UKC

The BMC went through an upheaval a few years ago. The short story is there was a ‘no confidence’ challenge to the Board which led to a big independent review of the BMC led by a retired judge which resulted in a report with 52 recommendations. The biggest change that followed the report was that the Board gained ‘primacy’ in decision making. This aligned with Sport England expectations on governance (how power is executed) as well as what was considered best practice for organisations like ours.

National Council (renamed Members Council) became more of an advisory body with representatives on the Board. A new top team were hired in with impressive credentials with other sporting bodies including a new Chief Financial Officer, CEO, Commercial Manager and Head of GBClimbing. An oversight body for GB Climbing was set up; the CCPG (Climbing Competitions and Performance Group). 

The BMC, on paper, was doing all the right things. Job done. Interested members like myself can go back to sleep. Things seemed to be going ok. Membership numbers recovered post covid and headline finance figures seemed to be in order or so it seemed. GB Climbing staff numbers were increasing but this was all covered by grant funding - surely?

Last week I was awakened to the fact that there was a crisis and it has been revealed that:

-The Chief Financial Officer has resigned —

-A modest forecast deficit had ballooned to £275k

-2 members of the Access have gone and the rest had been issued with risk of redundancy notices along with all staff in Marketing and Communications

-The ‘real’ figure of total financial BMC support for GB Climbing is £530k rather than the £300k cited in the Annual report. This is above and beyond grant funding 

-£27k spent on taxi fares for events at Innsbruck by GB Climbing

-An open letter from 38 parents declaring the plans for the English talent pathway as *pointless*.

-An open letter from the commercial elite coaches declaring 2023 selection events as not fit for purpose

-Several children have incurred injuries at this year’s selection events due to GB Climbing NOT following guidelines.

-Inadequate reporting by GB Climbing to CCPG and ultimately to the board.

-A governance report by BDO commissioned by Sport England and UK Sport was, according to a Members Council rep, critical of the amount of influence that 'members' had in the BMC's governance!

Apparently there is a forthcoming statement from the BMC to look out for but suggest probing questions are asked at the next round of Area Meetings of our Member Council reps. 

My overarching question is that now Comp Climbing is no longer a fledgling sport isn’t it high time they flew the nest to manage their own affairs, direction and finances as it seems to me that their growth has reached the point that it affects Access and Conservation. A case of the tail wagging the dog?

Club subscriptions going up again no doubt???

Do you have any more info on this and are you talking about 2021 as the 2022 report is not on the website?

Sounds like it’s a bit more serious than that. 

The 2022 annual report is linked in the blog post giving the agenda for the 2023 AGM.

Why I quit and never went back. BMC membership for me was about the many, not the few. 

For all its faults supporting a strong and influential representative body that owns crags and has successfully maintained access at so many crags is a good idea.  We are better off in this respect than most countries. Withholding membership isn’t going to improve matters.

True, but blackmailing members to keep funding competition climbers after this, with the threat of access problems in the future is appalling.

Arguably the access team and those managing crags should by the absolute last to go. Those related to competitions should be clearing their desks and lockers now. 

I was all for making one off donations in respect of purchasing new crags, and would have happily given more than my annual membership cost to ringfenced funds. Seeing numbers like the transport spend for the climbing team which could have gone a significant way to employing an access officer for a year only serve to strengthen my conviction in that decision though.

I think you raise a good point. Perhaps the sport of competition climbing needs to go a different way to the body representing the needs of outdoor activity enthusiasts (walking, scrambling , mountaineering). Maybe the BMC need to wind up and a truly British organisation represent the need of climbers and hill walkers across these islands.

Where are these open letters posted?

It's bad management, if you own an asset ie land, crags, or even guidebook production then funds to maintain these should be ring fenced, excess funds go to other less critical areas. You can't neglect what you own on behalf of members and you have to consider  responsibilities towards staff too. Time will tell, but it's negligence at best.

Good point. To be exact they were described as “effectively open” by a BMC Director who has recently resigned which I think he meant they were open to the CCPG/ BMC Board. He also went on to highlight further issues which led to his resignation:

”Despite the additional funding from SE and UKS GB Climbing have then selected far fewer athletes this year into the team & squads as compared to last year (117 in 2023 down from 163 in 2022).

If you look at the most recent European competition events then GB Climbing is this year fielding on average one athlete per category compared to other major European countries fielding three of four despite the fact that athletes and parents entirely fund themselves. Until last month the safeguarding documentation was NINE years out of date and still quoted Rob Adie as the contact.

Parents & athletes continue to live in fear of speaking out. 

Retired athletes have spoken out: 
https://www.facebook.com/100044639040139/posts/501441251353839/?d=n 

Coaches have spoken out: 
https://www.climbingcoachingconversations.com/post/climbing-is-not-swimming 

Partners are clearly not happy: 
https://www.climbscotland.net/move-on-up/competitions/ycs---scottish-talent....”

Good grief. Given the miniscule overlap between comp climbers (and their parents) and the vast majority of the membership who are more concerned about access and mountains, how hard would it be to divorce GB Climbing from the BMC? GB Climbing can have all the grant funding and coaches and talent spotters and acronyms that they want, and the BMC can get back to access and looking after climbers, mountaineers and access to crags? Or is the orgnaisation so snarled up together that splitting it out would be impossible?

I'm not.

As an outdoor climber my personal bias is also Access and it is rated my most members as the most important thing that the BMC does and bang for the buck is relatively cheap especially with the local volunteer network.

However, I believe that the BMC should honour its commitments to other areas they have long declared they represent such as comp climbers and hillwalkers. But, there has to be a limit to that level of support and it has to be controlled.

The taxi fiasco is one of many examples that indicate that GB Climbing isn’t tightly controlled financially or operationally to say the least.

Overall the BMC has struggled to become a National Governing Sport Body. It’s a hard job. Other Sporting Bodies have similar well publicised difficulties and that’s all they do! We are newcomers but took the steps to recruit Managers with experience from other Sporting Bodies yet things have still gone sour. I’ve banged on for several years that GB Climbing should be an independent body for its own good and ours.  

