UKC

The British Mountaineering Council has published an open letter from the CEO, Paul Ratcliffe, in which it has announced losses of £625,000 for the financial year 2023.

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Just received by email 
Dear Members,
This is a painful message for me to write as one of my first major communications to you all.

My approach from starting the role in February 2024 has been to operate with honesty, openness and transparency and the purpose of this open letter is to lay out the financial situation of the BMC, following our annual audit.

Regrettably, today, I need to announce that the BMC made a larger than expected loss of £625k in 2023 and we have finished the financial year with our reserves down to £217k.

These losses are significant and place a considerable amount of strain on the organisation, far beyond what was understood in February 2024 and the starting point I envisaged coming into this role.

Since February, we have undertaken an enhanced audit of our accounts and procedures to be able to gain clarity on what has occurred in 2023 and why. This identified several misstatements that require adjustments for the end of year balance. 

A significant area of our losses relates to the funding of our performance operations. For this we apologise and recognise swift and impactful change was and is needed.

The main reasons for these losses are grouped as follows: 

1.    Reconciliation of grants relating to GB Climbing and poor controls of budgets resulting in additional cost to the BMC. 

2.    Inaccurate accounting of VAT resulting in additional cost to the BMC. 

3.    Profit reconciliation across several areas including bad debtors and fees for services owed.  

4.    Loss of insurance income in July 2023. 

5.    The costs of restructuring, redundancies, and staff departures due to not tracking ambitious growth targets.

This year, the BMC will be focused on resetting and bringing stability to the organisation. The immediate actions we have taken are focussed on ensuring our funded activity operates within its means plus additional areas of cost saving:

1.    Restructuring GB Climbing department to bring costs in line with grants received, resulting in a reduction of 4.6 full time equivalent (FTE) roles since the end of 2023. 

2.    The ending of the contract for ‘Unit E’ Performance Centre. 

3.    Reducing Competition, Training and Education and Marketing budgets. 

4.    Restructure of the BMC online shop from 1 August, with reduction of 1 FTE role. 

5.    Reducing office overheads.  

6.    Pausing recruitment for non-essential positions.

To move towards better processes and more transparency in our financial systems we are working with an interim financial leader. We will be separating out the financial reporting of grant income from membership and commercial income as part of our accounting systems. This will be reflected in a clearer and more transparent structure between our grant funded and membership funded activities.  

The Board of Directors have recognised the need for urgent change in our risk and audit oversight and have approved structural changes to the operations of our funded areas.

I have updated and consulted with Members Council, your elected representative group, on the status and looked for support and direction from them.

We will be publishing the detailed audit as part of the annual report for the AGM, and I would welcome your questions and engagement in the upcoming events listed below.

Having identified and addressed the issues that have led to this position, I am optimistic that, while the starting point is further back than I had hoped, we can commence building reserves back, remaining absolutely focussed on representing the interests of our community. 

I want to thank each and every one of you for your support, which currently is more important than ever. My commitment to you is to take care of this wonderful organisation to the best of my ability. 

Warmest regards,
Paul Ratcliffe

Crikey that’s a lot more than anyone could have imagined from excessive taxi journeys at Innsbruck. Good God. 
Simons plan is looking a lot more realistic now, and the varying levels of support from parents of competitors and other stakeholder groups seem well founded. What a mess!

Well Slarti B: exactly. Wow!! At last it starts coming out.

Just read it

My first impression was that Paul's tone is excellent. The revelations, however, are startling - just as bad as the worst fears expressed on the various threads on this forum. I'm booked in to attend next week's open members forum.

Martin

As an accountant I find these revelations extraordinary.  How can this situation have developed this badly?

it's a good statement. It's also standard pracitce for an incoming chief to kitchen sink it. Hopefully this is the low point and it is all uphill from here. good luck the BMC.  

I hope those job losses are those directly responsible for the over spend, poor accounting and supervision, not those doing the day to day traditional 'bmc' work. 

Whilst the parents and athletes who wrote the LONC weren’t aware (at least as far as I know) of the financial  issues, that letter was the last desperate attempt to raise awareness of a load of issues that had frankly been ignored, while GBC leadership ran riot and ignored what the majority of the community was massively concerned about. All those complaints should have alerted the board to something going seriously wrong. If they’d taken action sooner, they might have got on top of the financial issues sooner too. There’s something badly wrong that the board practically ignored the community and - it seems - missed all this financial mess. Is it an issue with how the board works? Or just individual failures? (In which case we should see resignations). Thank goodness there’s a decent CEO in place now, but the BMC needs to look at its whole leadership structure, because it needs to be robust enough to avoid this saga ever happening again, no matter who is in charge.

When I got to this sentence... "The Board of Directors have recognised the need for urgent change in our..." I was expecting it to end ...leadership, governance and oversight and have therefore resigned with immediate effect. 

You would think that at least some of the board would have to resign, given that they have overseen all this and not acted despite multiple warnings from multiple sources. 

Hardly surprising, it’s been obvious for several years that the BMC Board is financially incompetent and not fit to run a corner shop.  If they had any decency about them they would resign en-masse immediately.  

Paul Ratcliffe is, and should be, blameless in this. He has walked into a situation not of his making and is reporting what he has found.

And, yes, there are questions to be answered about the way this has come about.

Andy

I would agree. The CEO seems to want to sort things out, but the board through 2023 really should take some responsibility and resign. 625k is a very significant loss, and given their reserves, absolutely unrepeatable in 2024

Holy shit.

I'm now even more pissed off at those responsible for blocking the debate.

And agree, nobody who played a significant accountable part in letting this happen should remain in post. That's not just a cock up, that's a consistent and sustained demonstration of incompetence or ignorance. Would struggle to take them seriously going forward.

Credit to Paul for the honest update. People can’t fix what isn’t understood, and clearing the decks with a brutally honest assessment is the starting point for getting the community to help rebuild. The BMC is extremely lucky to have found him IMO.

My message to the board is always consider that a series of complaints about roughly the same areas typically point to an underlying problem that might be bigger than even the complainers understand. Don’t ever let parents and athletes, or indeed any other BMC stakeholder in another area of interest, be dismissed as whingers, or put back in their box. Indeed root out anyone in the organisation who thinks putting people back in their box is a good idea. That sort of attitude destroys good organisations.

Exactly. As a percent of their budget this kind of goes beyond oops I forgot that invoice was coming, it's massive multiple over spends with no over sight. 

It's nice to get some openness from the BMC, so thanks to whoever (presumably the new CEO) made sure this email was sent out.

It does sound like a pretty bad state of affairs though!

What complete garbage from the President and Chair.  They should both resign immediatly.

A thought - the letter does not breakdown the £625k loss and only 1 out of the 5 points mentioned is explicitly GBC related. From my vague following of numbers mentioned in previous threads on GBC losses - does that suggest that more than 50% of the losses declared today have a non-GBC origin? (I don't know). Or will clarity there have to wait for the AGM for the detailed audit? 

Likewise, I appreciate the candid tone and good luck to the BMC and (what remains of) GBC sorting it out. GBC has & had some great people working hard to do their best by the athletes and their successes seem to see much less attention than their difficulties. We aren't swimming in high quality, internationally experienced climbing coaches in the UK so the loss of 4.6 FTE only 18 months after hiring several new people is a massive shame.

Especially given that they made a loss in 2022 and said they were adjusting accordingly. And then made A Bigger Loss.

It's all been a massive laugh at The BMC for years hasn't it? I suspect a full audit of activities would make grim reading.

To those appreciating the candid/honest tone bear in mind that there was nowhere left to hide when the accounts are due out.

It’s a disgrace. The Chair and President are hiding behind collective responsibility but the were the key leaders that served out platitudes and had no control over the finances (members money) for which they were responsible and custodians. They should have resigned but typically haven’t. These are the people who incompetently got us into the mess and certainly don’t have the capability to get us out of it.  

The CEO lacks business experience and the response so far is not proportionate to the scale of the financial crisis. Remember the loss is the closing position for the year end. What has been the level of cash burn in the near 6 months since? (as no corrective actions have been taken).

I presume they are now running on cash flow (fumes) primarily in the form of forward member subscriptions. 

 

I was BMC Treasurer for 5 years 2008 to 2013.  Each of those years we made a modest surplus without having to increase subscriptions and set conservative budgets.  I am disgusted by the antics of the current BMC Board, particularly the President and Chairman, in virtually destroying over a couple of years reserves that have taken decades to acquire.

I imagine the “reducing office overheads” is a euphemism for having to sell the office. 
 

And be replaced by who? I presume they are both voluntary positions. I don't think I'll be calling for their resignations unless I am prepared to step up and take on the role.

Martin

Opportunities to reduce office overheads are very limited.  The only effective way to cut costs is to cut staff.

The BMC needs to immediately stop spending any money on anything that isn't access, conservation or crag maintenance related. Back to basics please. Turning around a 600k loss to at least break even and protecting the small reserves left is an impossible task without immediate significant change.

Pretty disgraceful that staff are going and the people responsible for the finances leading to their redundancy are staying.

Stop selling specialist insurance? Cut all grassroots competitions for kids? Remove funding for festivals/events? No training sessions or lectures? No safety research? No support for clubs? I could go on....

Be careful what you wish for.

I live about five minutes walk from their very nice Burton Road office in Didsbury. It pains me to say it but, given the size of the deficit, they should perhaps be considering selling it*.

They have income from membership fees and from grants. I wonder whether the latter can still be relied on in the future, given the apparent gross failures over the last few years.

As for membership fees - things could get ugly quite quickly unless they somehow manage to restore confidence.

* Assuming they actually own it, of course...

I tend to agree with the sentiment, but lets not forget equipment testing, liability insurance for clubs etc.... 

I hear John Cleese: "Apart from access, conservation, crag maintenance... what has the BMC ever done for us?"

Martin

The office is owned and is possibly worth £1m+?  However notwithstanding that the declared reserves are only around £200k, due to the conservative policy of reporting advance subs there is probably £1m+ in the bank so perhaps no need to sell the furniture yet. 

Yes cut all of that and reintroduce whenever competent staff are in place and it is affordable. None of it is crucial to the BMCs existence

Sale and leaseback of the premises, or simply sale and move somewhere less salubrious must be considered, alongside mortgaging to get ready access to cash flow if necessary. None of which are particularly desirable courses of action, but at least there's a source of significant working capital while the organisation is rebuilt. 

Just the roof, they are now 'wild officing'.

The past CEO and CFO have already gone, together with the head of GBC. And the stress caused by having to deal with all this has meant the poor bugger who actually did the transactional finance work is off sick. Some people may lose their jobs through no fault of their own, but at least one perosn there has also lost his good health, trying to hold the show together.

Thats how bad it is.

Well there won't be any of anything soon unless something radical happens. Of you list probably the first (should be profitable) and last (central activity) seem essential.

This is looking pretty existential from where I'm sitting. It sounds like another few months of this chaos and we'll be totally broke and with no members. I think you really need to look at priorities.  

None of the stuff on that list is a priority. All nice stuff, but the entire future of the BMC is at risk here. It was obvious 5 years ago that pursuing a growth strategy was pointless and risky.

And for what? To massage the egos of some people who enjoy sitting around in meetings? To help the directors' CVs? It's the BMC for Christ's sake. It's there to fight the corner of all the climbers and walkers in the country. To help us all enjoy doing the things we love - not just to be made into another crap company with zero vision or integrity. 

How’s Offwidth going to explain this away and total vindication for UKB Shark and his BMC thwarted investigation campaign. 

Although supposedly set up in the manner of a private company this in reality has never been the case, lip service being paid to sound financial decisions. There cannot have been effective financial governance or supervision, such as regular and ongoing cash flow analysis, expenses scrutiny, spending sign off limits, adherence to departmental budgets etc. It goes on and on and now it’s painfully obvious it’s a dysfunctional set up, with it would seem initially an attempted cover up.

It appears it’s been a kind of cash cow for seemingly a minority to exploit and for years there’s been an element of “jobs for the boys” whilst most of the actual “heavy lifting” is undertaken by dedicated and maybe exploited volunteers.

