UKC

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/membership

Right, looking at this, what am i getting for my payement to be a member then? Or do i need to fork out more for this 'upgrade'? some clarity would be good.

In reply to Steve nevers: Simply do i become a 'full' member or a 'club' member for the initial payment?

In reply to Steve nevers: I think it's expressed pretty clearly. My only confusion is that I thought that I had some form of personal liability insurance by virtue of being a club member. After reading that I'm not so sure.

Perhaps someone from the BMC can and should clarify.

In reply to Steve nevers: I don't think it is, or i wouldn't be asking. I'm dyslexic for a start so that may well be the cause of my problem here.

What i'm looking at clearing up is the 'club' mention the BMC, or are they referring to another club, i.e one run by a local wall etc?

In reply to Steve nevers:

If you are in an affiliated BMC club you are a member.

In reply to GridNorth: Thank you for clearing that up.

In reply to GridNorth:

Sort of. If you are a member of an affiliated club you are a 'club member' of the BMC. If you take out 'individual membership' you are a member. The two things are not the same; so the upgrade is in existence to change you - in essence - from a 'club member' to an 'individual member'.

In reply to Andy Say:


Thank you Andy, thats the exact clarification I was looking for.

In reply to Steve nevers:

I'd been under the impression that being a "club member" came with third party liability insurance (required for climbing in Cheddar). From reading that page, it appears I was mistaken. (Not that the membership upgrade is particularly expensive, and I don't mind giving a bit more money to the BMC anyway)

In reply to Nick Russell:


Club members are covered by the BMC third party liability insurance. As far as I've managed to work out, the only discernible difference between being a club member and an individual member is that individual members get 4 editions of Summit and year and club members only get one (with the club getting a copy of the remaining three editions to circulate). I'm sure there must be more of a difference, but that's the only one I've noticed! (I'm a club member who pays an upgrade, my other half is just a club member)

OM

In reply to Owen Meany:
Individual members also get Personal Accident insurance and an extra helping of that warm feeling you get from putting some money back into the sport that you love.

In reply to Chris the Tall:


On the other hand, I'm a member of an affiliated club, and I also used to upgrade for just this reason - but I recently stopped in protest at the ridiculous waste of time and effort that the BMC has been throwing at side issues like the Olympic bid.

To the OP: I checked with the BMC at the time (but feel free to check with them yourself if you want reassurance as to the current position), and the *tangible* differences between 'upgrading and 'not upgrading' were as follows:

'Upgrade' members got the following additional benefits of individual membership:

o 4 copies of 'Summit' magazine per year, rather than 1;
o £10,000 of personal accident insurance;
o a different type of membership card.

In reply to Steve nevers: you need to check if your club is affiliated or associated to the bmc. If ur only associated there is no 3rd party liability cover unless you pay the members upgrade.

HTH Dave

In reply to abcdefg:

The most important service of all is to the climbing community with contribution to access funds, equipment safety analysis, political lobbying etc. That's what you mainly take away when you make your silly protest about the Olympics. Club members get their associate membership way too cheap unless they contribute their time or money in other ways.

In reply to Offwidth:


What a stupid comment.

In reply to abcdefg:

Why? I'm all for people speaking up for or against key issues but resigning in protest and hence taking money away from things access funds as a result seems pretty silly to me.

In reply to Offwidth:

Surely funding something you disgaree with is much sillier?

In reply to Offwidth:

You have no idea what I do (or don't do) in respect of other issues relevant to climbers. To dismiss my protest is 'silly' is to appear oblivious to the fact that many people have strong concerns about the direction the BMC has taken with this and other matters.

Drop the schoolboy insults.

In reply to JayPee630:

"Surely funding something you disgaree with is much sillier?"

You mean like paying tax to fund our government?

The point is in the many things large organisations like the BMC do, the liklihood that someone doesnt disagree with one thing they did is very small, so by your logic they wouldnt have any signifcant membership.

In reply to abcdefg:

My schoolmates when being mean were a good bit rougher than calling me silly. So if you do something like donate your subs difference to the access fund please let me know so I can apologise profusely. In the meantime my greatful thanks to those who stay full members and my cynicism with the motivations of the majority who don't, will remain.