No need to worry (ahem....), your £5 is safe; the transport costs were met by the parents of the kids concerned. Not that they knew much about it in advance.....

How do actually spend 27grand on taxis at an event that is a few days long?

Fake news then?

The full story was helpfully provided by one of the parents on Facebook on the BMC Watch Group:

“..the £27K spend on hire cars came as the result of a last minute booking of vehicles to transport the Jnr team plus coaches plus other athletes who were attending a training camp. The training camp was colocated with the team who were on a 3 comp European Tour over a 3.5 week period, culminating in EYCh.

The last minute hire happened because, without consultation, GB Climbing communicated to parents its logistics plan for the tour just 10 days before departure. Transport was yo be a coach from the UK to Switzerland and then onwards. 36hrs on a coach including overnight isn’t ideal prep for international competition and one vehicle to service all requirements in country was a non starter. 

The charges per athlete were astronomical and parents were told very plainly that if they didn’t pay up their child would not be able to compete for GB the following season. 

The concept of running a comp tour and training camp simultaneously using the same staff was frankly daft. Coaches were coaches, drivers and chaperones for up to a 3.5week period and were shattered by the end”

Back in the day (well, not that long ago in the scheme of things) we did a straw poll amongst us comp types, and found to nobody's surprise that we regarded the most important part of the BMc's work to be access and conservation......

There was apparently more to it than taxi"s (you'd expect so for £27k..). Let's just say transport fiasco. Financial control? This is just embarrassing.

Amen, brother. At the time this was first mooted, some analysis / investigation was done, and the decision was that that time, it wasn't the right thing. Looks like time to revisit?

E2A - you've beat me to it with the detail......

This. This needs to happen before it costs us any more. 

So the parents footed the £27k bill, not the BMC?

It's obviously bad organisation either way, but this point should be made clear.

Not really; if the parents said bollocks to that, the Bmc would have to pick up the bill. So the risk is there. But there is often emotion involved when discussing the subs / comps interface.

I'm no more than an interested outsider these days, but from my time as an insider, financial control was poor at the Bmc. I hoped employment of the CFO would turncoat around, but apparently not.

Hardly fills one with confidence, does it?

I wondered that too. I counted a total of, I think, 14 GBR competitors in the Qualis round - that's Bouldering and Lead for both Men & Women - which works out at over £1900 per 'competitors team'  (so that's parents possibly and support staff of whatever nature). Half that for the Outward and Return legs, it still seems a crazy amount of money for just taxis. 

I also checked the distance from Innsbruck Airport to the Kletterzentrum and it's only 6.4km, so that can't be terribly expensive. Perhaps the competitors live some distance from their nearest UK airport and they can legitimately claim that expense but I must admit, the total taxi figure cited seems huge.

Yes, see sharks post from another place.

But it's a valid example. Its easy to shout from the comfort of a computer keyboard, and much more difficult at the coal face, but this is hardly an isolated example of poor organisation.

They didn't fly out.

The parents of just the junior team stumped up 27 grand between them?  Wowzers, some supportive parents these kids have got. How many kids are in the junior team? 

Let's be clear.

The BMC egged on these kids to go to a comp, which must have been really exciting for them.

Then after getting them all revved up, at the last minute, they said, we have cocked up here, either cough up a large part of 27k , or your child is off the team?

If you ain’t rich then you’re off the team, soz. 

Rather, to clarify, the part of the organisation that owns tremadog, Wilton, crookrise etc. and looks after responsible grown up issues we care about needs to be split off before total collapse and financial ruin. The plastic pulling stuff can then sink or swim with nobody giving a f***. But the other stuff is important and it's currently too easy to write an ending where it's at risk.

Christ alive! This thread reminds me of the current Sun story about a certain BBC presenter, as the facts come out it’s still potentially bad, but nothing like the initial scandal. Simon appears to be playing the role of Victoria Newton with the BMC mimicking the BBC by making no official statement and fuelling the fire of speculation.

On the face of it, this seems very disappointing. I was unsure about the way the BMC set up GB Climbing but still think having the NRB and the NGB under the same umbrella benefits both roles, but with maybe the financial separation many of us were keen to see intially.

I am, as ever, disappointed in the BMC Comms side of this. All I have to go on is screenshots in Facebook groups and hearsay on here, with numbers and stories that seem somewhat inconsistent. Why they let the rumour mill run away like this is beyond me, they must have seen this coming? Hopefully the promised “official statement” will give us the “other side of the story”.

On a personal note, I will continue to be a member, continue to volunteer and continue to attempt to influence and affect change from “inside the tent”.

No. These young athletes have been training for years to get to this point., and will have agreed to go many months beforehand. for some, the Euro Champs will be the focus of the season, for others its part of a longer campaign. They are all mega keen, and do not need any kind of encouragement.

And there appears to have been a training camp as well.

apart from the revved up bit (the youth are pretty well permanently at "valve bounce" revs), that last bit appears to be a reasonable summary of the thing shark copied across.

Sorry, that was an assumption on my part. 

Has anyone been disciplined for incompetence and bringing the BMC in to disrepute?

Do I hear from the BMC embarrassed coughing and the sound of a can being kicked into the long grass.

No prob - its a very reasonable assumption. Reading the facebook post copy (which is from one of the parents involved) gives a fuller flavour.

On the upside; there were some excellent results from some of the athletes in the comps undertaken on ths trip. Which is the group of people that always seem to get the least attention when they should get the most. If the comp teams aren't at the centre of everything GB Climbing do, then what's the point. We are having a debate about the BMC / CCPG / GB Climbing and their interrelationships and organisation, with very little mention of those who should be the focus.

Unlikely.....

not sure that it has been brought into disrepute......

They don't do "embarrassed", in my experience.

Maybe. Or ignored and left in the road. Look, we dont know the full story, but it again isnt a good look.......

Like most members I have little interest in BMC governance and didn't pay much attention to the AGM.  Whilst the formal business was mainly to sign off on 2022, surely something of this importance should have been flagged up? It was less than a month ago so it must have been on the radar.  If they could not go public until the staff at risk had been notified, couldn't the letters have gone out before the AGM? If not, the BMC should have had a statement prepared to inform the members at the earliest opportunity.  Instead we are left with rumour and speculation. 