In any private company heads would roll for this, not allowable resignations and walk away scott free, with an undiminished pension? .

I really hope they at least got the bike back

Don't feel you have to answer this, I know it's shitty pick on you directly and will ask through more appropriate channels if you don't feel comfortable addressing it, but since you're here ...

How long ago did MC know about this?

What a complete clusterf*ck of senior management. Seems they can’t manage their way out of a paper bag.

They won’t be able to “reintroduce” because the moment they drop competition climbing, they’ll lose NGB status and will have absolutely zero chance of claiming it back. If they drop the competition side, so be it, but it’s forever.

How can an organisation be so badly run. Utter incompetence from all involved with the finances. Its going to effect the youth coming forward in the comps for years to come. 

Utterly embarrassing and pathetic. If I wasn't a member through reciprocal  rights, id cancel my membership. 

That's a pretty staggering post from someone a couple of weeks ago claiming to be open to change (and presumably in a position to know the finances then).

One thing everyone needs to understand is that athletes and their parents have NEVER exploited the BMC. They pay for practically everything (yes, including car hire!) and actually demand nothing from the BMC other than the right to go to competitions which the BMC controls because only it can issue IFSC licenses (and it hasn’t been using them all now for several years). If push comes to shove, parents and athletes will find a way even if there was just one staff member in GBC. Athletes are blameless, and in fact without their LoNC - which looks like it might have accelerated finding out what the hell is going on - we might be even later finding this stuff out. The athletes have paid a higher price than most for the debacle that has been GBC for the past few years. 

Is that bad? Seems like a win-win. They could just stop doing it and focus on what we all want from the BMC. Just drop it completely and let someone else have a go. You get Simon's wish without the BMC incurring all the costs that the naysayers pointed at. Sounds like it would be hard to do a worse job of it...

Draft accounts were forwarded to Members' Council on 13th May after the Board had seen them on 11th. There was an MC meeting where they were discussed on 14th.

The communication released by Paul Ratcliffe has resulted from those discussions and his own investigations.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/ukc/bmc_announce_losses_of_625000_for_202...

in reply to Martin Hore & Others:

Given not one member applied for the Nominated Director Role and only 1 person applied for President, for this AGM, there is clearly an issue with who might fill the Board volunteer roles.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/ukc/bmc_announce_losses_of_625000_for_202...

In reply to Alex:

The office costs circa £190k per year to operate and is on average at 25% occupancy.  There is probably >£80k costs of ‘repairs and maintenance’ due in the next couple of years.   Selling and moving is not without cost but a quick Google search would show that there are cheaper ways of maintaining suitable office space, with dedicated meeting rooms etc.  There are no decisions yet, but people must look at options.

The value of the property is somewhere > £600k I understand (depends on the estate agent).  If a sale happened one thing that would need to be ensured is how members could be confident that the money was not used on operating costs.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/ukc/bmc_announce_losses_of_625000_for_202...

In reply to Cheese Monkey:

As others have commented what is not important to some, is very important to others. 

Stop all BMC funding of competitions – How many of the circa 4000 members who are competitors or parents would leave.

Stop insurance – What would Clubs do to protect their Club Committees, they would need to find another insurance provision, would they stay with the BMC and if not who is paying for the staff for access etc.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/ukc/bmc_announce_losses_of_625000_for_202...

in reply to Alphacker:

I get it that people are upset that significant funds have gone on an activity which has not even made the recipients happy, most of this without Board approval.  I totally agree this is not something that should be put on the athletes or the parents.

Some key underlying questions I will try and cover are:

Are the losses continuing – Probably not - We can’t yet say definitively as the finance staff have focused on getting the accounts audit completed (a legal requirement) and are now focusing on closing out the first 5 months of 2024, but Paul (CEO) and Sajid (British Judo Finance and Operations Director who is working for us part time) have been monitoring this and do not believe that we are experiencing any significant variations from the planned cost neutral 2024 budget.  The monthly close should be done early June which will confirm (or not) their belief.

Will the reserves position be worse at the end of 2024 – No, Paul has presented a slightly positive budget and the Board and Paul are clear that a cost neutral budget is the minimum for 2024.  Given Paul is being fully transparent with the Board, has a clear plan for 2024 and beyond and has a clear direction from the Board which he agrees with, I think the chances of anything slipping under anyone’s radar is small.

How do we rebuild the reserves – In reality this will take a few years.  Members Council and the Board will need guidance from members on whether they want to reduce (or not increase) services to increase the reserves quicker, or they want to invest in staff and activities and hence build the reserves more slowly.  Each decision will have implications either to membership retention or membership growth and hence to the income which will mean everyone will need to go round that buoy multiple times.

Sorry to stagger you but I'm open to change.  The above suggestion is for 'regression' rather than progress. We need to recognise all the things the BMC does beyond access...access..access...

And I can honestly say that the earliest I, and the Board, was aware of the audit outcome was just one week ago. Before that we had been assuming a 'better' (though not brill) outcome.

As one of the people largely responsible for this financial disastear are you going to resign?

This comment is a bit rich, given the way the Members Council and Board have behaved over Simon Lee’s motions.

Simon had very real concerns regarding the finances at the BMC, yet you have been absolutely determined to prevent his ideas being debated by your members – and remember this is a membership organisation, supposedly – at your pitiful excuse for an AGM (pitiful because it isn't in person, allowing your members the chance to question, directly, those responsible for this debacle) – the convening of which was in contravention of provisions in your articles.

The reality is that the out turn financial positions is far, far worse than Simon feared, and certainly than apologists like Offwidth (who desperately tried to prevent members having their say on Simon’s proposals) were indicating just a few days ago.

The sham scene at the recent Peak Area Meeting, where the 2 Members Council reps played the meeting along knowing full well that they had already voted to quash Simon’s motions and stifle legitimate debate, was disgraceful.

And all the time, Simon, who was castigated by the BMC, was absolutely right in the underlying concerns he tried to flag up.

Only it is so much worse.

What an absolute unmitigated disaster….

Quicker than rebuilding trust probably!

What proportion of costs go towards competitions/GB climbing?

Thanks. Just wanted to confirm out loud that MC didn't know this before deciding on Simon's motions. Appreciated.

What was agreed by the Board was £180,000 pa on top of UKS & SE funding.  Which is circa 0.075% of the subs income of £2.4M (2022).  

Can’t believe you are trotting this crap out even now when your rebuttal letter states the additional spend of £200k of in-kind support /shared costs not to mention £150k of spend on the basis of grant income that wasn’t forthcoming. 

Um, it's actually 7.5% (I.e. 100x your figure). No wonder the finances are stuffed!

This is the BMC's problem. When members raise an issue they care passionately about, they are told, 'No you are wrong, we always know best you idiots. Keep quiet. Climb Britain is a marvellous idea and other such pearls of joy.

The BMC has been acting in a rather undemocratic and closed way hoping that no one will notice the series of mistakes and truly shocking decisions made in the corridors of West Didsbury. You call the last few years progress Andy?

So when a member and someone who just wants to get to the facts, like Simon Lee prepares to put his head above the parapet and speak out, his is treated like a pariah for just wanting clarity and transparity.

The members pay they money, they are allowed opinions and if they feel that Access is more important than anything else (which includes myself), who do those in the office think they are to tell them to keep quiet? Please don't get rid of the Access officer's, that would be the end.

I'm glad Simon didn't keep quiet, I'm glad some of us didn't take on face value the spin and subterfuge and I think it's now time for the BMC to close their mouths for a bit and really listen to their members, before it's too late.

Brilliantly put. 

How about an actual vote by the members, on a range of options, on how we go forward? 

It would not surprise me if climbing clubs start looking to the MCoS for affiliation rather than the BMC. Those with huts in Scotland may be able to swing it?

+1

Just re-read Paul Ratcliffe's letter. He states :

"We will be publishing the detailed audit as part of the annual report for the AGM, and I would welcome your questions and engagement in the upcoming events listed below."

May I strongly request that this detailed audit is published to members prior to the Members' Forum next Tuesday, 21 May, with time for those of us attending to digest it fully before that meeting. No more delay please. The BMC belongs to all of us, and we all need to be involved in the solution - starting now.

I presume this will be read by Board and/or Members' Council members. Please sort it.

Martin

Even now you are trying to over sell the benefits of GB Climbing! GB Climbing is for the elite climbing team and aspirants, that’s roughly about 200 in any given year. 
I obviously don’t know the answer to your question but it would be interesting to hear how many GB team members are still BMC members 3-5 years after they last competed for or attempted to compete for one of the teams. 

I wonder how they feel about the advance club member income they’ve paid this year that is probably keeping the BMC going and to what extent they will continue to be assured by Andy Syme that the BMC’s finances are “basically fine”

Yes 180000÷2400000 = 0.075 = 7.5% 

That they are trying to catch a falling knife?

I think the members have been wanting this for quite a while, so yes Franco I agree, it's a good idea.

Like yourself, I climb outdoors on amazing rock in beautiful places and will always care about the conservation and access issues around these above all the other things the BMC do. The guidebooks weren't half bad either, but then they got ditched.

I think the BMC got lost up it's own firmament with competition climbing and are still desperately trying to plead it's case as a fundamental aspect of the BMC's membership's priorities... when dare I say, it's quite clearly not.

I think that was RedGeranium’s point…

Well I've never treated Simon Lee as a 'pariah'. I hope the miserable old bugger will back me up on that.

And OK. I can take a hint; I'll close my mouth and not respond any further.

That would be disappointing. You've been the one with the straight answers through all this. We haven't liked all of them but they've at least not been informationless bullshit like the rest.

As a “halo” activity with wider public appeal and visibility it’s easy to see how competition climbing could pave the path to a higher profile and more pay for some people; the urge to make it succeed - over other areas - to generate some glory to bask in is a factor to consider.  The brand is never going to make headline news over access negotiations.  Competitive stuff never fit with the ethos of the BMC in my opinion and is so wildly different in nature and in consequence that I fail to see how a management team can fairly serve both that and the wider activities.  The solution seems clear to me, perhaps it’s time someone ran a UKC poll…

(Lapsed BMC member and not rejoining so long as competitive climbing remains in the remit.)

Well as I'm the only other responder I'll get off for a climb and stop trying to answer questions to the best of my ability. Night

My stance on this is identical to yours.

Andy - I 100% agree. You are also someone who's been prepared to put in voluntary effort on the committee side - not a lot of folk are. What we need now is for everyone prepared to put in similar effort to listen, to engage, to inform where you have information, and to be part of the solution. I don't think this will be easy to solve, but we badly need a properly functioning BMC to emerge from this mess.

Martin

The people who volunteer for the BMC in some of these areas are equally valid members as you and the rest of the members posting on this thread are. Access is important, liability insurance is the main reason clubs affiliate, tech committee works to improve equipment safety etc etc. Different members will care about different bits of the BMC, I happen to care enough about equipment safety to chair Technical Committee.

Before you go pushing for the BMC to abandon its involvement in certain areas (some of which cost the BMC a trivial amount each year) possibly consider the cost it would incur for the BMC if the people who volunteer for it were to ask for even half of what they are paid for the same expertise in their day jobs. People volunteer because they want to contribute to the community, they do so on the basis of good will, but it feels like a shitty kick in the teeth to see that members see so little value in the contribution volunteers like me make to the organisation. 

I remember raving at a meeting back when they took primacy away from Members Council. No one else seemed to care that you fundamentally change an organisation if you take the power away from the members' representatives. Apparently it had to be done to make us attractive to the people dishing out the cash... That's gone really well... I think a combination of this combined with a lot of people in these postions who didn't actually stand up for the membership is what's knackered us. 

You have a small group of people now running the show who have no background in hill walking or climbing (not necessarily bad per se),  but the little bit of input from the members council representatives seems to be wholy ineffective at getting members' interests prioritised by the board. For some reason they all seem to fall for the commercial line hook line and sinker and we then have this disaster as a consequence. Not understanding percentages is probably quite a problem too...