In reply to Offwidth:


Another stupid comment. But if that's how you think, fair enough.

In reply to abcdefg:
Well that's cool. You are now a 'club member' as opposed to an 'individual member'. I'm sure your protest has been noted.


Somewhere.

In reply to JayPee630:

That is precisely why I am refusing to pay my income tax. Whilst I approve of the NHS, the schools system, regulation of food quality, financial support for Bradley Wiggins etc etc. I am just totally pissed of with our support for arms deliveries to Syria. So I'm just out of it......

In reply to andyathome:

It is noted: I told the BMC why I did it.

I have no control over my BMC 'club membership.'

Happy now?

In reply to abcdefg:

Rapturous. They will miss your £x

In reply to abcdefg:

So did you donate the difference to the access fund or did you do some other good work for stuff otherwise covered by the BMC? You could easily do so without any risk of Olympic support.

I'd love to be wrong for again (I have been before and grovelled then as I will now), yet time after time I discover people who give up important things for so called 'good reasons', who seem to me, when questioned, basically to be frauds.

If you care so much about the issue of the Olympics you should of course ask your club to challenge the BMC and if they refuse, resign from them as well; especially as the clubs have the most power in the BMC.

In reply to Offwidth:

I assume there must be many (thousands ?) of BMC club members who are not individual members - are they all frauds ?

In reply to Jim Hamilton:

I'd certainly encourage such folk to pay full membership and I think many more should be if they really care about things like access (just like most folk should probably give more to charity) but no they are not frauds in any sense. What I objected to is someone trumpetting their departure from full membership of the BMC because of BMC support for the Olympic bid and 'punishing them' by dropping the funding to that of a club membership. The loss of income nearly all affects uncontroversial stuff like access. The 'fraud' is only if the member didn't cover this loss seperately and if the club did not formally oppose the bid. Our friend is noisy on his Olympic view but silent on these two issues. Although still cynical for now I'd genuinely love to be proved wrong.

We always had at least one person making strong arguments against the Olympic bid at the Peak Area and the mixed view was pushed up to the BMC but the majority supported it. Lets also be clear I've no pro-Olympic axe to grind I was broadly neutral at the time and against the format they decided on.

In reply to Offwidth:
I don't see the problem if someone feels strongly enough about part of what the BMC does that they feel they can no longer be a part of the organisation, even though they may support everything else.

In reply to Toreador:

They are still part of the BMC though, they just reduced the bulk of the money they pay and stayed in a club that could have opposed the Olympics as well.

In reply to Offwidth:

I'm not sure what great moral difference there is between "didn't cover this loss separately" and not opting for the for the full membership upgrade in the first place.

Why should the "uncontroversial" Access budget suffer ? - it appears to be less than 20% of the BMC total spend, but presumably is what most climbers value most.

I wouldn't have thought most clubs are interested in lobbying the BMC on things like the olympics, it's just their "umbrella" organisation.

In reply to Jim Hamilton:

Alternatively there are more than a few people out there - like me - who pay full whack as an individual member despite also having membership though membership of the Association of Mountaineering Instructors AND club membership as well. And strangely enough I don't claim back from the BMC, as I could, for those multiple contributions.

Why?

I think that the staff at the BMC, as a whole, do a bloody good job. Access is top of the pops for everyone of course but the technical advice, the availability of training/lectures, the work on competitions, the provision of guidebooks, the free publications, the ability to pick up a phone and talk to someone intelligent and knowledgeable (if the weather is crap of course; some of them are total dossers when it isn't raining) is great. Third party insurance as a freebie? Summit mag delivered to me as a freebie?

Just how much does a club member pay as their support for all of that?*

Let's not call each other 'frauds'. Bet lets look at what we put in in return for what we get out.

*Sorry. I forgot to mention the dedicated clubs committee, advice to clubs on issues about hut management etc etc.

In reply to Offwidth:

'silly protest'; 'trumpetting'; 'fraud'; 'our friend'; etc. etc.

Nice. Do you always conduct discussions in this tendentious know-it-all manner?

' .. Our friend is ... silent on these two issues ...'

He might well have simply got bored with your style, and buggered off. I think I would!