Everything I said is cobbled together from Social Media postings by either a resigning Director, current Senior Manager or current Area Rep on the Members Assembly or other publicly available information.

Given these sources I’m expecting worse to come out in the wash over time. In the meantime brace yourself for Director speak, rank closing, fudging, states of denial, obfuscation, arse covering, half stories etc. 

Yes, I'm looking forward to them quickly issuing a statement that doesn't actually do anything meaningful to address anyone's concerns but is written in such insufferable management-speak that it manages to piss people off even further.

I'm only poking fun Simon, especially as even within your post it was not consistent as what you have said is indeed "cobbled together" from multiple posts and those posts themselves are not consistent.

This is not what "the senior manager" said, he said one resigned, another being looked for, so where is this from?

-A modest forecast deficit had ballooned to £275k

Where is this from? The "resigning Director" said £142k?

I don't doubt that, am very disappointed to hear these rumours (which are obviously based on some truth) and as ever very disappointed in the BMC Comms (both the fact this would have been known about at the AGM (surely there is some issue here that it was not mentioend?) and the current radio silence) but I couldn't help but notice the similarity in the sensationalist manner "the story broke" and similarity struck me. Look at Frank the Husky's thread, was that really the rumour (ALL the access team sacked!) or just posted for the hyperbole and to get people would up?

Well they should be

Only because most people they tythe money off find it all so complicated they did not know about this. Has there been an article on UKC or in Summit about this?

Shameless

All a bit yes minister 

Look, we dont know the full story, but it again isnt a good look.......

Then we should know the full story. The BMC should issue a statement.

I agree with all of this and am aware that you have also been encouraged the board to get a truthful and clear statement issued urgently.

I appreciate that the board are volunteers, but sometimes you need to turn something around quickly, or prepare something ahead of time when you know there is a risk of a backlash and I can't understand why this hasn't been done.

In a potential redundancy situation, all members of the departments would be placed "at risk"; this allows any volunteers to step forward, and see if that sorts the situation. You can be looking for 2 redundancies out of 20 people; all will be given at risk letters. Note its the position that is being made redundant, not the person themselves.

He said £142k if corrections were not followed. So both possible correct, and certainly not incompatible.

Appears to have fallen on deaf ears so far despite assurances

This echoes my comms gripe. If they are laying off access staff, this was always going to be a PR disaster and how they couldn't get out ahead of it putting out a statement stating how many access officers were being lost and why to stop the rumour mill before it started is beyond me.

Sounds like  it will then turn out they’ve been paying Bozo £10 k a day as a management consultant 

edit : I meant “ an hour “ obviously.

Yes so £142k worst case or less if course corrections followed. That's not £275k. They can't both be possible and are incompatible

In reality, it way be £275k, it may be more and without a truthful statement from the BMC with the required detail we don't know, but it's interesting that the biggest number was chosen despite it being known to be potentially incorrect.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the BMC here, despite the fact I am a member, do volunteer, and think they are an essential force for good I am pissed off with them and want them to get their act together.

With regard to the anticipated deficit this year ('23): to the best of my knowledge the Senior Leadership Team and the Board had budgeted for a deficit of c. £71k at year end. After nearly six months of the year it became apparent that if savings of c. £140k were not made then that budgeted deficit would have spiralled to just over c.£200k.

So it would appear that there was a potential 'overspend' of c. £140k over and above the planned deficit.  I think those numbers have become somewhat confused.

I sit on Members' Council to try to represent the interests of NW Area members. I'm not THAT clear about the numbers; I'm not sure that too many people are.

I know 

My understanding is that one access officer had left (don’t know who) and wasn’t being replaced and that the Fundraising and Campaigns Officer who is responsible for Mend Our Mountains and is counted within the Access team hadn’t had their contract renewed. They are apparently looking for one more reduction on the Access Team. According to the current staff list that looks like it will leave 4 in total including Dave T who manages it. There are 9 in GB Climbing including those employed re Safeguarding. Not sure who are full time and part time. It’s mentioned for some but not all I think. 

By comparison when I was there 5 years ago there were 3 dedicated staff in Access with Dave T managing it alongside other responsibilities whilst only 1 dedicated staff member for GB Climbing with Nick C managing it alongside other responsibilities.  

Dave T’s Facebook post. 

What I’ve said are more than just rumours or a lone voice and I think people should sit up and notice if there is a financial crisis leading to a drastic reduction in the Access team. A key issue was that the forecast was predicated on abnormal membership growth to cover increasing costs. Why was that signed off? The BMC isn’t doing anything new to drive that level of growth as far as I can see such as offer new membership incentives. No doubt things escalated quickly after the AGM when those growth figures failed to materialise 

Plus anticipated revenue should be reviewed monthly or at worst quarterly and spending patterns adjusted. This is especially  when it was based on predictions of future membership, rather than knowns or historical certainty.

That's all good info, it's just a shame that it is still not in black and white and that my rep on the Memebr's Council* can't confirm or deny (that's a slight on the BMC, not you!)

* we have met at NW area meetings a couple of time, but my attendance is very patchy. I shall be there on the 26th! (as I believe it is online so I can make it....)

Andy, 

At the recent AGM the President confirmed that the £90k overspend at Ratho will result in a major sponsor.

When the Sponsor comes on board, then we should have a £90k betterment to the figures presented. 

Couple more Ratho ‘investments’ and we can rehire the access team & buy Kilnsley? 

John 
 

No, it was IIRC £142k if corrections are followed (wtf is a correction, just call it cost cutting). Implication being a much higher number if not followed. A deficit against forecast of £275k is frightening for an org of the BMC's size, and my comments about financial control would lead to the obvious question; at what point did any of these numbers enter the frame? Corrective action of some kind should have been planned long before there was any possibility of a £275k (or even £142k) deficit.

11 years ago, I made some "pointed comments" to the finance types at my first National Council meeting. This act is taking a long time to be got together.

Does anyone know (or care to speculate) how the deficit was going to be funded. Is there cash at hand to cover it and has the BMC run a deficit before?