I'm impressed by anyone giving up their time for the BMC, but if you're going to do one of these jobs, you really need to represent members' interests. (And that means getting pretty aggy if needs be)

The problem we now have is that the bar is so high for members to change anything, as the MC route is so ineffective (and its only advisory anyway).

Those involved in competitions seem like they're pretty sick of the BMC. Those interested in mostly outdoor climbing see their subs being poured into comps and see the BMC as increasingly pointless. But it's incredibly difficult for either camp to change things. Meanwhile the people at the top don't actually care about any of the issues that either camp care about (why would they? They're not climbers or walkers really and are just looking for a few years experience in another 'sector'). The whole thing is minging. 

Comps are obviously going to be a massive cost if we do them properly (which is what the athletes deserve). So we either need to trim everything back apart from access, comps and liability insurance (and whatever else we can't get out of), or split the comp climbing from the BMC, or split the access & liability.  Continuing as we are but just flogging assets is just going to stick the knife in further.

I'm not sure that this trivial amount includes comp climbing, which some members feel strongly about, I suppose both ways. It clearly divides opinion and they are all valid as paying members.

I think this is why it's important to get a view of what the members think is important to them.

It's not about silence or censorship in anyway, it's about listening and taking on board opinions and validating concerns that members have and not dismissing them.

I agree the volunteers are the life blood of the BMC - I was one for a long time. They do a fabulous job giving up their time and really care about what they do.

So do the staff of the BMC, they all care about the things that we do, which is why it's such a shame it has all gone so horribly wrong.

I really do feel for them and I hope that this mess can provide positive changes, whatever they look like for the future.

Clearly competition climbing doesn't cost the BMC a trivial amount. I was talking about volunteers on specialist committees who cost the BMC very little money. How to resolve the issues around the funding of competition climbing need to be resolved, however people are merrily pushing for the BMC to abandon its involvement in work done by specialist committees which will present an absolutely trivial saving compared to the massive loss in its ability to contribute value to the climbing community which that abandonment would represent.

Ive no doubt about your (or anyone's) personal commitment and donation of time etc. But ... losing three times the remaining reserves in one year has to bring in to question all activities. The starting point can't be "everything is important". If I was being critical on the Technical Committee I'd ask what it does that is unique internationally? Shouldn't the onus be on manufacturers to produce safe equipment and prove it (and shoulder the costs)? As far as I can see the last publication was 5 years ago (https://www.thebmc.co.uk/technical-reports). Given all this, is it really essential? And repeat for mother activities.

Just had a quick gander of the 2022 accounts; turnover (i.e. income) was £4.1m - the 2022 accounts only show the income and expenditure (Administrative expenses) in the Statement of Income and Retained Earnings - there are no notes with a breakdown on these 2 most important items.

Assuming the turnover is similar to 2022, £625k loss is over 15%; that scale of overspend is pretty staggering. Also, if the layout and content of the 2023 accounts is similar to 2022, then there will be NO BREAKDOWN OF THE INCOME OR EXPENDITURE IN THE ACCOUNTS.

I believe this is a consequence of the following "In preparing this report, the directors have taken advantage of the small companies exemptions provided by section 415A of the Companies Act 2006" (up to date accountants can correct me on this)

It's too late for this year but if there is no breakdown of I&E then I believe there should be a motion at a general meeting requiring the directors to include notes in the accounts that give a detailed breakdown (to at least departmental level) of the I&E.

Similarly, I think the budget should be publicly available on the BMC website (it may already be there but I couldn't see where).

And how much did all the other things cost? Enough to come close to crippling the entire organisation. 100% agree the BMC should regress back to when they were not pissing 600k up the wall.

Also, if you look at the 2022 accounts, you will see that the audit does not have to say anything about whether a company is well run and well (financially) controlled unless going concern is no longer considered viable. Merely that it complies with legal standards etc and keeps appropriate records, mitigates against non-compliance and fraud etc (but not loss).

I look forward to the auditors report within the 2023 accounts.

I would bloody love it if all manufacturers could be trusted to do that (the major ones can thankfully).

We don't publish reports via that mechanism any more, a lot of content is currently queued up waiting to be published.

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/guidance-on-gear-recalls-and-safety-warnings This was released last year.

There are currently multiple articles about clothing selection and maintenance waiting to be released (office staff currently have very limited time unfortunately). There's also one about stove safety in encosed spaces.

I'm working on a piece about equipment maintenance which has admittedly been a bit slow to progress but is also a big piece of work.

We did a shed load of work on the climbers' and installers' guides to bolts (I don't remember working on the other guides so they probably predate 2018):

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/bmc-technical-advice-booklets?s=1

There is a belay device booklet which is most of the way to completion as well as various other bits spread across the committee (I'm underselling the committee's work here as I'm knackered).

Amazingly one of the much-vaunted volunteer specialist committees is the Finance and Audit Committee (FAC) uniquely reporting direct to the Board and charged with overseeing the BMC’s finances.  Didn’t they do well.

The last set of accounts I signed-off for 2012 included a detailed income and expenditure statement together with an allocation to the specialist programmes on the last page.  In recent years all this detail has disappeared.  I wonder why?

It should be there this year. I exchanged messages with the CEO on this subject and sent him an example of another NGB’s breakdown on income and expenditure (British Skateboarding) and he said he was open to including something similar in this years accounts. Offwidth / Steve Clark also confirmed on UKB that this was happening:

https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,34004.msg693103.html#msg6931...

“Perceived response in the face of the Board,  Senior Management team and Council all saying proper detail will be provided for 2023 and 2024 as soon as the audit is signed off”

What the BMC doesn’t need right now is a new overhead called rent. Perhaps with a reduced headcount that space in burton rd could be let to partner organisations. 

I’ll be interested to see whether auditors and Directors have felt it is realistic to audit the 2023 accounts on a going concern basis…

Me too. Trading on forward member subscriptions is rather like holiday companies using customers money paid in advance before they’ve had their holiday 

Sunday evening, 7.38pm

We need to separate what comp climbing has cost from what it should cost. There’s a danger that people hold opinions on whether or not it belongs in the BMC based on the back of apparently appalling mismanagement at GBC and a scarcely believable lack of oversight from the board. A rational analysis should start with what a *well-run* comp department would or wouldn’t do for the BMC. Given that athletes and parents pay for practically everything and the only fundamental demand from them is the issuance of international licenses, there’s no fundamental need for GBC to be a financial drain. It is where it is because of choices, and the board letting it get out of hand. I didn’t know anything about the finances but I saw how the board IMO failed the comp community when GBC’s strategy was totally alienating them, so it doesn’t surprise me at all if the board were also ignorant or inactive wrt to financial issues. When so many people tell you that things stink, listen. 

I think the CEO has got this right. I hope the board step up and help him make the essential changes to both practice and attitude. GBC, if it’s to continue in some form or other needs to remember it serves a community first.

Presumably this was before the BMC became a charitable "company" - after which they could take advantage of small companies exemptions, but these basically allow minimal reporting and are intended for privately/family owned enterprises. They're simply not appropriate for a membership organisation.

Hmm, much better if the detail's in the accounts so that it's subject to the audit.

I'm not disputing that competition climbing has the potential to play a positive role within the BMC, I was responding to a specific point noting that the specialist committes as they are run already cost the BMC very little for the services which they provide to BMC members. GB Climbing would need significant work to be done if it were to achieve that (and I'm not convinced that it would be appropriate for GB Climbing to have a budget the size of tech committee's, or less, as its activities are a lot more involved/ operationally complex than those of Tech Committee).

The company structure hasn’t changed which is that of a company limited by guarantee. It has subsidiaries that are incorporated as charities but is not incorporated as a charity itself (though there is a strong case that it should be IMO).

Sorry Andy but you stated ‘which is circa 0.075% of subs income’.

In defence of some members of the FAC, they have been flagging concerns for several years, including some choice words about the viability of the 2023 budget when it was set. The FAC didn't see this latest audit report until Thursday last week, and then only after one member made a proposal to disband the FAC if they continued to be bypassed. The MC reps on the FAC were two of the six signatories to a paper that went to MC just over a year ago, flagging many concerns, roughly half of which were financial.

In defence of Offwidth, he was the Councillor that proposed the need for such a paper, and was also one of the signatories. He may defend the BMC on UKC, but within Council he's been a critical and sensible voice and has represented members strongly.

As others have pointed out, as Councillors we are just advisory, and the clear and often robust advice and requests some of us have made have been frequently ignored, rejected and dismissed, and as individuals a number of us have been vilified as disruptive troublemakers, faced formal processes, threatened with expulsion, and labelled as upsetting the peace and harmony that MC would have if only we would just be more trusting and shut up.

We have worked hard to represent BMC members and the wider mountaineering public (including competition climbers, who are climbers after all), and drawn on extensive support from other engaged members. Collectively though we have evidently failed to prevent the loss of c. £1m of members money with little to show for it in the space of two years, which took decades of prudence to build up.

For that, I and a number of other Councillors offer our sincere apologies.

Reserves can be restored using the opposite approach to what has happened...

Those in favour of GB climbing could be swindled out of contributions, which instead are funnelled to access, conservation and clubs - and then presented with a GB climbing shambles.

Still very tempted to join MCofS instead of BMC.

If true this to me is even more evidence that the board must go

So it’s safe for now and has opportunity to rebuild despite all the doom mongers.

Is anyone going to get sacked or in some way punished for this, because it sounds an awful lot of money to me, and that someone knew this was going on.

I would not trust a person as inept as the BMC to belay me.

I don't think anyone has said the quiet part out loud yet; if I'm picking up what those in the know are putting down, the main protagonists resigned gracefully last year having successfully stalled the publication of any of this until long after they'd flounced.

Contrition at last and makes it even clearer where the fault for for this mess lies - with an incompetant Board, President and Chair.  They should all resign immediatly.

There is a poster called David Lancely, who has kept popping up on BMC threads, over the past months and years, and saying something was up. I just assumed he was some anarchist nutter like me, but no, he was a previous BMC treasurer it says up thread, so he had a jolly good idea something was up, why did no one listen to him?

In these BMC threads, it really would be useful to have a cast list.

EDIT, ah here ^^^^^^^you are again, the voice of wisdom.

That's a very damming acquisition and should be the subject of an independent enquiry.

How is the BMC ever going to get good people to volunteer to be MC in such a toxic environment?

I would suggest that they knew of it before the last Peak Area meeting, hence the obfuscation and avoidance of answering a straight question!

Just to strike that one off the lengthy charge list I’m 100% sure that MC only knew on Sunday as Jonathan stated 

It is a shame that the GBClimbing department was so overstaffed with expensive people. They managed very little, all of the costs of competing falls on the athletes (parents) themselves. Most have their own coach, which they pay for. Having watched training sessions (where the BMC is never publicesied, apart from a tiny logo on tee shirts) most of the coaching has been by the athletes own coaches. I believe that run properly by people who want to be part of a successful BMC the competition climbing department could be a productive and profitable part of the organisation, introducing more indoor climbers to the true benefits of the BMC. GBClimbing should be forced to publicise the BMC at all their events. They should have to wear clothing where the BMC was the main logo. I doubted the effectiveness of GBClimbing when I first saw the staff list!

For the record. I signed the first of Simons proposals, but not the second!

John Cook

In reply to Longsufferingropeholder:

Then surely that needs to change?

My post wasn't targeted at any of your comments John!

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/is_it_time_for_the_bmc_to_split...



 

Just to say well done on sticking to your objective, and acting as a members’ champion. In a members’ organisation this is a critical activity and deserves recognition.

Fundamentally, the advisory role of the MB has been shown to be not fit for purpose (talking about governance structure not individuals here) since the change, and has allowed this situation to develop over the intervening time. The details (comp climbing etc etc) will get sorted out, and the deficit will get turned around, but the systemic change from an organisation with members back to a members’ organisation will have to be addressed for a robust future, at the same time avoiding throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Thanks Paul and all who have made similar comments here and on UKB. It has been harrowing.

I hope it goes without saying that because of the awful financial outturn I take absolutely no pleasure or relief in being vindicated. 

