there but this hasn't really been articulated.

That there is about the limit of what I have gleaned from what I've read and I don't suspect that it's too far off the mark.

OK. And what about the bigger picture surrounding SE funds? People are talking about SE funding being reduced, and possibly eliminated. Again, nothing has been explained in plain english how much SE funding is available now, and whether that funding is available for the long term or might disappear in a few years. Isn't that pretty important to know, if compromises have to be made to obtain it?

For what seems to be the single biggest reason for voting one way or another - to obtain or not SE funding at tier 3 - there seems to be extremely little information being offered to explain the wider picture for SE funding. It's just 'vote this way because I'm a well-known climber' type stuff. Which obvs I couldn't give a fukc about. I wouldn't put it past some well-known climbers to nail their grannies to a cross if it got them a few days' airtime. Anyway if anything I'm inclined to vote whichever way Nick Bullock isn't :)
« Last Edit: June 11, 2018, 03:53:02 pm by petejh »

shark

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I have no actual clue on the substance of what is even being debated/presented.. and I would suspect that many (the majority?) are in a similar situation.

Imagine a tank with an input pipe and output pipe...

Muenchener

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Hmm, tricky. Not really worthy of a full Wad, but definitely deserves some kind of a Like.

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To be honest, Pete, I think what you've just said is the nub of it. The mechanism for getting Tier 1 compliance is to invest responsibility in a smaller group of board/executive members - as any large organisation which wanted to have accountable decision making would do. This seems practical and manageable to me, and unlikely to result in mass corruption since there will be checks and balances in place.
My take on the Option B stuff is that a lot of the old guard do not like this shift of power because they see an organisation that they used to have a tight hold of (block vote and all that) slipping even more from their grasp (case in point - that insane article by the bloke who was bemoaning the fact that when he called the BMC office his voice wasn't instantly recognised, and he didn't personally know the person answering the phones: utter madness). Some of these people are apparently going to great and ugly lengths to try and keep things the way that they like them. There might also be some genuine concerns about corruption in there but this hasn't really been articulated.

That there is about the limit of what I have gleaned from what I've read and I don't suspect that it's too far off the mark.

OK. And what about the bigger picture surrounding SE funds? People are talking about SE funding being reduced, and possibly eliminated. Again, nothing has been explained in plain english how much SE funding is available now, and whether that funding is available for the long term or might disappear in a few years. Isn't that pretty important to know, if compromises have to be made to obtain it?

For what seems to be the single biggest reason for voting one way or another - to obtain or not SE funding at tier 3 - there seems to be extremely little information being offered to explain the wider picture for SE funding. It's just 'vote this way because I'm a well-known climber' type stuff. Which obvs I couldn't give a fukc about. I wouldn't put it past some well-known climbers to nail their grannies to a cross if it got them a few days' airtime. Anyway if anything I'm inclined to vote whichever way Nick Bullock isn't :)

The BMC have been pretty consistent from when the compromise Option A was launched. They had previously set up the independant Organisational Review Group (ORG) and consulted fully with pretty much every group interested in BMC matters, other than maybe fulmars, and made recommendations; and then the Implementation Group (IG)  had looked at what could be practically done and when. The membership reps in National Council (NC, currently with the primacy the option B folk desire ) voted it in democratically as the way forward, despite the obvious effects on themselves as a committee. Option A means we have a modern business like governance arrangements, like every other sporting body eligible for grant funding (dull and formal but needed, unless you want none of the benefits below, 10% higher subs and more chaos). It means the umbrella funding set-up for mountain training and walls is retained. It means our influence with government will be retained as well as it can be. Finally, we can get back to bidding for Sport England funding, which may or may not go down a lot in the future but is important for the next two years. A lot of serious effort went into the compromise with Jonathon White and Crag Jones from the earlier group of Option B.  I'm optimistic it will balance Board leadership with responsibilities to the membership.

With Option B we still don't have: a list of which proposers still support it; confirmation if SE agree its Tier 1 compliant (pretty important); an explanation of how the spin about retaining member authority can be true, given Tier 1 also requires Board primacy. Option B also lacks all the recent extra membership protections after the compromise.

BMC: what does Sport England do for us:

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/11-bmc-things-funded-by-sport-england

On Andy Say, as per a post further up, I can't think of a single point he has made that doesn't distil down to an issue of trust: ie an opinion on some future that assumes the Board will go power mad and the membership will shrug 'whatever' and not kick them out. Remember all the recent problems, especially Climb Britain and the delays that led to the rush to complete the articles, were down to NC, not the Exec, as NC currently have that power.  Andy Say is a member of NC and of IG and of the nominations committee, so a clear BMC insider (albeit a critic of Option A). I'm just a husband of one of the exec, who happens to be very good and careful about confidentiality. I have made my own mind up and  have worked with a group of volunteers independant of the exec, and reliant on club leaks, to produce information to counter the fake news of Bob and co (now visible for what it is; and there is a lot more that needs to wait until after the election before release) . At least Andy is public on UKC and with a BMC article, as now is Rodney, at last (who's been accused of misusing his son's account on UKC). Rodney doesn't look as much like John Major in the flesh. So the BMC have two major articles on the website now on Option B. Rodney's article ignores many points of the compromise and if anyone is interested PM me and I'll go through its faults and exaggerations one by one (as I will for Andys). They operate by encouraging fear about democracy when what they fear is reduced influence and a wider climbing family: including things like competitions and hill walking and bouldering, and they hate the Olympic link (despite vote after vote in support when BMC membership is consulted). They want spanners in the works.

What will ordinary members notice afterwards if Option A succeeds... certainly more support from highly relieved staff and major volunteers,  who can focus properly again on their roles, otherwise very little really at first. As time progresses, better member input, than largely self-selecting area NC reps, might lead to real improvements in communication and niche support. Electronic votes from 2019 AGM will mean we don't depend as much on a democracy of mostly retired or rich folk with lots of time and money, or those who are part of the machinery and claiming expenses, as they all vote at an AGM. Proxies saved the organisation at the 2017 AGM with the rejected MoNC  (thank you all who voted) and electronic proxies need to do the same again now in my opinion with the Options (please vote).

« Last Edit: June 11, 2018, 07:42:41 pm by Offwidth »

 

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