They ran a £105k deficit in 2021 and £268k in 2022 (after a £200k surplus in 2020) that is paid out of their cash pot (approx £850k now I believe). I'm no accountant though....

I seem to recall there are restrictions on charity reserves which means you do sometimes actively spend reserves to get them down (on your charitable purposes).  Our Scout Group ended up in this position and ended up subsidising Group Camp for a few years to do it.

On the whole issue though, it does seem to me that being an advocacy organisation for climbing and hillwalking as a personal pursuit (I was going to say hobby but it's more than that to most) is a bit separate from running competitive sports.  It occurred to me that we have the two cycling organisations with very similar names (so much so I always forget which is which) - but one of them, the former CTC, is the former, while the other one concerns itself with competitive sport.

Time for a split, perhaps?

Minor point, the BMC  isn't a charity ( apologies if I've missed someone else saying this)

I actually see climbing as one big family, I climb indoors and out, boulder, trad, sport, ski tour, winter climb, and like the fact the NRB represents me in all those activities. I would also worry that the BMC's influence as a lobbying body for big access issues (CROW is hopefully up for improvement soon) may well be watered down if we end up with an NGB that is separate. Governments only like dealing with a single entity.

Disappointingly, there was a proposal for a "wholly owned subsidiary" (which I supported) which would have given a financial fire break whilst all sitting in the same tent. Maybe that could be re-visited.

Anyone know, do they own that building in one of the most expensive areas outside the M25?

Yes they (we) do 

I don't think the bmc can go forward now without a very public breakdown of where individual membership goes. I'm happy for a small proportion of my money to fund youth development teams as it's an equaliser between poor and wealthy families. But I don't want a penny wasted due to managerial incompetence. If as it currently appears comp climbing is about to take a massive chunk of financial reserves, then they need to part company in the next financial year and stand on their own feet. The bmc can still make a fixed donation towards competitions, but it's not an open cheque book. 

Thanks, it’s reassuring to know that overall the finances are pretty healthy and not in danger of going bust. It’s tempting to say the BMC should run with a £200k deficit to maintain its most important function but I would guess those that are making the decision do not see the deficit reducing for a while (I guess it’s aligned with Sport England etc funding cycles?) 

It certainly used to be the case that reserve (typically £1million) was all held in tranches up the level guaranteed by the government/FSCS  in various short term deposit accounts 

You'd probably have a quarterly rolling budget to report against, time investment would go into variance analysis and flexing the budgets accordingly. New budget outcomes would then be reviewed and any action necessary taken off the back off this. 

I would presume though that they are looking at monthly KPIs to establish trends and give an immediate and overall picture of performance. This would no doubt include both financial and other factors, including membership renewals/cancelations... complaint numbers, access issues etc etc.

More concerning is that a new business and finance strategy has obviously been drawn up and implemented, the key question is whether this strategy is still workable at all. An immediate course correction suggests a movement away from the plan. I'd also therefore assume they are reviewing this to establish whether this is a short term issue or a much bigger problem with the overall strategy.

That strategy should also have looked at the financial control environment, ensuring that this was scaled up sufficiently to match the demands placed on it by operating a bigger organisation in a different way.

Ha!

It's easy to speculate that those involved have no finance knowledge or experience or managing an organisation's budget. 

You know what I mean, it's obviously never going to be perfect. 

Sounds like it'd be a great shame if GB climbing and the BMC parted their association, but a lesser evil than what's described in the original post.

If the report states £300k for something but the real figure is £500k, whatever that is about... whoever prepared the report is at best lacking diligence/competence and at worst.. dishonest (or at very very worst...  fraudulent)

These are pretty serious accusations, is there a link to the report and any evidence that the report is not true?

The BMC has actively resisted becoming a charity for a number of reasons that I can't remember that clearly. However good practice is, as far as I am aware, to try to keep c. 25% of annual expenditure as a reserve for 'eventualities'. That would mean reserves of over £1million in the BMC's case.

Not sure where Kilnsley is but if it's where I think you mean, rumours are it's been bought, or is in the process of being bought. (Not by BMC btw)

It is, and it shouldn't be. Which is the problem.

I personally feel that

1) climbing outdoors, access, Comps etc are not inherently at odds and that the BMC could successfully be the national body for all these things

2) The BMC needs to be much more transparent and open about its activities and finances and that historically it has not been so

3) I am a proud supporter and member of the BMC and believe that when it comes to local access etc it does a great job, but clearly it needs to step up when it comes to comp support. I think a lot of the coaches etc are probably great but there's clearly problems with selection etc. It also seems that there are governance issues.

4) any situation where staff are having to quit or be made redundant suggests financial issues to me. If it is the case that funds are being mismanaged then staff should be the last to go. Responsibility rests at the feet of the leadership who generally at the BMC seem to stay very quiet whenever things go poorly.

I went to look back at the relevant FB post the resigning Director made to check what he was including in the ‘real’ figure to compare it to what is said to be included in the annual report but unfortunately it has been deleted (anybody make a note?). There’s nothing likely to be fraudulent but relates to how and where you attribute costs such as shared services, office running costs or with salaries of those whose work is divided between different areas of the organisation. This seems particularly complicated in the BMC. 
 

It's been pointed out to me that the figures I gave above are slightly out of date.

The budget was set to produce a deficit of £71k (drawn from reserves).  It then became apparent that at current expenditure Vs income trends it would actually turn out close to a deficit of c. £270/280k. (Hence the figure quoted from Dave T). If the proposed savings 'work' (and redundancies tend not to be quick or 'cheap') then it is anticipated that the year end deficit will be in the region of £140k rather than the budgeted £71k. As had been pointed out that comes after a £105k deficit in 2021 and £268k in 2022.

Apologies. I'm normally better with numbers!

The obvious potential for this sort of bollocks was what provoked the Motion of No Confidence in the first place. But people making those points at the time we're howled down here.

Where's My Offwidth? He is strangely - and unusually, for him - very silent.

Due to financial shortfall, Offwidth posts have been put on hold, the poor lad is at risk of redundancy. Brexit Britain eh?