Another board member here. There's a lot of valid comments on here, but I'm afraid some are inaccurate. A few personal observations:

1. I'm glad that this thread has largely avoided mentioning individual members of staff, and I'd plead for that to continue. Give us directors stick if you like, that's reasonable, but leave the staff out of it. Not least because they aren't allowed to come on UKC or Facebook and defend themselves.
2. I'm intrigued by comments implying that the board hasn't done anything about any of this before now, as if we've just been sat on our hands. Many of the issues that have come to a head now have their roots going back multiple years (before many of the current board were even in position). I joined the board in late 2022, and ever since at least then, though probably before, the board has been concerned about, and acting on, many of these issues (and many others besides - people are perhaps unaware of the issues resolved, the bullets dodged, precisely because they were). Unfortunately, it often takes time to deal with things, they turn out to be more complex than a UKC thread suggests, and not everything can be communicated to members blow-by-blow. I think people also need to recognise that a company board is not supposed to be 'operational'. We're not supposed to interfere in day to day running of the business, so that also means things take time. I'm pleased to see people welcoming our new CEO's approach - who do you think recruited him? He didn't just fall from the sky, the chair and others did a lot of work to make that happen (I can't take any credit).
3. However, the full extent of the finance problems were only known to the board last Thursday,  when revealed by an especially in depth audit - the board having approved extra resources on finance to get to the bottom of it all. There are several issues revealed by the audit that no one in the organisation was aware of. It's easy for people to say "we've been warning about these things for years" but it's simply not true that several of these items have been warned about - because no-one knew about them. Together, such issues account for a significant proportion of the deficit that's just been announced.
4. That said, I think the capacity of an almost entirely volunteer board (only the CEO is an employee, and we were without a CEO for 3-4 months) has been seriously challenged over at least the last year or so. Some members of the board, including the chair and president, have put in extraordinary amounts of hard work, largely behind the scenes, and they will probably never get the credit for that. Even where people disagree with specific decisions, that deserves some respect from the membership. I know that personally, looking back, there are things I wish I'd done differently, and I admit I've learned an awful lot about being a director since joining. But it wasn't necessarily obvious at the time that we should have gone a different way (otherwise we would have done), and often we have been faced with difficult choices between two options, both of which were "bad".
5. The suggestion that those of us who volunteer to serve on the board do so because we're just in it for the glory and the chance to spend sunny days sat in meetings is frankly daft. I and my fellow board members would rather be out climbing and hillwalking. As Andy Syme has pointed out, We haven't been overwhelmed with people wanting to fill the various director posts coming up. That said, if anyone is wanting to join the board, I'd encourage them to do so, partly because even where I've disagreed with them, I've been genuinely impressed by the other folk around that board table (not least because sometimes they were right and I was wrong!) 
6. There is always going to be stuff that the board is dealing with that cannot be made public, and before I joined the board I didn't realise how much there was. (As a director that can be quite frustrating when you see people commenting on UKC and can't respond!) However, I feel the BMC can and should become significantly more transparent, especially, but not only, about finances, and we can't blame members for being poorly informed about things. I know Paul R, the new CEO, is also keen to be more transparent, and we've already seen concrete steps in that direction. As a member-owned organisation, our default should be transparency, unless there are good reasons otherwise. I'm always at my local area meeting, and always happy to talk to members at the crag or wall, on social media or on the phone and discuss (as far as possible) decisions we've made. 
7. Finally, my hope and expectation is that the BMC will get through this. To do that will require that members keep paying their dues and buying their insurance. That's a big ask when, as an organisation, we've let the members down. I would just ask that members a) remember all the good stuff the BMC has done, and continues to do, a lot of it with little fanfare. My specific interest is access and conservation, and it's worth remembering that the BMC has increased the resources going into that in recent years and a lot of good work goes on there. But as Spenser points out, the BMC does great stuff in lots of areas - I'm pleased to see recognition in some of the comments for the great work done by GB climbing coaches and there are unsung heroes putting in huge shifts on membership, insurance, finance, and the rest. b) give the new CEO a fair chance.

So, come to the open forum, some to the AGM, come to your area meetings. Give us directors a serious grilling. But stick with the organisation. Because, while you may be able to get your insurance from elsewhere, nobody's going to step in and do half the stuff the BMC currently does.

Just to offer a few words of support with regards to this, if anyone sees any posts to that effect - please report them.

Thanks Rob, that's appreciated.

If the BMC is relying on this income to fix the situation, they need to find another underwriter right away. I'm not going to be buying insurance for £3700 when other providers are offering the same cover for £550 (and it's now too late for this year anyway, already gone elsewhere).

Fek me!

That's a gobsmacking Open Letter and this is a truly frightening discussion to read.

On an international front, I sit on the BMC Technical Committee and represent the UK (on behalf of the BMC and BSI) at CEN on TC 136 WG 5 (who write the EN standards for climbing and mountaineering equipment) and also on the UIAA Safety Commission as the UK delegate (who write the UIAA standards found here https://www.theuiaa.org/safety/safety-standards/)

This is not "unique" internationally but it ensures that standards are written or revised with input from the UK (which is not just from me but I get feedback from the wider community via the Technical Committee which includes volunteers from multiple sectors including mountain rescue, PyB, MIA, Mountaineering Scotland).

As ever, the BMC is not great at crowing about what all it's committees do, but imho, the work of the technical committee is very both worthwhile and excellent value.

I would think a more suitable space for the BMC could be found. I believe Burton Road has ongoing cost too. Whatever state the building is in it would fetch a fair sum because of location, location location.

One reason I've never joined is I have been there, and thought it too extravagant for an organisation whose only exclusive responsibility is rock climbing in England and and Wales, and it's indoor offshoot. That should be manageable without all this fuss, but I suspect British mountaineering history has saddled the organisation with ongoing disillusions.

Sounds good.  As above, I was being deliberately critical as a contrast to the "it's all essential we can't stop anything" posts.

If it no longer being used, I would suggest taking down the web-page I linked that indicates the committee has produced nothing since 2019.  It states that is the latest output and comes up on google.

Another amazingly defensive response from a board member. The board's job is to oversee the organisation. Saying, 'we didn't know about these problems' isn't good enough - you should have done. When will anyone take responsibility for these catastrophic failures and resign? 

The whole website is being rebuilt at the moment (something which should have happened years ago and is now occurring when finances are under significant pressure) and an exercise is being undertaken by another tech committee member to identify which articles and documents we want to transfer over/ update. The web page you refer to will be gone soon as a result of this migration.

Do the board and council receive regular financial reports throughout the year?

If they don't then I would suggest that this needs changing.

If they do then how did this come as a surprise, was someone being dishonest in the reports that they were giving?

BMC - now stands for Bring Money, Cheers!

Given that there are currently vacancies on the board, who are you going to replace them with. Are you volunteering?

No problem, just thought I’d take the opportunity to “crow” about one of the good things that the BMC do apart from access. A narrow beam off light in the darkness etc……. I am attempting to raise awareness of what’s the BMC do with standards, you may be hearing more from me over then next 12 months (I apologise in advance….)!

I think Spenser has covered this.

I was about to say much the same about Simon's efforts. I'm biased as he's a mate and climbing partner but his tenacity has been admirable. Of course all we know he loves a siege so perhaps shouldn't have been surprised! A number of people owe him fulsome apologies, I am quietly confident he won't get them. 

That said it would be a one off and they would have to stop hemorrhaging cash as well. It's a shame, without this mess, disposal of that asset could have benefited the members.

Board and Council should get regular updates. They have been lacking of late, partly because of the effort that has been put into getting the financial systems operating properly; transition to a new accounting package has also caused some problems. The Board has recently agreed that Council should get the same quarterly reports that they do after checking by the Finance and Audit Committee.

We've outlined in the past some of the he hits the BMC has taken. An over-optimistic membership growth (that's just a personal opinion and as I wasn't involved I don't know how it was arrived at) was 'baked in' to the budget as revenue. It took a while to realise that money wasn't actually coming in and budgets to be adjusted. Nowt to do with comps. We lost insurance sales for a chunk of the summer, possibly £40k income. Nowt to do with comps. And grant funding was miscalculated leading to a flawed budget. Nowt to do with the competition climbers or the staff who are supporting them. They were the hits we knew about. 

Sorry you read it like that. I don't think I said "we didn't know about these problems" - indeed, the opposite - see #2. We've known about many of them, and been trying to sort them out. I did say that the board didn't know about some of the finance problems until last week. Because that's the truth, and I thought transparency was a good thing. I agree with you that we *should* have done.

As for taking responsibility - we do. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear from my post. We're the board, the buck stops with us. 

As for resigning, personally, that looks pretty tempting. I guess the question is, does resigning from an unpaid role 1 year into a 3yr term because the shit has hit the fan = "taking responsibility"? Maybe if I was giving up a juicy salary, yes. Or does taking responsibility mean continuing to work to sort things out? Maybe we differ on that. Either way, the BMC is a democracy, so if the members want to sack and replace me, they can. I'd be able to get out climbing more.

Cheers

Neal

Just because you can take advantage of small company exemptions, doesnt mean you should.......and even if you do take advantage for companies house purposes, doesnt mean you cant or should restrict reporting internally.

By the way. That was humour. And a reference to Shark's recent birthday.

Hi Neal,

It absolutely is and in light of that and echoing the same request made above to one of the Andy’s, will you/the Board release the auditors report prior to the Open Forum? 

I think that's an admirable stance, it's always easy to have a knee jerk reaction and calls to 'sack the board' are somewhat over-reacting. I hope the BMC can learn from this and I hate to say this phrase, but get back to some basics and connect with the membership to restore some trust and pride in the good things the BMC do.

I always appreciate the time and effort that the volunteers like yourself put in Neal & Andy and it would be a shame to lose some of the expertise and passion you all share.

There has been somewhat of an veneer about the BMC of late, it's been rather glossy and the disconnect from the members has been on going alongside some worrying news around staff and finances.

Hopefully this marks a low point for all to learn lessons, steady the ship with a new Captain at the helm and re-build in various ways, including that trust and pride in what is after all, a great organisation for climbers and hillwalkers.

I wasn't thinking of you (or Andy S) particularly, given that you are relatively new on the board. But others have presided over all this for years, were warned repeatedly about some of the problems (and even acknowledged problems privately) but still chose not to act decisively. Who in their right mind would think the same people can now guide the BMC out of this mess?

A knee jerk reaction certainly will not be helpful. However, the board’s effectiveness is not above critical analysis, the outcome of which is key to connection and trust and most importantly to supporting the extraction of the BMC from the current situation.

It will be very helpful to see how this loss breaks down, how much of it is due to historie issue etc., plus a prediction of loss and turnover going forward. Hopefully something similar will be releasen.  

Thanks Simon, that's appreciated. I think you're right about a disconnect between the BMC and membership. A membership org has to stay grounded and in touch with its membership, but that isn't always easy, especially with a 'sport' like ours where people mostly just get on with their own thing. More in-person events are important not just agms and area meetings, but also climbing festivals, crag cleanups etc. So we need to get back to a financial situation where we can do more of that.

100% agree. I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned about board effectiveness. I've certainly learned a lot personally, but I think there are institutional lessons.

Odd, I’ve still not received any communication. 
If they put the fees up this year, for their own incompetence then I’ll certainly not renew. 
the fact that so much was invested into competitions, which was such a huge loss,  which personally  I feel the BMC should not be doing comps as a priority-it’s not what it was formed for , I appreciate things move on, but not to the detriment of the core principles 

Surely they have to release this report to members if they want anyone to take their contrition seriously.

*Edit*

Re-reading Paul's e-mail I see he does intend to share the report as part of the AGM on 12th June, but Simon is (rightly imo) asking for it prior to the Open Forum on 21st May

In the open forum a few weeks ago Paul Ratcliffe stated that there was no intention to increase members' subs to deal the increase in the cost of the liability insurance, the extra size of the loss may force the BMC's hand but there was no intention of raising the subs based on what was said before the board received the results of the audit.

