UKC

The name change is not final , the membership can, and should demand the BMC name is recognised, valuable, loved and should be the singular everyday title of the organisation.

So, if you are unhappy about the 'Climb Britain' name change fiasco, there are a couple of things that we can all do to restore the BMC title.

Simply get in touch with your elected BMC national council representative and ask them to propose a vote at the next BMC national council meeting(September). Ask your rep to debate the issue at your next local area meeting. Attend your next area meeting, your rep is obliged to carry your opinion to the national council meeting.

The national council has the authority to overrule the executive committee.
If the national council refuse to recognise the membership's opinion, then a vote can be proposed at the BMC's AGM next April, or the membership can call an Extraordinary General Meeting.
A vote at a General Meeting(annual or extraordinary) overrules all other meetings and committees of the BMC, and the BMC are bound by any AGM decisions.

So first off, get in touch with your national council representative via your area meeting. This is the proper democratic process and has worked many times in the past.

It would be worth mentioning why you are unhappy with 'Climb Britain'.

e.g.
- The national council did not consult the membership via the usual democratic process.
- The sports council now seems to be in charge or our membership organisation!
- Dropping the word council implies a move away from a democratically run organisation.
- The cost of the change, both directly and in officer time.
- The longstanding good name of the BMC was hard won by the 70 year sweat and toil of an army of volunteer workers on behalf of their fellow members, (e.g. unpaid access reps) and you do not want to see this effort wasted on the whim of none elected bureaucrats.


Pete Sterling & Ted Rogers (Lakes)
https://www.facebook.com/BmcLakesArea/posts/731368457003934

Lisa Payne & Rik Payne (London & South East)
https://www.facebook.com/BMCLondon/posts/1181673188530818

Phil Simister & Roger Fanner (Midlands)
https://www.facebook.com/BMCSouthWestArea/posts/1146967462029809

Mark Anstiss & Alan Hinkes (North East)
https://www.facebook.com/BMCNorthEastArea/?fref=nf

Nick Bond & Tim Greehalgh (North West)
https://www.facebook.com/BMCNorthWestArea/posts/1198749386831611

David Brown & Rob Greenwood (Peak)
https://www.facebook.com/bmcpeakarea/posts/1146911198702770

Colin Knowles(colinrichardknowles@gmail.com) & Gareth Palmer (South West)
https://www.facebook.com/BMCSouthWestArea/posts/1146967462029809

Deirdre Collier & James Rowe (Yorkshire)
https://www.facebook.com/BMCYorkshireArea/posts/587983241362970

Jim Kelly & Anthony Eccles (North Cymru/Wales)
https://www.facebook.com/BMCCymruWales/posts/10153901068213160

Will Kilner (South Cymru/Wales)


I would suggest that if anyone has the email contact details of the national council reps they should add them to this thread so that the reps can be contacted directly by members. You can ask the BMC office for the contact details of your national council representative.

In reply to MooseMouse:

They didn't consult the membership?

I wonder if that was the same for the policy of handing out bolts like Smarties?

Or was that just a group of 20 bolters in a pub?

Mitch

In reply to MooseMouse:
Isn't 'consulting the membership' what got us Brexit and Boaty McBoatface? Sometimes unpopular decisions have to be made by people we empower to do so on our behalf. I certainly won't be contacting my local rep about this trivial matter as they already have a lot to be getting on with and acting as a sounding board for some whinging isn't really one of them. I don't like it but if you think the BMC needs to move with the times then this *might* be required. If you don't think BMC should move withy the times then fair enough, whinge away.

BTW I always refer to myself as a climber even though I do some mountaineering, in fact, the people who refer to themselves as mountaineers tend to be self-aggrandisers in my experience.

In reply to Tyler:

I don't think you understand what a consultation is. It isn't the same as a referendum or a popular vote. It's at least putting your plans to members and listening to what they say about them. Hopefully, there is at least an element of discussion and acting on feedback, but it doesn't have to be binding. however, a democratic organisation, which I hope the BMC still is, has an obligation to take it's members with it on such an important matter. So yeah, local reps will have to take some flac over this, because it is part of their role.

PS Thinkfarm can have Climby mcclimbface (in comic sans,obvs) for free

In reply to MooseMouse:

Whilst I don't agree with all the hyperbole on this and other threads, I'm pleased that someone has remembered that the BMC is a democratic organisation and the members can change things.

Every voting member of the national council is elected by the members - either at area meetings or the AGM. The fact that these elections are usually unopposed does not undermine that democracy - it's more to do with the fact that it's a thankless task and quite time-consuming. And from that list Alan Hinkes, Nick Bond and Diedre Collier must be on their 2nd or 3rd stint - fair play to them.

However this is representative democracy, not direct democracy - Brexit and Boaty McBoatface are examples of why the latter can be a problem.