Thanks.  I'm genuinely surprised it's not.

I do get the "not wanting to split the NGB" thing, but hasn't that already happened, with Mountain Training being the de-facto NGB of taking people into the mountains at least?

The problem with the motion of no confidence is that it was based upon so many falsehoods, personal gripes and misunderstandings of the impact that competition climbing would have on the rest of the sport. With that in mind, it was hard to take the motion seriously.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2017/04/bmc_motion_of_no-confidence_defeate...

It would be a good idea for the BMC to make a statement soon before the posturing gets even worse than usual

And ditto many speculators as well.  But politics c'est la vie

Yeah the MoNC was a nonsense although if he’d have said competition climbing was ‘the cuckoo in the nest that would take all the focus  of the senior management and lead to a slashing of access and conservation budgets’ it’d have been given similarly short shrift - not least by me!

So an equivalent of £220k PA. That’s not going to come from getting rid of just two members of staff. 

completely agree. Far too many conclusions and rhetoric is being drawn without all the facts. I recall the MONC forum debate with all sorts of things flying about, and in his resignation letter, Rehan admitting he was personally against the proposed (name) changes - something that he very professionally never declared amongst all the abuse that was being bandied about towards the BMC.

BTW anyone struggling to find the accounts info on the BMC website the links are here:

Annual report

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=2243

Statutory Accounts

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=2244

What exactly is the panic unless they have burnt through all that cash?

The least believable thing in this entire thread is that someone was able to find what they were looking for on that useless website!

😁 It did require some lateral thinking

For starters that to save costs they are reducing the access team from 7 to 4 people

Sustainability?

There do seem to be some natural tensions between general access/outdoor stuff and supporting competition teams.

British Canoeing suffers from it although it has improved in some aspects.

British Cycling also does with its emphasis on road competitions. Hence Cycling UK expanding into the general access etc side of things.

Imagine being an outsider looking in - useless, dated website that is rarely updated, woeful social media presence, larger than predicted annual deficit, difficulties in attracting new members in the numbers required, insurance provisioning suspended, redundancies, parents being forced to cover transport costs at last moment, talk of a split in comp/outdoor climbing areas of responsibility etc....

Would look to an outsider to be a sport in serious decline.

But no, climbing is actually booming, more people taking up the climbing than ever before, the crags crowded, Olympic representation etc.

So how has this been allowed to happen?  Some people are blaming competition climbing and think GB Climbing ought not to come under the BMC. 

Personally I don't agree, it's normal and right for the national federation for an Olympic sport to come under the organising body of that sport in a country - just as the FA looks after governance and grass roots football, it also takes care of the national team - but it needs to be managed correctly, budgets need to be controlled and regular reviews of their activities must take place.  And that's what needs to happen here.

I've worked with The FA for over 10 years, and every so often it looks at it's activities, decides what is core and either sells off, shuts down or hives off what it considers non-core (they even looked at selling Wembley an few years back).  

Perhaps it's time the BMC did the same.

Still got a hell of a cash pile to burn though even if there were no redundancies. That is easily good for a few years. 
 

There have been comments about the insurance deals being offered. Perhaps income from insurance is not as strong as in the past.Any thoughts  

But football is football and you're basically looking at the same thing across all levels of the sport. Grass-roots football is still football.

A more accurate comparison would be if loads of the general public paid to be a member of the FA club because, traditionally, they had looked after the local football pitches but they instead spaffed the entire budget on getting England to the world championship of foosball. 

Those two are and always have been, iirc, separate entities with BC being the body for competition  and CUK, formerly the Cyclist's Touring Club, representing the interests of all cyclists with a historical emphasis on touring but really representing anyone who rides a bike.

From what I can gather from the above, competition climbing needs its own organisation separate from the BMC. No reason they can't be associated but the core purpose of the BMC, representing us non-competing outdoor mountaineers (from ramblers to super-alpinists and everything in between) who I suspect form the vast bulk of the membership, appears to be being neglected in favour of climbing comps. 

Or win gold in both bouldering and Lead World Cups, as Toby Roberts did this season?

First or last, it has literally no benefit to any paying member of the BMC.

It would be interesting to know how many members of Team GB are also paying members of the BMC. 

If you mean the climbers in GB Climbing, all of them?

It's good for only three years at the current rate. Which is why they have to cut costs.

Isn't that what the proposal to split the BMC from GB Climbing is though? From the perspective of the average member, GB Climbing is non-core. From the perspective of the average competitor, owning Harrisons Rocks is non-core.

In reply to

Plenty of time  for a rethink. Clearly most people have no experience of running cash strapped operations on a day to day basis. You would only dream of a cash pile like that.

I doubt it is non-core to comp climbers, they climb on rock too and often are extremely good at it

I think the BMCs access work is helped by the development of climbing into a more widely recognised sport. I think it's a lot easier for them to argue that climbers deserve access to a historic crag when the land owner has seen Toby Roberts take an Olympic Gold and therefore sees climbing as more legitimate than they otherwise would

"The organising body of that sport in a country".

Is that what the BMC is, in your opinion? The body that organises the 'sport' of climbing?

Or is it the body that represents those who go Climbing...and Hillwalking, and Mountaineering?

That strikes me as the essential dichotomy, and source of quite a lot of the tension evident in this thread. At the time of the Organisational Review six years back I was very supportive of its recommendation that an 'arm's-length' entity be set up, free of national ties but with a governance structure that gave the BMC, MS and MI some control, to act as the 'Governing Body' for Competition Climbing. I saw value in there being some clear blue water between the Governing and the Representative functions. I was disappointed when the decision was taken to create an internal BMC Department; though I can appreciate the perception that there would be financial benefits for the BMC arising from that arrangement.

Most farmers in the kind of upland areas where crags are situated won't have time to watch the Olympics, let alone discover a niche sport like competitive climbing.  Farming is a start work early, finish work late type of profession, often 7 days a week.