Yes. All this is true, but you expressed the value as a decimal, then added a percentage sign on the end, which made your figure wildly inaccurate.

Mistakes being made then defended by a BMC board member. Shocker.

I disagree that “it was nowt to do with comps”. The ‘new’ senior leadership saw the BMC through the prism of competitions and, if you see the BMC only as a vehicle for comp climbing, then you will inevitably assume there will be a boost to membership when comps go from a provincial sport that no one knows about to a popular Olympic event.

If you view the BMC as an organisation to help remove obstacles hindering (largely outdoor) climbers from going climbing then you will realise that no one is going to join the BMC off the back of watching Speed Climbing in the Olympics. 
We changed the mind set (and personnel) of the BMC because it was deemed incapable of supporting a few hundred of its members compete on an international stage. That is despite having, in the past, managed to set itself up as a financially services company, a publishing house, a safe guarding organisation, an engineering consultancy and had even successfully run the first climbing World Cup.
It managed to do this at a profit yet, within two years of turning to outside help with competitions, we’ve managed to virtually bankrupt the organisation and ostracise the small community of climbers it was re-engineered to support!

I don't know the various people involved, but, above, JWhite has written the following:

"In defence of some members of the FAC, they have been flagging concerns for several years, including some choice words about the viability of the 2023 budget when it was set. ...

"As others have pointed out, as Councillors we are just advisory, and the clear and often robust advice and requests some of us have made have been frequently ignored, rejected and dismissed, and as individuals a number of us have been vilified as disruptive troublemakers, faced formal processes, threatened with expulsion, and labelled as upsetting the peace and harmony that MC would have if only we would just be more trusting and shut up."

If any or all of that reflects the truth, then very clearly some people need either to resign, or to be sacked.

I doubt whether that was the reason; I wasn't party to it. But all research tends to indicate that elite performance has little effect is spurring activity in the non-active, the only effect might be to get people interested in alternative; a runner taking up cycling because the Tour looks cool... So I'd have counselled caution.

Check your junk mail. Group emails often finish up there.

In the arcane language in which we speak any increase in subs above RPI is a 'reserved matter'  which requires consultation with Members' Council. The Board couldn't decide that unilaterally.

I can’t (re)-emphaisize enough that comp climbing can, if desired, be run at net zero cost to the BMC, or even a small profit when you account for the membership fees of people who wouldn’t otherwise join.

Parents and athletes pay for internationals, and the domestic comps have entry fees (increasingly steep ones). For example, going to both trials last year was £120 in fees IIRC (in addition to all other costs). The large apparent overspend in the comp side isn’t due to the nature of comp climbing per-se, it’s because of what that department decided to do and how many people it decided to employ. I hope we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water as a reaction to bad management and weak oversight (both of which the new CEO seems to be firmly dealing with).

For the avoidance of doubt, tech committee members do not charge for their time (something engineering consultancies do quite enthusiastically), having been on tech committee since 2018 I have been paid mileage from Derby to Manchester to support attendance at 2-3 meetings, a £3 meal deal was provided on one occasion and I was given a T-shirt a couple of years ago (not complaining, just being open about the extent of the financial interaction I have had with the BMC via my involvement in tech committee).

Tech committee's activities only form part of the stuff a consultancy does  (we don't do the commercial bits with good reason as moonlighting for another engineering business would be frowned on under all of the employment contracts I have had I think, my voluntary involvement is actively encouraged by my line manager).

Doesn't really wash though does it?

For it to get to year end before anyone actually realises the scale of the problem is just downright incompetence.

 Any charity and/or business I've ever worked for/with that have a turnover ranging from a few thousand pounds to multi millions have a pretty good idea on a month by month basis what income and expenditure is. 

​​​​

I agree whole heartedly. Properly run with the emphasis on the BMC as a whole, GBClimbing and the competition department could be used to [publicise the great works the BMC and most of it's staff do. Currently, at GBClimbing 'events' there is little or no mention of the BMC, no promotion of the access agreements achieved, etc etc. They look just like a small group of people down at the local wall, ostensibly 'training'. Most of the training I see athletes doing is at their own cost, using their own coaches. Maybe GBC should contribute an amount to the athletes to cover the costs of their coaching. 

The BMC needs to start 'blowing it's own trumpet!' That means all departments pulling for the greater good!

The problem here is that the rhetoric is being pushed that this is the fault of comp climbing in an us vs them type situation. With many adding fuel to the fire.

Every area of the BMC is going to suffer for the next few years.

If an organisation sits on a large cash reserve which  slowly accumulates then it is surprising how often those sort of controls are pushed down in terms of importance. Complacency often sets in. Seen it before in other companies and organisations.  
 

There is a business view that it is unwise to have large cash balances as people become lazy. 
 

Perversely what has happened could be a good thing as it will bring more financial discipline into play and push through quicker changes etc and better decision making. 

"and had even successfully run the first climbing World Cup."

Not really true, the 1st ever World Cup (Leeds '89) was run on behalf of the BMC by a company set up by DMM. I worked there and have no memory of any BMC involvement in running the event - they did enable it politically but that was the limit of their involvement. It was much the same as the 2 World Cups in Sheffield in 2010 and 2011, these were run by myself and Sheffield City Council will minimal organisational help from the BMC.

Oh,  and Summit Financial Services are not part of the BMC

How. The. Literal. F***. Not? 

No one?! In the whole BMC? Seriously? How can no one be aware of this? That verifies my first post; that can only be explained by a staggering level of incompetence or ignorance. Nobody looked at the bank balance in all that time? Really??

This smells like BS. We got warnings of a 6 figure overspend months ago when the layoffs came. Everyone knew there was a big hole. Someone could have cast a quick eye over the bank statements but you’re saying nobody did any rough sums, and instead everyone in the organisation sat around waiting for the audit to complete??

There were plenty of people right here who were demanding to see the accounts. They'd have spotted it. Letting the MC see what they were demanding would have spotted it. There was a queue of people who were screaming to be allowed to see the detail and could have made this not a suprise. But no, it all had to be kept super secret for 6 months while the audit happened. That’s difficult to explain with good faith alone...

Not sure who I should be blaming for that. It's hard to get angry with people doing this stuff voluntarily, but jesus wept.

Are we still buying the Paul Davies resigned for “personal issues” line that got trotted out when he left then? 

No suggestion he might have seen which way the wind was blowing, and decided to jump ship before he was pushed?

I mean we all know that’s what happened, but it’s annoying to be fed obvious bs like that. Shows a real lack of respect for the membership imho.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/ukc/bmc_announce_losses_of_625000_for_202...

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/ukc/bmc_announce_losses_of_625000_for_202...

Got to agree with you here, the audit isn't the production of the accounts, it's checking that the accounts are materially correct and disclose everything that the relevant accounting standards require.

Unless the term "audit" was being used loosely (and improperly) to mean the production of the accounts as well as the audit, the accounts (un-audited) would have been available significantly earlier - and the board presumably chose to withhold them from others until the audit was complete.

I'll ask Neil.

Question: when the term "audit" has been used in communications to the BMC membership (in the context of "we are waiting for the audit"), did that mean:

1. the audit of accounts (presumably still by Hurst) that had already been produced
2. the production of the accounts plus the audit of those accounts (all done "together" by Hurst)

If 1. then un-audited accounts must have been available before the audit - in which case it would be interesting to know why the huge deficit wasn't known about earlier, and also what figures actually changed as a result of the audit.

Plenty of folk would have been over the moon to be allowed to look into it pro bono given a stack of unsorted bank statements, even viewed on site in confidence. But nope. Nobody gets to see the papers until now. 

Justification for that?

Perhaps it's just me, but any input from one staunch "everthing's fine, no need to worry" BMC defender seems to be conspicuously absent from this thread. 

I don't think it was quite that black and white, but I suspect there are many within the BMC's senior management and governance structures who are still in shock because they knew it was going to be bad, but not THAT bad.

"instead everyone in the organisation sat around waiting for the audit to complete??"

No, people weren't just sat around doing nothing. In fact, a lot of work was done to sort out the accounts, by staff and volunteers who put in a huge shift, so that the audit could be completed, and so that we the board could see accurate accounts. I'm no accountant, but I'm given to understand that with regard to some of the accounting issues, it wasn't quite as simple as "looking at the bank balance". And in the meantime, measures were already being put in place to cut costs, before we even had the final figures.

For the avoidance of doubt, no-one is saying that the entire 600k deficit was a complete surprise to us last Thursday. But yes, an important part of it was unknown to the board before last week. And we've released the info to Members Council and then the full membership as quickly as possible.

Your second assumption is incorrect. If you had asked me a few weeks ago what the BMC deficit I would have assured you that it was c.£275k! That was the information that the CEO and the Board was getting. The report from the auditors a week ago came as a shock, believe me.

I think that we will find that a 'perfect storm' built up in '23. Our CFO left in the middle of last year and wasn't replaced. There were faulty budget assumptions. They were engaged in shifting our financial control to a new system which had not been fully implemented. Our staff were under considerable stress and there was some illness leave. It all builds up.

Because of those background issues we have actually had to buy in services to sort out our accounts into a state that the auditors can work with, have recently bought in an interim CFO and have gone a particularly 'deep dive' audit.

Blame for this should be focused on the Board, including myself, and not the staff who have tried to the best of their ability to manage these difficulties.

Fair enough, if the audit revealed that the deficit was over twice the amount that was originally  thought - that's what audits are for. Which is why my question to Neal was also asking about changes resulting from the audit.

At 275k, the deficit would have been pretty much what's basically been previously communicated (and previously talked about on UKC).

And I can well believe it was a shock - bet there were lots of 4 letter mutterings.

'We' are pretty engaged in trying to tighten up our financial control/reporting systems. You'd better believe it!

Muttering? I think I probably shouted a few unmentionables when the information came out. It's lucky I haven't got a cat; it might have finished up in the next county.

I assume you mean Steve Clark, who posts here as 'Offwidth.'

The principal reason I officially supported Simon Lee's petition was because of Clark's vociferous - and disgraceful - attempts to shut the debate down. He repeatedly accused Lee of both spreading disinformation, and of acting in bad faith. For a person officially associated with the BMC, that was a really bad look.

You assume correctly. 

He’s been on the other channel hasn’t he?

Devil is in the detail.

Christ almighty, and I thought the suprise rebrand to Climb Britain was the end of the world.

Yes, he also repeatedly wrote untrue posts about how Simon had “declined” to use the BMC form.

I picked him up on it more than once and, to his credit, he did eventually begin to modify his language on the point, but that doesn’t make it ok.

I said at the time that if someone on my team at work had behaved in that way I wouldn’t tolerate it. 

I also said it reflects badly on MC that they have someone who is meant to represent us behaving in that way.

There’s been a few posts on here about more of us volunteering for positions but I’m sorry, even if I did have the time (I don’t!), I don’t need or want to associate with myself with people who behave like that.

I thought the point of the MC was to be an elected council of our peers representing us to the organisation. It actually seems to just operate as the first line of defence.

Sorry for the blunt post, but the time for saving peoples blushes is over.

£625 loss in one year?!  That’s over £12k a week. Completely indefensible. 

If anyone fancies a bit of gallows humour, go check out Paul Davies’ writeup of his time as CEO of the BMC https://www.linkedin.com/in/dsm-paul-davies?originalSubdomain=uk

The last line is an absolute doozy

Ooof

In reply to Stoney Boy:

He is reading this though. The organisation is of huge importance to him whether he has lost his way with member sentiment or not. I think our role in this situation is like a Remain voter at a party full of rabid Leavers: be polite, hold the line, stick to facts, demand when appropriate, educate otherwise. 

Simon could quite easily have avoided a lot of hassle for himself and demand on BMC staff by using the BMC's web form once he was informed of its existence. The BMC could have avoided this by publicising its existence a bit better.

The sequence of events leading up to Simon finding out about the web form and opting not to use it was:

He kicked all of this off with both motions being listed under a single petition, multiple people (including myself) pointed out that this was pretty disingenuous as a greater number of people would support the financial disclosure motion than would support the splitting motion.