So go along to the next area meeting, ask for an explanation and then decide if you want to challenge it. And if you aren't happy with the direction your reps are taking the BMC, stand for election yourself

In reply to toad:

And what if they had consulted and still gone ahead? I imagine a lot of the names that people would prefer are not available for various commercial reasons and you can bet all of then would be unavailable by the time the consultation had finished. Sport England seem to have survived the name change and we all like pound coins now, in a few years we'll be wondering what the fuss is about.

Obviously it was a bit daft to reveal brand consultants had been on this for nine months and then mentioning they were called Thinkfarm was an own goal, we climbers (sorry, should that be mountaineers?) are a cynical and impecunious lot and that was bound to get people's backs up

In reply to Tyler:
Tyler, you are wrong.

Brexit and Boaty McBoatface are examples of direct democracy via referendum.

The BMC's national council is part of a representative democracy, charged with primacy(trumped only by General meetings) over BMC policy and also with oversight of the operations of the executive via national council reps on the executive committee.

National councilors are elected to represent the interests and opinions of the membership via the forum of Local Area Meetings. This involved two way dialogue with members on issues of national importance, and also where local issues might need national input.

Yes, sometimes National Councillors have to make timely decisions on behalf of the membership in order to keep the BMC running smoothly. They might also have to make decisions that might initially be unpopular but, upon proper consideration are in the long term interest of the organisation.

However, there is no excuse for not consulting when the decision making time frame allows. There is even less excuss for not informing after the fact(i.e. 9 months ago when informed of the initiation of the name change consultation).
Yes, representation is sometimes complicated and requires the skills of a good communicator, but that is the nature of the job one is elected to.

It really isn't that onerous for the right calibre of person, a couple of national council meetings plus AGM, read all the briefing notes and consult, report and feedback via local area meetings, document the basic issues in minutes, take the odd phone call or email from enthusiastic members.

If a candidate cannot handle these responsibilities, then they should not stand for election.

No such timely decision was required in the case of the renaming. The membership could easily have been informed 9 months ago(re. Dave Turnbull's statement) who would then have felt included in the democratic running of the BMC. I can find no record of a report in any of the local area minutes.

Your accusation of 'whinging' are not constructive. It is not whinging to request that National Councillors carry out the very basic democratic tasks required of them by the governing documents.

Have your ever been involved with the democratic mechanisms of the BMC?

In reply to Chris the Tall and toad:
I should have refreshed the page before I replied and seen Chris and Toad's comments.

At the very least, the National Council have an obligation to keep us informed, even if they, in the final analysis, or due to time frames, end up going with their gut rather than popular opinion sometimes.

I cannot see one mention of the plan to assess a name change in any of the area meeting minutes.

For the sake of a single 10 word sentence in the minutes of any of the area meetings, the BMC democratic structures have been found unaccountable, and many of the membership are pretty upset!

'The BMC is assessing the possibility of a name change' 6 months ago in local area meeting minutes would have covered it and allowed all members to have felt democratically included and to have had ample time to feed back to their representative about the value of a name change.

In reply to MooseMouse:

It's pretty easy to get an EGM - a requisition signed by 100 members is all it takes. And then, of course, making sure you have enough people attending the EGM to vote for your proposal...

In reply to whenry:

Where did you find that? I was looking on the BMC website last night for governing documents and if they're there they are very well hidden.

In reply to dpmUK:

The BMC's website --> Menu Bar --> The BMC --> BMC Organisation --> Right-hand-side of the drop down menu - BMC Memorandum and Articles of Association 2014

In reply to MooseMouse:

I dont think its a sufficiently important issue that I can be doing with firing off petitions etc. I'm just dismayed to see the inexorable spread of corporate bullshit to the climbing and hill sports world.

In reply to Tyler:


No, that was holding a (non-binding) vote on the subject.

The membership could have been consulted and then ignored - at least Dave Turnbull would have had some answers ready rather than needing a couple of days after the announcement to work out what to say.

In reply to pebbles:
It isn't much effort pebbles, just post a message on the linked facebook page of your area meeting. Express your concerns and request the contact details of your area rep.

2 minutes, job done. Better than just feeling dismayed about the whole situation and also helps prevent the same kind of subterfuge in the future.

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

Consultation/non-binding vote; tomato/tomato

In reply to pebbles:

If landowners stop engaging with the BMC because they don't recognise the 'Climb Britain' brand and think it's a joke, then it will be become pretty important.

In reply to paul mitchell:

"I wonder if that was the same for the policy of handing out bolts like Smarties?" That was a disgusting decision not only was the colour selection terrible the ones I tried were inedible and chipped my teeth

PS I thought the BMC bolts were all intended for safe like-for-like replacement of old bolts??

In reply to whenry: that's a big if though isn't it. Perhaps they'll like it more. Most likely they won't care

In reply to wbo:

Absolutely. I wouldn't want to go down that route without being pretty confident about winning.

In reply to MooseMouse:

Funny this one as I'm finding it hard to care about it. So far I've never needed the BMC to climb and the NT can take a big running jump off a high vertical as far as I care.