And competitive climbing is so far removed from actual climbing to be almost irrelevant to most climbers. No route choice based on conditions, no walk-ins, no objective danger, no views, little sense of exposure, no mountain environment, no adventure, no nature or wildlife, no epics on the crag, no ropework skills, little judgement required. All the things that make climbing good for the average UK climber simply do not exist in competitive climbing. Is it even climbing as most of us know it, or more just another type of gymnastics?

I agree, I have been raising concerns about the website for years and the staff have accepted that it is absolutely dire while stating that investment is being made into it. They are trialling a new website design with the Hillwalking microsite:

https://hillwalking.thebmc.co.uk/

There have been various discussions about website format in tech committee meetings, the comms team is heavily focused on using social media to drive traffic to the website, some of which will be static content that is linked periodically (so an article about post season maintenance for winter kit might be posted in March, an article about cleaning gear after climbing on sea cliffs after lots of people have been to Pembroke at easter, an article about fending off midges at the end of June etc) as opposed to the current website which is essentially a news feed (which admittedly wasn't a good design for the purpose 20 years ago and is still not a good design).

I boulder indoors and out and yeah I think comp climbing is as much climbing as outdoor climbing. Ask Jerry if he thinks comps are "just gymnastics." Or Ondra. Or Will Bosi.

I understand that won't be a popular opinion around here (I suspect some people around here think anything less than onsight trad isn't real climbing) but I think comps are cool and that the BMC should be running and developing these things AND preserving access.

Comp climbing is as far removed form actual climbing and mountaineering as to be an almost different sport. In the same way that in a penalty shootout, you still score a goal, but it is a vastly different thing to an actual game of football.

Yeah fair point - but then although you're right football is football there's a lot of activities around it and variations that The FA has a major stake in... Disability competitions, Futsal, refereeing, international, national and regional competitions, events, property, governance, heritage & museum collections, broadcasting, sponsorships etc... I could go on and on.  

Basically my point is that mission creep is par of the course with a national federations and organising bodies, and it's something that needs to be actively policed.  

My other point is that now ought to be a golden period of opportunity for The BMC, and I think GB Climbing being part of the BMC is a good thing if managed properly, but through woeful mismanagement it's become a missed opportunity.

Comp lead climbing is just hard indoor sport climbing. Unless you consider sport climbing not to be climbing, it's climbing alright, and I'm saying this as someone that has very little interest in comp climbing.

It bears no relationship to outdoor climbing where access is required though does it? Here's a clue for you, it's the British Mountaineering Council, not the British Climbing Council. The mountain bit makes a difference.

I believe that football and the various governing organisations around the world are fairly flush with cash. The BMC it appears, is not!

Yeah, no. If the BMC only covered mountaineering it wouldn't have a fraction of the members it has now. We could argue all day long whether comp climbing should be the BMC's remit, there's plenty of arguments for and against, but I'm not having "it's not climbing" as an argument, that's just bullshit.

In that case most of the crags in the country presumably are of no interest to the BMC because they aren't on mountains 

Nice thread juxtaposition.

'Trouble at the BMC. Again.'

'Where does the money go?'

To be honest though, it has more in common with gymnastics, just a form of gymnastics using climbing holds.

I don’t think any reasonable person would challenge your statement. This is about mismanagement by the BMC with too much financial backing being poured unaccountably into this. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sport England don’t have their fingers in this pie, much like the current BMC spend on inclusion and diversity. It’s amazing that financial and societal challenges didn’t previously deter inner city working class and the unemployed from climbing. Rock and Ice, Craig Ddu, in fact all major UK city’s had active climbing clubs who clubbed together to buy vital equipment and made a load of it themselves. Walked or hitched and slept out on the moors or snake barns, cooking their own food and climbing all day. We did. My first axe was a cut down straight pick bent with a blow lamp. Had a homemade rucksack and gaiters and we used to depeg routes before a rare visit to the Alps, because we couldn’t afford them. Still managed the Eiger 38 route as my first mixed route with that kit, so we must have climbed over or swerved the barriers.

I live in Cumbria, and previously the Peak, so get outside cragging loads. However indoor climbing and training has been part of my routine since the early '80s. Pretty well everyone I know does both, and every wall we use will have open comps of some description which are great fun even for those of us who are relatively ancient. That's apart from the logging software like Griptonite which tells me I must try harder at bouldering AND lead ;-(

I know it sounds like Monty Python sketch but there was a generation like that, apart from Uni toffs ( only joking as I have spent my entire climbing career climbing with them all)

Just as a note, I'm only challenging the specific claims of the poster I responded to, I'm not putting my flag on any side of how comp climbing is to be managed by the BMC or otherwise.

Not as flush as you might think. All that money generated premier league rights sales doesn't go to The FA.  

The FA owns England home friendlies, The FA Cup, WSL, community shield and a few other bits and bobs.  Doesn't generate anytthign lie what the Premier League or even the football league makes.

Unsurprisingly international audiences don't give a monkeys about Port Vale versus Kidderminster Harriers in R1 of the FA Cup!

How many non white people, or gay people, or women or insert another minority group here were in the rock and ice era? 

There are so many groups (often writing articles on here) about why inclusivity matters, I'm inclined to belive what they say rather than relie on my own, often quite limited, experience.

Football is a mass participation sport in the UK and the most watched sport in the world. Climbing is a niche sport, indoor comp climbing a niche within a niche. The two are not even comparable.

Hence my comparison of penalty shootouts above. Imagine if we decided who the best footballer was in the world solely on on their ability to score a penalty and gave them an olympic medal for doing so? Forgetting entirely about the rest of the game, its skillset, mindset, fitness, teamplay and nuances. Would that be fair or relevant to the game of football even?

What about some climbers who climb a hard new mixed route in the Karakorum, judged to be the hardest in the world at the time? Should they get an Olympic medal be for doing this? Or is it just the indoor climbers who deserve a medal as they are judged to be the best climbers in the eyes of the viewing public? 

Personally I don't think that climbing should even be in the Olympic, so misrepresentative is the discipline of comp climbing to what 95% of climbers actually engage in.

P.S. okay yes yes, sometimes a penalty shootout does decide the results of a football match, but only after a proper game has taken place beforehand, not instead of the game.