Simon prepares two separate petitions.

Andy Syme returns from a holiday a couple of weeks later and informs Simon that the proper process mandated by the BMC is a web form. Simon decides to stick with the petition stating various reasons including that he doesn't think the staff can be treated as neutral parties (while several of them had been redirected from other tasks to verify the membership of signatories to the petitions which would not have been necessary if Simon had trusted the staff to act in an impartial fashion); 

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/crag_access/bmc_resolutions_petition_fail...

Kicking the process off with the petitions was sensible, the process WAS poorly publicised (only published on the webpages for previous AGMs), the decision to stick with the petitions once it was flagged that Simon was not following the defined process it was Simon's decision to stick with the petitions and he acknowledged that there was no guarantee that the petitions would even be accepted by the BMC at the point where he made that decision:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/crag_access/update_on_proposed_resolution... - First Post

I'll note that I argued for the BMC to accept that both sides had made a pig's ear of this at the area meeting a couple of months ago and that it should accept the petitions in place of web forms while linking to the forms on the webpage where the articles are held well in advance of the next AGM.

Getting the process wrong shouldn't automatically prevent a motion from being discussed at the AGM, but it makes it a hell of a lot more likely that one will be discussed (not least because people won't have to spend time discussing how to address issues created by not following the process).

The truth is Simon did choose not to use the web form, but only after having started the petitions in good faith believing that it was an appropriate process with the decision driven by a perception that it would disadvantage his motions.  If you've never met Steve you'd probably find he's a thoroughly reasonable and very nice bloke if you were to actually meet him despite your disagreements with him about the BMC. Likewise Simon's a nice guy who I have held pleasant conversations with in the past despite disagreeing significantly with him about aspects of the BMC.

There are rather less people lining their pockets involved with this discussion than were involved with Brexit thankfully, I suppose you'd class me as one of the "rabid leavers" in your analogy given my strong support for the BMC? I make significant efforts to point out the facts on these threads (as someone who's been interested in this stuff for a while and wants the BMC to be successful).

“… and grow commercial revenue to levels previously unseen”

If he exceeded what I brought in I’ll eat my hat.  They lost Montane and I’ll bet Cotswold negotiated their fee down after the renewal. Don’t see anything new and significant coming in from other sources. 

"previously unseen" could refer to depths as well as heights. 

🤣

Ha! Very good!

I think we all want the BMC to be successful; I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. The difference is how we want it to be successful and what we want it to be successful at. 

Jesus H Christ, you can't even admit you made a simple mistake on a forum post and yet we're expected to trust you sort this mess? 

For what it's worth I'm not one of the people that wants GBClimbing ejected from the organisation. I just want the incompetents responsible for this disaster gone and some capable people bring some sanity to the organisation. 

From the 2019 BMC Annual Report.

"The implementation of recommendations from the BMC Organisational Review 2017-18 continued apace under the direction of the ODG"

"Improving the BMC’s governance systems and processes was a high priority in 2019"

Maybe the fears 8% naysayers who didn't vote for Option A had a point.

I can't recall the exact sequence of events, but I was concerned about outside influence causing problems in a member led organisation, so I voted against the reorganisation.

Wasn't the BMC rebranding to Climb Britain (or whatever it was) funded by Sport England? It was massively unpopular with the membership, who weren't consulted beforehand.

I've nothing against comp climbing being part of the BMC in principle, and enjoy watching it. However since it's now an Olympic sport, won't it inevitably attract outside interference? Especially if we have medal chances.

I am going to be without signal for a week so won’t be able to participate in next Tuesday evenings online Open Forum.

I’d be grateful if someone asked what the reserve is now (if anything) what the current cash position is (guessing £800k) and if there has been a cash projection done for the next 6 months and whether the Board is monitoring the cash position on a weekly basis.

Also if someone takes the trouble to record the meeting I’d appreciate a copy. There should be a historical record preserved oof this. 

I encourage everyone who cares about the BMC to attend. The registration details are here: https://thebmc.co.uk/open-forum-webinar-series

ps I have sent an email to the Directors requesting that the auditors report is published prior to the Open Forum

I'm sorry you missed me but I've been on family birthday duty yesterday.

Yes I've called out where Simon has misrepresented things (listing them in detail and never facing more than rhetoric in response), as even though things were always incredibly serious since he launched his petitions in February I think overblowing things doesn't help. If you think that's a bad look then we will have to agree to disagree. I'm one elected members' representative on a large Council and have to try to do my best to act on behalf of all members. I've always supported Simon's calls for more financial openess and transparency since I was elected to Council in 2021 and it was my first point I made to our CEO back then.  I also know full well some of his misrepresentation was due to his sources 'leaking' incorrect or exaggerated information to him.

As Jonathan  White indicated earlier in this thread we have been working in Council on a crisis response since last March and some of us have been warning about improved financial checks and balances and realistic membership growth expectations almost since Jonathan became a BMC Director. We were also highly concerned about some awful stakeholder treatment in GB Climbing last March....action on that has been painfully slow as well.

Like Jonathan and Neal, I'd apologise to members.  Despite trying our very best to help, I feel we must have missed opportunities and certainly didn't persuade the organisational leadership quickly enough in some areas. As far as we knew last week the financial problems hadn't breached our reserves, but now we know the size of the deficit has more than doubled it's all the more important we stop digging it deeper. I'm totally convinced Paul is doing his best as CEO right now to do that. Staff reductions already made and other budgetary savings should increase our reserves in 2024 whilst minimising impact on member and volunteer support. I'd add, I'm less concerned than Jonathan about any 'vilification' attached to raising serious problems... these are massive emotive subjects and it's easy to overstep in such circumstances in what should be respectful debate. Fixing things is what is important, not egos.

Where I still disagree with Simon is as follows. Firstly we can't release an Audit report that is still as far as I am aware not quite finished. We also can't afford  a shift to a subsidiary (which I still see as a very expensive way of treating comp climbers as second class members). However, the headline problems and the financial numbers involved inside the now advertised new deficit should be public and ongoing stakeholder issues in GB Climbing still need some urgent action.

On governance: that has always to me been a legal package to run an organisation that does good on behalf of members and the wider community. The work is what is most important, not the packaging. Any structure, however well it meets best practice, can be broken by leaders not following the processes. Those harking back to the old BMC should be called out on that, as It gave us an equally serious financial crisis around the Rheged debacle and of course Climb Britain. It also left elected members representatives acting very significantly as shadow directors... a totally unacceptable position in modern governance. I'd still personally prefer a BMC structured as a Charity 'container' with a Company within it (to deal with government funding requirements... ie. the opposite of what we have now) but change right now is simply unaffordable, the remainder of 2024 needs to be about much improved financial control and work towards recovery in finances and stakeholder relationships.

Speak for yourself.

I do not care about the BMC one way or another, it is an organisation that I am connected with because I am a member of a club, and it provides the insurances, and has let me down more than once. If my clubs found a new insurance provider that was cheaper I would be more than happy, and if my club fees go up because of this farce I will be less than happy. 

I believe the Achilli Ratti are no longer associated with the BMC and possibly other clubs should be  being proactive about finding another insurer before the BMC tries to recover money via what it sees as a captive audience.

You might want to go back to the minutes of the AGM where that vote was held and check who stood up to present the case for 'Option B'. 😉

That seems to be the takeaway message. The internal mechanisms for review and oversight seem to have been broken, essentially. These need to be fixed so they are robust, and open to wider scrutiny.

The fact that basics like income and expenditure were not reported in any detail seems a very basic failing, and indicative of this lack of transparency. And, as a member, I must share a tiny bit of responsibility in not having checked the public accounts, and queried this.

It does seem as if this all stems from the attempt to integrate competition climbing into the organisation, and the way that has been done. And that includes things like 'growth forecasts' (I'm guessing, driven by Sport England ethos), for an organisation that previously tried to represent climbers, rather than one that tried to promote climbing.

No ok fair point. I figured that the cost of change would lower service levels beyond acceptable in any alternative. I agree with the poster above who wants rid of incompetents. Honestly it feels like an awful talking shop at times the way some of these ‘officials’ come across. ‘We know better’. ‘See Article 7 sub paragraph 4’. 
It’s a far cry from sh1tting yourself about the last two bits of gear as you enter the crux. 

If I am referring to a large document I will generally refer to a specific clause with the intention of helping people save time finding the relevant bit so they don't repeat the effort I have just applied in finding it myself. It's not an arrogance thing, it is just normal practice for me in my day job where people generally find it helpful and an audit trail avoids hassle (and I find it helpful when people do the same for me).

It is significantly different from bricking it above shite gear somewhere adventurous, I am not trying to draw any equivalence.

Bloody hell Spenser, read the room! 
Although the room represents a small proportion of members and my club is likely membered by many whom support the incompetent bean-counters who lost track of £625k, I imagine a sizeable number also long for change. As Godwin pointed out, it really only needs a couple of certificates from alternate providers and the BMC could kiss goodbye to nearly £50k in fees. 

Good! That doesn’t strike me as a particularly good leadership model for the organisation to aim for. 

In fact, it seems like it probably isn’t such a far cry from the situation at the moment. Sh1tting themselves about the last 200k as they enter the new financial year with no confidence that the outcome isn’t going to be a very painful failure. 

My intent was agreeing I made a mistake, though rereading it can see what you read.  Sorry it read that way.

The ability to see more than one perspective, a true superpower.

I would give you a like 👍 

Given the financial ineptitude there may not be anything. I hope it's not the case but if the BMC is as crippled and can't reform then perhaps a new organisation will emerge.

Former BMC member.

My point was either Plan A was a poor plan, or it was a good plan very badly implemented.

If I made such a fundamental business mistake like you and your colleagues have I wouldn't be sending out apologetic  emails; I would have been sacked by the board that day as would my top team.

Two rules of key business

1. If it isn't broken don't fix it

2. It's all about the money dummy

I know this is an emotive topic but personal abuse won’t be tolerated and will result in a ban.

Yes ok. No abuse intended. 

A fair point but directed at the wrong person. In Andy Say's defence he only joined the Board last year after a lot of the problems were already baked in.

Ah right. It wasn’t my message that was deemed abusive. To be clear. I have not singled out any specific stakeholders or members in any critiques.

I think Mr Lanceley may have overstepped the mark.

Graeme has a short memory

The first International UIAA Competition in Leeds was organised

by DMM and the BMC. It was in Leeds because that is where I live,

I had friends who owned the Queens Hall where the competition was held

and persuaded them to allow it to be used for the competition. The Beatles, the Rolling

Stones and the Who had strutted their stuff on its stage.

The BMC was involved first to last, I do not remember Cushy Butterfield being involved?

Dennis Gray  BMC General Secretary at that time

I can't help thinking that quarterly is rather infrequent management information. I could be underestimating the level of detail provided in the quarterly MI but even then would expect at least basic update each month between. 

As ever I'm a bit late to the conversation but would like to add my vote for publishing the details of the audit. 

Lots of people have asked for the audit report to be published. The actual audit report already has to be published in the accounts, so for absolute clarity for the board, I'd like to see the Audit Committee Report*. That should also be available sooner than the final audit report which can't be provided until signing, whereas the ACR may already have been received. 

* This could be named a number of things but both the finance and audit committee and the auditor will all know what we mean by this. It gives a lot more detail than the published audit report including summary of major errors and weaknesses in controls and processes noted in the audit. 

Sounds like the BMC could do with bringing in Police Scotland's Operation Branchform team - £600k of members money missing? Whose camper van is that parked on Burton Road?

Have you ever thought of coming back and doing some organising and management? Please!

I'm a member of Mountaineering Scotland and so looking from the outside somewhat, but I can't quite believe what I'm reading  regarding what may or may not have gone on at the BMC. 

I have worked as Finance Director for international companies, including plc's, sat on Boards, and been MD/CEO of companies.  So a few observations for people to think about, just from my 40 years of business experience:

Governance...