In reply to Jim Hamilton:

The whole point of clubs is political influence: the BMC gets a much larger membership punch and the clubs get more influence within this. The Olympics is an important isssue the bigger clubs will have discussed.

I suspect club members put little finance into the main activity budget of the organisation, as the charge is low and costs are not reduced that much. Hence, if a club member does care about access, technical work and the other good things the bmc do for us all, they should opt to become full members.

I thought it was clear in my post taht for 'access' read 'access etc.': the good uncontroversial core work of the organisation. In any case access is almost certainly more than 20% of the spend: that's just the allocation. Area meetings, guidebooks, political lobbying and other spends are also heavily access involved. The biggest expenditure is staff salary and to do good stuff the BMC need money for staff.

The moral point was always what I saw as a bogus moral public claim by abcdef. The moral onus for climbers should be to support the bmc more (occasional warts expected like in any organisation where we should work within to remove them). I think it's immoral to trumpet the cause and then stay in the BMC at a discount price, if the olympics bid really meant that much to him. If an equivalent charitable donation to the access fund was made, or the club made a submission to the BMC against the Olympics bid, this obviously wouldn't apply. Ordinary club members don't make grand claims, even if they could do more good by upgrading.

In reply to Steve nevers:
I'm dyslexic for a start so that may well be the cause of my problem here.
Not sure what this has to do with logical comprehension? I actually am dyslexic, but would never use it as an excuse for not understanding something. That is and never has been a symptom of dyslexia, and you do dyslexics no favours by making comments like that.......

In reply to Offwidth:

Taking the figures directly from the BMC's 2012 Annual Report, 9% of the £714,000 "special projects" expenditure is spent on "competitions", which is £64,260, or 2.63% of all expenditure.

If 2.63% of members were active in competitions, that would equate to 1,978 competitors.

I can't find any figure regarding the number of BMC members taking part in competitions but would be surprised if it approached 1,978.

What a lot of people think is that the expenditure on competitions is disproportionate to the number of competitors. Whether that's right or wrong is just unknown. Maybe the BMC could publish the figure, if it knows what it is.

Even if there were 1,978 competitors, many of them are likely to benefit from access work, tech services and guidebook publication - so the expenditure on competitions may still be disproportionate!

In reply to Allan Young:
Pretty sure that far more people attended the final of the BRYCs than attended the BMC AGM. Pretty sure that more people were watching the bouldering comp at Cliffhanger as well. And of course despite the excellent numbers we get at peak area meetings I bet they'll still be more people at the works tomorrow night.

But all of this is nonsense. The Bmc is a broad church and long may it continue to do so. It's primary function is to fight for access and has 3 (0r maybe 5 now) staff dedicated to that, with just one officer responsible for both indoor walls and comps.

If it were to cease to be the body in charge of comps, as many seem to want, it would lose members and grants, but most of all important political contacts and influence.

In reply to Offwidth: am I agreeing with you or are you agreeing with me ?

Either way it's a bit worrying

In reply to fraserbarrett:

I am 'actually' Dyslexic as well, but it takes a few different forms. Some family members are currently working on ongoing research trying to establish this in a way that the education boards recognise.

So yes, it has effect my comprehension of the BMCs page, and also they could have somewhere pointed out the differences between what they mean by 'individual' and 'club' members.

Anyhow theres enough shit-flinging in this thread already without us starting.

In reply to Allan Young:

Support for high performers can't be averaged across the membership in that way. The costs need to be above a threshold and as Chris points out the membership interest is well beyond those in competition. The BMC has democratic structures to inform what proportions of their budget they spend in what area. I see no evidence of a mass protest against that expenditure, just a range of views including a vocal minority seeking change (whom I'd rather see remain and continue the debate like adults, than throw their toys out of the pram).

In reply to Chris the Tall: Get real Chris, more people attend the Peak Area BRYCS (although it is not called the BRYCS anymore) than attend the AGM. In fact more BMC members go down the Works on a weekly basis than attend the AGM.

The comment about there being approx 2% of BMC budget equating to 2000 competitors in the UK reminds me of Lyndon Gill being surprsied to be informed by Guy Keating (then BMC Access bod) that comps had far more volunteers than the whole of the rest of the BMC put together. He was gobsmacked.