Why does it even matter whether you are gay or from a minority? Who cares, unless of course you are trying to stir up deliberate divisiveness by saying this and making a thing of it?

You are aware there used to be a medal for alpinism in the Olympics? Google tells me the last one was awarded in 1988!  Infact some countries had a history of competitive alpinism. Allthough generally I think most regard this now as a pretty bad idea I think! 

I'm not sure any one is really arguing that indoor climbing isn't climbing (and sport climbing is neither!). The point is that the main benefit of the BMC to a VAST majority of its members is the work it does for OUTSIDE climbing:

• Owns manages and maintains some crags
• Negotiates access with landowners
• Provides 3rd party insurance for climbers 
• Membership is a requirement for climbing at some crags
• Prints guidebooks and owns huts in climbing areas, with a discount for members
• Runs campaigns such as 'Mend our Mountains' 
• Negotiates access with landowners (said it again because it can't be overemphasised) 
• Runs outdoor youth meets & training
• Supports and advises climbing clubs

Just a selection; the list goes on. The above is the reason why anyone would be a member. For someone who exclusively climbs indoors, what is the benefit of being a member of the BMC? Why would they become one? It's not to say that people don't do both either, it's just that the BMC is there for one side of it and it irks people to know that they are compromising the real priority of its members for something that most of them don't care about. 

The Piolets d'Or?

And as I've said many times I absolutely believe the BMC should be doing all those things. I am an outdoor climber myself and things like access to Wright's Rock are important to me. I just also think they should direct and promote the competitive climbing environment as well 

As it happens people have literally said that indoor climbing and comps aren't real climbing just above us in this thread!

I had 2 points to your post, the first was using the rock and ice generation as an example of why inclusivity wasn't important wasn't really very well thought out.

The second is that lots of groups feel excluded, often explaining why in articles and videos on here (and elsewhere). They tell the climbing community (whitch the stats say comes mainly from a particular demographic) that inclusion matters. I tend to take this at face value, so when I see someone in here say it doesn't I take issue.

Take for example Urban uprising, pretty sure they have written on here about challenges to inner city kids from poor backgrounds accessing the outdoors. Do you think the experience of many volunteer's who run this is worthless?

Nope, proper Olympic medals! To be fair I think they mainly stopped in the 40s

I don’t believe the cross over from comps to rock climbing happens any more with any significance for the youth competitors supported by the BMC

I've been looking at the Financial Summary in the 2022 Annual Report.

The cost of GB Climbing was £0.96m against income of only £0.78m (including UK Sport and Sport England funding), so there was a shortfall there.  Other activities including membership and trading activities  generated a surplus.  There are some pretty meaty other cost headings, including general admin costs of £1.305m and £0.140m for "Costs to build Partnerships, sector leadership and heritage" (?). 

The totals show income of £4.142m against costs of £4.412m, a shortfall of £0.271m. Whilst it is not the only contributing factor, the shortfall from GB Climbing of £0.180m accounts for two-thirds of the loss.

Climbing encompasses a wide variety of activities and I have always argued that competitions should come within the BMC's remit for that reason (although it is of zero interest to me personally).  However if the costs of that start to jeopardise the effectiveness, and even survival, of the organisation then questions have to be asked.  Perhaps the time has come to hive off competition climbing to a separate organisation. There is no reason why those who wish to could not still participate in both.

Most of the youth competitors I see are very psyched for outdoors. There was a youth selection event at my local wall on Sunday and I know for a fact a lot of those kids are out doing boulders in the mid to high 7s. I know many people who just competed at the BBCs doing stuff in the low 8s

On the international scale Toby Roberts just won a World Cup Event and he's done 9a+ at Malham so I think the idea there's no overlap is dead silly. 

From what I understand the BMC has packed up its toys and left the guidebook printing game as it is not profitable and the area it produced guidebooks for (The Peak) is already very well served by commercially produced guidebooks (there is a whole discussion to be had about the gap in provision between what is provided by Rockfax and the like vs what was provided by BMC guidebooks but that diverges significantly from the topic).

As a white guy I might feel excluded from something like the MOBO awards. Should a scheme be set up to make it easier for a white guy like me to get a MOBO?

Why does your version of exclusion and inclusivity only seem to work one way? Different cultures value different things. Why is that bad in your book? Why should we attempt to try and make everyone like us? Why do you attempt to define someones life and value by their skin colour instead of trying to treat everyone as equals?

Sure, inner city kids will always find it more difficult to get to the hills than a kid living in the countryside. Equally a countryside kid, even if better off might find it very difficult to get to an indoor wall, or within walking distance to a gym/swimming pool/etc. you name it.

Why do we feel the need to get inner city kids into the countryside but not countryside kids into the city? Both have benefits, but why is it always one way with you virtue signalling people?

If you tell someone endlessly that they are oppressed then sure as hell they will feel oppressed. Where as if you just treat them as an equal then no one feels oppressed. So here's a solution for you. How about just let people be who they are without trying to change them or make them conform to what ever it is that you think is good for them.

I'm not telling anyone they are oppressed. They are telling me (and you). 

These are such ridiculous comparisons I don't really know where to start, other than to say people with opinions similar to yours rarely seem to take into account the hundreds of years' worth of discrimination towards minority groups and how engrained it is within society.

UKC currently has an article on peak climbs by Shauna Coxsey. It has had regular features on various climbs by Will Bosi, Aiden Roberts, Adam Ondra, etc etc. The comps /outdoor crossover is still there!

This is either a troll or you need to educate yourself. 

A good place to start would be drawing comparisons with black people and swimming, as there are quite a lot of good articles about it. Something like 95% of black people in the UK don't swim and I think it's as bad or worse in the US. It isn't a 'cultural' things, or that black people physically can't swim. It is engrained through hundreds of years of segregation (both racial and economical). 

Football used to be all white and it took years of brave men taking shit off the sidelines every weekend to get us where we are today. They still take shit off the sidelines every weekend but black people are now well represented in football and make up some of the best players in the world. 