The CEO presents the future Plan to the Board.  The Board approves the Plan and the CEO cracks on with delivery. It is the job of the Board to hold the CEO to account for delivery of said plan.  It would appear that Governance has faild at the BMC.  That is the Board's responsibility. 

Financial Management...

It is the job of a Finance Director to provide timely, accurate and comprehensive information to the CEO to enable same to deliver the Plan.  It is responsibility of the CEO to ensure they get the required information. It would appear that Financial Management at the BMC has failed.  That is the fault of the CEO, the Board, and therefore the Governance. 

An organisation in such a position is in dire trouble.  It may already be insolvent. 

It would suggest that a complete overhaul of all structures and personnel may be required to effect change.  Tinkering around the edges does not work in these situations. 

Barbeg

You are assuming that there is an FD. There hasn't been one for large chunks of recent BMC history and certainly not since last July. 

Which rather backs up what I have suggested. 

Barbeg

Ok, excusing the typo, 7.5% of subs income

Can't say for sure but if the answer was all of them, that'd be 4.9% of subs income gone, wouldn't it?

The BMC currently has a part time finance director who normally works for British Judo who has been brought in to help quantify and then help fix, the current mess.

Not arguing with the rest of your post, things have gone severely wrong.

I suspect this number is rounded down. When you add in 2021 and 2022 this is nearly a million quid. (£998,049)

Things really have gone severely wrong, and yet still there seems to be a culture of apologising for the issues, but not of action.

Someone upthread called it a perfect storm, and of course it is in the sense that there are a number of contributory factors. But that’s where this analogy ends.

We can’t control storms but all of the factors identified (outside of the CFO leaving perhaps) are all entirely issues of the BMCs own making.

I’ll say it very clearly. If there are people involved in the making of this situation, or a failure to recognise it, they should play no part at all in rectifying it.

In short, they had their chance and they blew it.

(not specifically directed at you Spenser, btw)

The Financial Director I mentioned earlier seems to have come in after Paul Ratcliffe's arrival as CEO so the problems were most likely all baked in before their arrival (given that Paul R has been focused on fixing things since he started).

There is quite a lot of turnover on the board at this AGM as well as I know Andy Syme and Martyn Hurn are not standing again (both people I have worked with on BMC stuff and have respect for), the board member biographies suggest Peter Salenieks and Roger Murray are reaching the end of their terms, but I don't know if they can stand again: 

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/bmc-board-member-biographies

I don't know exactly who is responsible for the mess, what I most want is to see it sorted quickly and effectively so the BMC can do the good stuff rather than worrying about governance failings or going skint. 

I will be at the Open Forum tonight and am looking forward to seeing lots of members there to find out how the BMC plans to address the problems it is currently experiencing.

The question I was going to ask last night, but the chat got closed before I could finish typing it on my phone...

The board seemed to try and partially absolve themselves of responsibility by saying the losses were the result of mismanagement from the previous CEO. They seemed to suggest they were not able to hold him properly accountable (and even get proper financial data?). They knew stuff was wrong, but weren't able to do anything until the organisation was nearly bankrupt. 

The new CEO seems like a good guy, but we as members basically just need to trust that he (and any future CEO) is going to do a good job, with little oversight to make sure this doesn't happen again. What happens when he moves on and we get landed with another numpty? Is there not a fundamental problem with the governance structure?

May be give the new management a chance to show their teeth. The directors know the problems and now so do senior management. Together they should be hitting the problems hard and looking to short term corrections, which can form the basis of long term resolutions. They also need to be communicating their actions, perhaps on at least a monthly report. (maybe containing staffing changes, financial info, new partnerships, events etc) Hopefully their aim is to reduce the profligacy of certain departments (It should not be expected of any department to make a profit, but each department should have a cautious and limited budget and have to work within the confines of that budget.) The senior management should be ensuring that, at a micro level, all departments are working towards the aims and ethos of the BMC and doing all in their power to project these aims and ethos to the outdoors community at large. This will mean adopting a corporate identity (Not a popular idea at present) and promoting the BMC at large and not just their niche area. The BMC can and does do a vast amount of work for the community, it is just that they are terrible at letting people know. At a micro level all departments and staff should be spreading the word!

That doesn't answer my question at all. My question is about governance structures. 

Where is this magical governance structure you seek Franco? You can't totally insulate the organisation from damage from senior people problems in any structure. Governance change is expensive and disruptive and if implemented would IMHO be a costly and high risk solution to the wrong problem. The BMC needs more governance change this year like 'a hole in the head'.

Your earlier 'return to the good old days' suggestion must be qualified by the fact that it brought us Climb Britain and the equally serious financial disaster of Rheged (and in all that elected National Councillors who were  potentially liable as uninsured 'shadow directors' in any major loses).

We were reassured we are not trading insolvently by the Board, based on the auditors report now being completed. We were told savings (esp from staff reduction)  and additional income are preventing significant extra losses so far in 2024. If this continues we should be seeing an increase in reserves at year end. We have been promised more financial detail very soon (important as members need reassurance.... and the reduction in financial detail during the previous CEO period was very much part of the crisis identification problem).

Council have significant power to hold the Board to account, thanks to the 2018 Option debate compromise made by the likes of Crag and Jonathan,... let's just continue to use that power.

So why hasn't that worked then?

If you're telling me that we have to accept a structure that allows an organisation to nearly go bankrupt with no one being held to account and those in the know not being able to prevent it then I don't think that's good enough. 

The Climb Britain fiasco was the result of MC making a bad decision IIRC. It wasn't a problem with the structure of governance. 

What's the process whereby MC can hold the board to account? It sounds like the board can't even hold the CEO to account (?).

People come and go. Systems need to be robust to fallibilities of those people. That's where systems of corporate governance come in.

That is also illustrated by the current Post Office inquiry...

It seems that they weren't "in the know"; this loss announcement has come as an unpleasant shock to people who should have known if the management and governance systems were working properly.

Sorry but I’m with Franco on this. 

For those who weren’t able to make it, the TL: DR of the forum last night was “There’s not a systemic issue, the people and structure we have in place is all perfect, there was just bad behaviour by certain unnamed individuals who are now no longer here”

Conveniently for all involved this means that no change of structure or individuals is required.

This is clearly nonsense as in the space of a year these unnamed individuals manage to lose over £600k, in a manner which nobody was aware of until after it happened.

Sorry, but there’s clearly something seriously wrong with the systems, checks, procedures and structure that this was able to happen.

Somebody last night was spoke at length about how great the board was, how they have all the right skills and experience etc. This may be true, but they’ve failed miserable to perform the very task they are there for.

Frankly. It’s a total whitewash and although lots of people on the call seemed very nice, pleasant individuals, they’ve got their head sp deeply buried in the sand the don’t know where the surface is anymore. 

Oh, and also. Young athletes are going to have to miss out on getting a chance to compete for their country, because y’know, they’re collateral damage.

Slow. Clap.

Governance systems are meant to protect against bad behaviour...

Granted, if multiple people are behaving badly, governance systems will struggle. That's why you have multiple control measures; there's a clever latin phrase about custard here...

Continue?

I missed it, do we know the predicted loss for 2024?

"preventing significant extra losses so far in 2024"

The Rheged fiasco did almost make the BMC bankrupt under the old structure, have you forgotten that? The BMC owes ongoing thanks for Dave Musgrove who came in as President and helped rescue the finances. Decisions were made without National Council being fully aware of risks and potential liabilities. It involved senior people problems causing a governance failure almost identical in scale to the governance failures now.

No numbers given to Council yet, I'm afraid, just reassurance from the Chair last night at the Open Forum, based on the final audit report they received yesterday. There will be very little patience if these numbers are not provided to Council very soon (and members as soon as possible afterwards).

There is no predicted loss in 2024, if the BMC meets budget (big IF, lots of things could go wrong) it will finish the year with slightly higher reserves than it started.

I think Steve/ Offwidth is referring to the fact that if the status quo had been maintained the BMC would have lost about half as much of the 2023 losses again. Staff efforts have reduced the ongoing costs of the organisation so if losses are made in 2024 they should should be in the hundreds OR thousands, not the hundreds OF thousands.

I did ask if there would be a plan published which would help members understand if progress is ahead, or behind, of target. It was promised that financial data would be provided to council, but that this may be sanitised before public issue to members (charitably this may be due to things like commercial partnership values being confidential, or possibly that Andy Syme didn't want to force the next president's hand on the issue). Hopefully with time they will provide that plan to members so we don't have huge surprises about how big a problem is.

Avoiding damage to athletes' competitive careers is a big challenge that the BMC needs to figure out as this should not be regarded as collateral damage from the BMC keeping itself afloat if there is a way around it, but that is a problem way outside my skillset and responsibility to resolve.

My brain was frazzled from work so my notes from the meeting were a bit patchy, but I found the format of the meeting really good with Mary-Ann Ochota (BMC Hill Walking ambassador) acting as chair, she asked some good questions of the board members present and everyone who put their hands up got to ask their question (albeit an access one was delayed until the access segment of the evening), the transition between directors in the discussion was a little jarring at points, possibly they should consider verbally handing over to avoid accidentally clashing with each other when starting to talk?

I didn't see Franco calling for a return to the 'old structure', so I'm not sure what the relevance of your comment is.

I also attended last night.

I was very concerned to hear that the Board were well aware at the very least the potential for significant losses, yet were unable to take any action quickly enough to prevent them. Meanwhile simultaneously branding those highlighting this as "conspiracy theorists". Incredibly poor attitude and incredibly poor control. 

I did not like the attitude that some took to level all of the responsibility for fixing things on the CEO, while PR has been well received so far, it is not entirely his responsibility and is unfair to suggest otherwise. 

I have also just checked the financial meaning of "going concern", and it is not actually concerning! I'm surprised no-one pointed this out at the meeting, if they did I missed it. However, I entirely agreed with the points that how is membership supposed to trust an organisation that has routinely and severely mismanaged its finance to not mess it up immediately, and apparently there may still be some "skeletons in the closet". 

Wrong. Good governance is something you *do* not something you *have*. It about people rather than about some obscure structures or articles. The board's primary purpose is to ensure that the CEO does his job properly. They cannot absolve themselves from that responsibility. To say that "... they were not able to hold him properly accountable..." is an admission of their failure more than the failure of the CEO. They had one job to do and they didn't do it.

The board's attitude last night was really depressing. They wouldn't accept responsibility for what happened (even though that responsibility is legally defined into the company structure). Their claim that the Board has all the right skills was breathtaking in its chutzpah. And they're pinning all their hopes on the CEO - which was exactly the approach (wrt the previous CEO) which got them into this disaster. Paul Ratcliffe is obviously a massive improvement,  but as Franco says, relying on a single person to save us is clearly foolish. If anything, last night made me less confident about the future of the BMC, not more. (Meanwhile comp climbing gets held hostage by an organisation unable to do it justice but too hubristic to admit that.)

Myself and Jonathan White both made this point in the comments. Paul seems like a really competent bloke who has got a lot of people on side quickly, but there is only one of him and a relatively small number of staff working for him/ the BMC.

Assuming that no one spent £20 grand on taxis at the Olympic qualifier, doubly counted loans in the budget, or that the BMC hasn’t just lost a tonne of subs due to the ongoing mess?

This is spot on and the Board cannot absolve themselves of their responsibilities. The law doesn't differentiate between Executive and non-Executive directors, they are all equally responsible and liable

I think it about time that the clubs simply refused to pay the tax that the disfunctional BMC charges club members for simply joining them.   Back in 2008/9 there was a minor revolution when the clubs tried to change things but as I recall BMC successfully smothered it by way of a toothless 'Clubs Working Group' whose recommendations were ignored.  I'd be interested in what Achilli Ratti  - one of the largest of the clubs and with more clout than most - were able to negotiate by way of third party liability and hut insurances.

