Voted.What happens if neither 9a or 9b get 75% of the vote?Thanks for posting updates on this.
Baffled by your comment on carabiners JWI. This has nothing to do with the BMC?! In short it has everything to do with EN standards.Also baffled by your use of the US as a poor example. We're lucky in the UK to have ancient access rights to large parts of the countryside. This doesn't exist in the US. Or for a closer example look to Ireland or NI - where public rights of access to countryside isn't an ancient right as it is in the UK. Can be much trickier dealing with landowners there. So I'd say that access for recreation has far more to do with public access laws then whether or not there exists one large overseeing representative body for all things climbing.
Will. I'm not arguing for 'getting rid of the BMC' (I'm saying I no longer care what happens in the vote), so I didn't read the rest. And I'm simply pointing out that other ways exist to defend access for recreation which are just as valid.
If you'd spent much time trying to access across any farmland in Northern Ireland you'd quickly appreciate how public friendly the rest of the UK's ancient public rights of way are. NI has access laws about as progressive as its abortion laws; not one long distance path and a dearth of public rights of way.
Also baffled by your use of the US as a poor example. We're lucky in the UK to have ancient access rights to large parts of the countryside. This doesn't exist in the US.
Baffled by your comment on carabiners JWI. This has nothing to do with the BMC?! In short it has everything to do with EN standards.
Where there are local issues and climbing is on private land (RRG) then the local access group seems to have been successful in raising funds, but I can help thinking that a US wide body would have raised a lot more money and had more clout.
We're lucky in the UK to have ancient access rights to large parts of the countryside.
Hi PeteI don't know much about Canada but I do know the BMC don't cover Northern Island... maybe things would be better there if they did. I've spent less than 1% of my BMC volunteering time in committees as a Peak Area regular for 2 decades and of that less than 5% in more political committees like the AGM. I simply don't recognise the picture you paint of most BMC volunteers, who as Will says usually just get on with it. Like Will I see most of the recent BMC grumbling being due to a small group of old troublemakers using dirty tricks. Where real issues arise (and they do) the BMC is usually pretty quick to fix things ... most impressively and quickly with reversing Climb Britain. Some organisations I know would have needed to go through the full '5 stages of grief' before being forced to act. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kübler-Ross_model
QuoteWe're lucky in the UK to have ancient access rights to large parts of the countryside.This is bollocks Pete. We do have an network of footpaths, which are in places ancient. A right of way sadly has nothing to do with a right to climb.The CRoW Act (2001) defined and mapped 'open country' and gave us a right to access it. This included most mountain and moorland and big stretches of the coast. The right of access is not restricted to walking and allows a list of 'permitted activities' which - crucially - includes rock climbing. This inclusion was entirely and solely as a result of the BMC's existence and lobbying. As a counter example, look at caving. Thanks to the BCA's inaction caving is not a permitted activity under CRoW. On access land cavers can walk to the entrance to the cave but need the landowners permission to proceed underground.(Little known fact - Bob Pettigrew voted against the BMC's work on the CRoW act too).