Where are the black role models in climbing? There are a few, but not many. Before there is equal representation in climbing, minorities need to see that it's something for them as well and attitudes like yours have the opposite affect. Years of organisations being proactive and brave steps by minority people are needed before climbing is inclusive. It's better now than it was but imagine being someone like Trevor Massiah in the 70s/80s and deciding that climbing was something you wanted to do, when you'd not seen a single black person doing it. Imagine walking into a climbing centre where not a single person looked like you. 

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/curiousclimberpodcast/episodes/Blac...

You also seem to focus more on the logistics & travel of inner city kids getting outdoors. I can promise you, the traffic is not the reason inner city kids can't get to the national parks. When your single mother can't afford to feed the family, a trip to Stanage is not high on the agenda. 

Might I drag this thread back away from a squabble about 'white privilege' vs 'there ain't no discrimination here, pal'. It's an interesting debate but possibly not germane to the problems of the BMC.

And could I also make a further plea. The climbers who are members of the GB squads (and the parents of the junior squad members) do tend to pay their way! The cost of sending a junior squad member to an event like the Innsbruck training/comps 'thing' is really quite eye-watering. It's NOT those kids who are causing financial problems.

Let's not get into the 'us and them' game. The way that we 'govern' our activity is up for debate, for sure; but saying that people who 'compete' aren't part of the climbing family and can be disregarded doesn't really work. Does it?

Significant people, but significant numbers? What about all those of us who got into climbing and mountains as a healthy alternative to organised competitive sport? In our day we were fortunate to benefit from the experience of LEA funded outdoor centres, sadly most all gone now due to cuts and changes in education dogma. BMC funding competitive climbing for youngsters is no longer balanced by the ethos of non competitive self reliance and appreciation of the great outdoors and mountain environment etc  

The £0.18m doesn’t relate to the whole cost of GB Climbing to the BMC I believe.

In the 2020 and 2021 Annual Reports GB Climbing had a useful line which was ‘net costs after grants and other income’ which in 2020 was £268k and 2021 was £327k and better reflects the true contribution by the BMC to GB Climbing.

That line has suspiciously been dropped in the 2022 Annual Report and is I suspect the £530k ‘real cost’ figure I quoted at the start of the thread. If not it would be good to have this net cost confirmed

It’s not clear at all. I have heard that the £27k was after parental contributions. Another question for the Area Reps…

I fear for the area reps! Is it realistic to expect them to know the answers to any of these questions? I expect they are entirely blameless, at least as annoyed and probably as much in the dark as the rest of us. 

Of course. But they can take those questions to the Members Assembly to escalate to the Board. It might be a welcome novelty. Normally Area reps get little to take back or at least that was the case when I did my stint. 

But how many?

If access was available why were there so few women climbing until the more recent decades? There are all sorts of barriers to people doing different activities beyond cost, or that compound cost. 

Yeah, significant numbers. Of the kids in my region who used to do the YCS etc etc, I could think of very long list of them who climb regularly and hard outdoors. Many of them will be completely unknown, but they started out in kids comps.

I also imagine competition climbing should be apportioned a share of the overheads - IT for example

II last looked at this about the time of the monc. In the year I looked, just under 1,300 individuals took part in Bmc organised comps for which membership was compulsory.

The recent AGM covered many (and more)  of the competition issues and that an independent report was prepared for the Board and Council, on the work of the CCPG. The President confirmed it was a tough read but the board agreed with its recommendations. 

Has the CCPG report been circulated to members council in advance of the next round of area meetings? 

Also one of the council nominated directors has resigned who from council replaced him? If members council is to hold the board to account, the board has to allow a replacement nominated director. 

Q1. No.

Q2. That Director is still 'serving their notice period'. There has been no progress so far on their replacement.

So about 1.5% of the BMC members

Near enough.

Really? Or would it make landowners less receptive to access as they envisage the tight shoed, chalked hands masses appearing over the hill?

Edit: I would also sincerely hope not that the BMC were ‘arguing’ or using anything remotely similar to the word ‘deserve’. 

If I were a landowner with a crag that was otherwise inaccessible, the last thing that would entice me to open it up would be a widely recognised therefore likely popular and well participated sport wanting to use it. A few folk with beer mats, hemp rope and healthy respect for the environment, sure. Hundreds or thousands with their garish plastic clothing, jangling gear, chalk buckets, badly parked camper conversions and inability to discern a ring ouzel from a blue tit? Nah.

Just took a peek at the website, not great. Immediately any site that doesn't have a mobile version is going to feel dated.

I appreciate that climbing covers a broad range of niche varieties but focusing so much effort and expense on comp climbing is just going to annoy everyone wanting outdoor access.

Talking of social media presence... I can't recall seeing a single BMC related item on Facebook, twitter or YouTube despite being a key target audience.

I was a member for ~10 years. There doesn't seem to be much to draw me back.

I can't even get the bmc website to load, I click on it and it opens up my rad access app for some reason 🤷

I see the BMC have put out an article about access more generally today (not really crag). 

On the other thread (now closed) UKC (?Rob) said that they were expecting a statement from the BMC, is this still expected? Thanks

Works for me but I need a microscope to read it.

Any respect I ever had for the BMC went through the window with the Alderly Cliff episode. Wantont vandalism and theft of timber and stone. They knew who did it and let them get off Scott free. Trashed the place.

As for the renaming, Climb Britain, 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, £15,000 well spent!

They're just clique personified.

I would agree but, rather surprisingly, the auditors' report suggests they thought at least some of the control environment was good. Someone, somewhere in the BMC knows how to keep the accounts.

That said, it is entirely possible to have good controls over the day-to-day accounting and yet be completely unable to create a realistic budget.

Jesus f***ing Christ...

Yes. Don’t hold your breath, word is that is fairly bland focusing on lack of membership growth. Think there is intended to be an accompanying UKC article. 

Very good point as I’d only considered it from a personal perspective. It seems though that persuading women to participate in sport has been difficult in all areas and I think this has been due to slow cultural change whereby women are actively encouraged to participate. There were never barriers as such and in the 70,s and 80,s I often climbed with some of the leading female climbers of the day. As you point out currently climbing has seen a massive uptake from women and I suspect this is in no small way due to the proliferation of indoor walls.

This has been un-archived.