In reply to andyathome:
although by calling liability insurance £323k and Summit £145k "freebies" for club-only members, together with the views of Offwidth, there seems to be a perception that club-only members are freeloading off the individual members.

I agree, the BMC most likely do do a bloody good job, but just for cynical arguments sake, as a qualified (professional?) climber you may have reason to support the BMC more than most, and I don't think in many years climbing I've needed/used any of those services you list, let alone benefit from competitions/talent/grants etc.

In reply to Jim Hamilton:

Ah, so thats why you didnt like what I was saying!

Go and read it again as I never said (or intended to imply) club members are freeloading. What I did say is they provide important political punch through a much larger BMC membership than it would be otherwise but they don't contribute anything like as much per person to to the core activity finance of the organisation. Some club members in that are 'taxed', as they don't give 'two hoots' about the BMC but those club members who think the BMC core activities are important should become full members if they can afford it.

My posts focussed on someone trumpetting his departure as a full member of the BMC because of the Olympics, yet apparently (and as Ive also sadi repeatedly, I'd be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong) was hypocritcal enough to retain most of the benefits through club membership.

We discussed the Olympics breifly at the Peak area meeting last night and Neil Foster our chair summed it up nicely: that we broadly supported the bid as an area despite some objection (as did the national committee) but the way it turned out (esp the inclusion of speed climbing) has left us where membership support for a future bid might be in doubt. What's also clear to me, is what Graeme pointed out in the post up above: that competitions are enjoyed by many members of the BMC (especially young members) and BMC members of their family and friends and that they will remain supported by the BMC, despite some obvious objection from some more traditionally minded BMC members; yet they know that leaving the BMC for single issue politics against large majority positions will do more harm than good. You resign honourably to challenge abuse of power, not because your outvoted!

In reply to Offwidth:


Bizarre that you keep trying to tell your political opposition what tactics they should use. I think they can sort that out for themselves ...

In reply to Rob Parsons:

Almost missed you post. What I said is well within site posting guidelines and you will hear much worse in parliament let alone on the more colourful threads here. I have no formal position in the BMC, I'm just an individual member and extensive volunteer who thinks that the work that the BMC does is vital and needs the financial support of full members to do it. I'm allowed to express annoyance with someone doing what I feel is stupid from the evidence presented. Its my view and it doesnt negate his rights: he can do what he likes: including leave the thread if he must (as they say about kitchens).

As for political opposition, what on earth are you talking about? Have I missed something, having a relative political position of being neutral on the Olypics bid initially and against the final format (bloody abtainers and mind changers)? Or are we at the end of the farce now in the realms of the 'crack squad' at the end of the Life of Brian, with leaving being a key political statement in itself (of couse, in this case in that, just taking back the money, not the benefit).

In reply to Offwidth:
The more time you spend in BMC meetings, the more you think you are in a re-make of the Life of Brian.

Call me Loretta

In reply to Offwidth:


I never implied it wasn't.


s/what on earth/what/

Call it something other than 'political' if you prefer. There are two distinct 'sides' or branches of opinion here. My point was that it's bizarre for you to be dictating tactics: let them decide how they want to pursue their claim.


I have no idea what you're talking about.

In reply to Rob Parsons:

Maybe I find it bizarre that you are so fussed about my view as it doesn't constrain them in any way. They posted something and I responded with my opinion on the matter, seems normal to me.

So have you never watched Monty Python's, Life of Brian or have you forgotten it?

In reply to Chris the Tall

Indeed. Badgers came up as a discussion issue last night and I'm thinking now that maybe the holy hand grenade of Antioch will be on the government agenda soon to rid us of these pesky diseased critters.

Aldery Cliff was nice beforehand though! Plus, I gave your apologies (please send them by email to the secretary next time

In reply to Offwidth:

I was responding to Andyathome's comment on freebies, but comments such as "club-members put little finance into the organisation", "the moral onus should be for climbers to support the BMC more" etc and the suggestion that keeping BMC benefits is the reason why abcdef hasn't left his club, imply much the same ?

In reply to Jim Hamilton:

If ordinary club memebers came on here and said they won't upgrade to full BMC membership because of the Olympics, sure, but I've never seen that.