Six of us on Council wrote a letter to Council in March 2023 expressing a number of major concerns. The most serious were: worrying financial issues; membership growth below that assumed in the budget; some evidence of poor financial control in GB Climbing; possible safeguarding issues in GB Climbing; breaches of our BMC governance (failure of Senior Management and Board to follow aspects of our Council Memorandum of Understanding); and multiple evidence of serious stakeholder concerns in GB Climbing. Council formally ratified its concerns in April, despite some Board pushback at the time, and asked for improvement from the Board and improvement in communication on progress and actions. The Council Nominated Director, with primary Board responsibility for GB Climbing, was particularly vociferous in our support (the only voting Board member on Council who fully supported our position).

Things improved for a while in governance communication. To resolve financial concerns the Board implemented a reorganisation, sadly with a few staff redundancies, and a decision not to fill some other roles where staff left (with hindsight, the failure to replace a departing CFO added staff and volunteer work pressure in the finance area and added risk.... some on Council had warned of this).

Unfortunately by the summer it was obvious we still had some ongoing and some new problems arising in GB Climbing.

In the autumn the Council Nominated Director (CND) with responsibility for GB Climbing resigned, partly over the slow action of the Board on GB Climbing issues. As more problems were uncovered, negotiations for the exit of the CEO followed soon after

Council thought, by year end, the organisation had held loses under £300k and not breached reserves. A fairly impressive effort given the level of internal issues and the cost of living pressures reported to us on individual membership in 2023 (by the membership team exit surveys). Paul R had been recruited as our new CEO with full Council support. In 2024 his new plans for the BMC were approved with full Council support, as they were quickly developed.

In the late spring it was obvious there were new problems being uncovered by the annual audit of accounts. Extra work was undertaken on audit. From this Council were informed about a week ago of the new estimated loses, a few days after the Board were informed.

We did our part as Council in our governance responsibilities, where we knew of issues. Could we have acted with more speed/impact? Yes, possibly, especially if those of us raising concerns had been more persuasive, hence my apology. However, the context was not everyone on Council agreed at each point exactly how serious things were, and communications with Council were often far from ideal and the motivations of those raising concerns were sometimes questioned (the CND who resigned,  pointed out last night he had even been accused of conspiracy theories). Can I see a different structure, that would better meet the modern governance requirements and requirements of our funders, which would have aided Council to help the Board resolve things faster? No.

I've no skin in this game, I've not been a member of the BMC for years, but I have been a part of an executive management team and a board member in my time, so have worked both above and below a CEO.

What is very striking to me is that the Board members seem to be saying they had concerns, but didn't have enough information to act. I'm amazed by that. In any properly run business, the CEO reports to The Board. If the CEO is not giving the board members enough information to be able to address their concerns, they should demand it. If it's still not produced, they should have the power to sack the CEO. Does the BMC's board not have that power?

I'm not wrong Marek, as people are proposing structural change as a solution (be it a subsidiary, a return to the other 2018 governance option, or a return to the old 2017 governance structure). I fully agree with you that good governance is something leaders are supposed to do.

Council took the view a 'no blame' approach would best enable the BMC to recover. However,  some members clearly think we should see resignations: that's a matter for BMC democracy. However, I'd point out four Directors from when the problems were most serious have already gone (including the CEO) as has the Head of Performance in GB Climbing. One director was new at the time. Two more are leaving next month (including the President) and two terms end in the autumn.  I'd prefer the remaining directors to stay as it reduces risks in the recovery plan, (especially in the huge amounts of constructiove work they have been doing  cf the advertised workloads of the roles).

That needs a Board reply.

For anyone interested in Mountaineering Scotland as an option,  I had a call with them yesterday and their articles don't allow them to take on clubs whose activities don't primarily occur in Scotland. So if you're a Scottish winter club based in Kent that's fine, but not an option for climbing clubs based in the North of England. 

AR are affiliated with England Athletics. I'm not sure what their set up is. 

It was in an earlier post somewhere on one of the three main forums.

Regardless of the mess the BMC has currently got itself into talking about subs for membership as a 'tax' is bollox. It's a payment in return for the services provided either directly (e.g. liability insurance) or obliquily to all active climbers (e.g. access). Clubs are entitled to take their business elsewhere if they can get the direct services cheaper and have no interesting in contributing to the other stuff the BMC does but don't go misrepresenting the good it has done for clubs and climbers for decades.

From your description, it seems the Board did not respond to the concerns of the Council, and had 'gone rogue'. That seems to be one obvious takeaway improvement to governance; greater power for Council (a second order control mechanism; the custard custodians).

You also mention communication problems within Council; that appears to be another operational improvement.

And the problem seems to be that the MC had concerns (coming directly from members) which they raised with the Board, but the Board was either uninterested, or unable to properly hold the Exec (CEO etc) to account.

We definitely a response from the Board.

The Board did communicatie with Council, but sometimes too slowly (especially in early 2023 when some aspects breached our Memorandum of Understanding).  I don't see any evidence the Board had "gone rogue" but what actually happened will be tied up in company legality of Board confidentiality / collective responsibility. There were obviously some strong Board internal disagreements with the CEO back them.

Communication problems were mainly with Council, not in it. There were some different opinions in Council, but in my view that's to be expected and it's for others to say in public as it applies to them: our CND (with prime responsibility for GB Climbing) who resigned, has been public about his views, as have a few others on Council.

Ah. But let's not forget that the board has previously thanked the previous CEO (who resigned for 'personal reasons'), for all of his hard work. See https://www.thebmc.co.uk/statement-from-the-board-of-directors-regarding-bm... :

"Paul Davies, BMC CEO, has sadly resigned and decided to pursue new avenues for a variety of personal reasons, including the unsustainable rigours of his commute and time away from his family.

"We are grateful to Paul for his hard work during his three years as Chief Executive Officer for the BMC.  We are sure that you will join us in wishing him all the best for the future.

"Roger Murray, BMC Chair and BMC Board of Directors"

They gave a response last night in the Open Forum and in a letter to members and on the website. If members are not satisfied, they need to inform their Areas, their Council reps, comment on the announcements on the website and/or ask questions at the AGM. I'm very clear about a large number of members views on the forums and at my local area, on all sides of these debates.

The most important to me are about finances and responsibilities for the losses; with some urgency of detail on 2023 budgets and 2024 proposals to be provided to Council and members, as stated as planned.

Personally, another urgent but less clearly planned area (wrt Council) relates to ongoing issues with GB Climbing stakeholder relationships.  There is a 'window' now when things could be improved quickly, if there is a will to do that. Listening to young climbers say the chances of too many of achieving their life aims are being blocked by problems in qualification processes, leaving clearly able climbers( based on other comp results) not able to take empty UK quota spaces, is heartbreaking enough, but unacceptable given we are an organisation with access (in its wider sense) as a key aim. To be clear: no one expects every quota space to be filled but a better negotiated position with stakeholders seems vital to me (as some parents and an athlete requested last evening).

I guess this all comes down to a question of who 'owns' the BMC. To me, that will be members, in the same way shareholders own a company. So the Board should do the bidding of shareholders/members.

That suggests a structure of:

Members

MC

Board

Executive

CEO

The membership body should drive the direction. The MC, Board, Executive & CEO execute that direction. Not the other way round... CEO down can suggest how what that direction is, and how it is to be executed, and manage that execution. Board holds CEO & Executive to account. MC holds Board to account. Members hold everyone to account.

It's custard all the way down.

Currently strategy is set across Staff, Board, Council and Specialist Committees, informed by wider member feedback in BMC meetings,  and surveys. Where proposed changes are significant, an agreed case for change goes to Areas, Open Forums,  the website, and sometimes the AGM for feedback/democratic approval. In general principle terms this sort of approach is pretty normal (for the membership organisations I'm a member of, or am aware of).

We can't drive strategy in a straightforward way from members as there are so many different opinions, too often based on inadequate information on subjects under debate (and often with no awareness of consequentials well known to those employed or involved in central governance roles). 

Spot on. I’d go further than it just being “problems” with the qualification process. Those problems were symptomatic of a (in some cases) stated desire to run a smaller team. To be clear, it’s not about saving money - the athletes pay for practically everything - it’s a strategic choice to focus on only the ready-made (or thereabouts) elite and leave everyone else with no international access. The noises in the last few weeks have been mixed: first we had the “review” which did nothing to help those messed up this year. Then we’ve had very encouraging words around next year - at least not blocking licenses - and using the quota places for access and vital experience. Erin McNeice’s fantastic results in the OQS came after gaining lots of experience. In fact, Erin would have been very unlikely to have been selected when she was, had the policies of the last two years or so been in place then. Everyone is cheering her on for that Olympic spot which would be fantastic news for the BMC (and Erin of course!) GBC are not great talent spotters. That’s not a criticism - it’s hard! - that’s why GBC needs to be much more open-minded and willing to let people have a chance. The proof of change will be in the pudding - whether or not access and selection genuinely improve in line with the community and BMC wishes, or if tactics are employed to leave things more or less as-is because of a refusal to accept access and opportunity as core values.

Matt Bird convincingly makes the case talent spotting for future success can be incredibly hard on a very tight process (worst case: one qualifying comp), given recent large variations in international route setting and the 'individuality' of every problem at a major event. On the men's side in particular there have been so many different finalists in the IFSC comps I've watched online in the last few years

Very well articulated. The treatment of the athletes by GB Climbing and the BMC seems to be ignored in this debate, the threads on the topic and the resolutions we all got so hot under the collar about.

The next few months will be critical is seeing whether the BMC can "do the right thing" wrt to the athletes.

Really chuffed for Erin McNeice and fantastic to see all that hard work pay off. It is always great to see someone continually improve and succeed, instead of a "natural wunderkind" style prodigy. 

Agreed. It’s even worse if a one-off event (and podium-level results there) is used to select for eligibility to even go to the actual trials, which looks like it could be a potential situation this year for anyone not currently in team.

If only it were that simple!

What you describe is not a 'structure', it's just a vague, informal chain of accountability. Formally, primacy is (and must be) with the Board. The members get to vote on who sits on the Board, but once there (for their term) the directors have primacy and must represent the interests of all the stakeholders (not just the 'shareholders') as they see fit. They are not legally allowed to represent any particular constituency. It's also worth pointing out that the issue of 'collective responsibility' in the Board is a double edged sword. Legally, each Director stands alone and individually takes legal responsibility for the operation of the Board. Internally, that operation *should* be collective (directors shouldn't openly oppose decisions voted in by the Board), but a director can and should resign if they are unwilling to accept that collective responsibility. It can be a difficult position, particularly for executive directors who have to be careful about which hat they're wearing at any given time (never both).

So yes, members 'hold everyone to account', but the only mechanism they have to do that is through who they vote onto (or off) the Board. Perhaps not what you might want, but that how it is and that's what we have to work with.

Well said. If the BMC was instead structured as a Charity, similar rules would apply to Trustees.  I'd say the BMC is at the unusually high end of membership power (in a membership organisation) to influence or agree, as provided through elected representatives on Council, given the rights in the Memorandum of Understanding with Council (especially on Reserved Matters) in our company Articles of Association.

We've heard that one before. Are they trying to be funny, because it f***ing isn't. This financial info jam tomorrow shit stops NOW or there's going to be a riot.

What is the reason you can't have it today? It better be good....

Let me know when you start, because it sounds like they're still taking the piss out of you and the membership.

How strict are they on proving where activities happen?
Alternatively, their AGM is in November, could maybe get enough support for a motion in there to look at rewording their articles......? Just make sure to use the correct obscure, obtuse, unpublicised, clandestine, secret process for doing so, obviously.

The staff have to put it all together for us after it's formally signed off by the Board. We were told at the meeting last night the final audit was only provided to the Board yesterday.  2024 financial plans rely on the content of 2023 accounts. 

I get why people are angry but some really need to think a bit more about what they target, especially in terms of reasonable timelines for a small staff team. The audit took the time it legally needed to under difficult and complex circumstances.

Why? Why can't you see what the board sees when the board sees it? I don't buy this excuse that you have to wait until the turd is finely polished before MC can see it. That's absolutely unnecessary.

There actually HAS been a change of individuals. CFO, CEO and Head of Performance in chronological order. 

"Structure" is something for the membership to decide at an AGM/EGM but "we are where we are". I would be interested in a governance model that we should adopt.