UKC

GB CLIMBING

Just a quick note for those who may be unaware.

If you've got anything you'd like to share with a group of people who keep an eye on The BMC, please note you can also share experiences, raise concerns, etc about GB CLIMBING on the BMC WATCH on Facebook.

I was hoping for a limited edition Garmin.

It only goes from 19:44 to 20:23 though....

Is Chris Packham involved?

Why do people feel the need to create a new anonymous profile to post things, what are they afraid of?

Facebook really turned curtain-twitching into an art form.

Deselection? 

Yes, or bullying...

Bullying or deselection.

It's not a healthy place within GBC at the moment.  The selection process is in disarray.  The CBG managers & BMC leaders haven't got it right, and they've admitted that but for some it's too little too late.  Volunteers & parents, the climbers & their coaches have had to step in to try recover something from it.  There are young people who've given up places at university or jobs to compete for GB at the highest level & the current selection process doesn't support that.  

When athletes, parents & coaches raise concerns they get no support, in fact there are incidents of bullying against them for speaking out.

The post is to help these climbers know there are people who care & are willing to help.  On BMC Watch there are no nick-names & there's Messenger so people can see who each other are & can contact them for support.

There can be a lot of tearing down & mocking on UKC so people hide...

Thanks for posting this. The concerns you describe above are real. As you say athletes and their parents are making life changing decisions about schooling, exams etc. it is good for them to know that there may be some support available because when faced with arbitrary decisions which appear to have no sense or logic it can be very difficult 

If there is evidence of this I would imagine that the wider membership would support people coming forward and take an exceptionally dim view of this kind of mistreatment of athletes, of the people I know on members council I can't think of any who would see this as acceptable.

I personally have next to no interest in competition climbing, but I equally don't want those participating in it to be unduly disadvantaged in life due to bullying or incompetence on someone else's behalf. I suspect a lot of members feel this way.

BMC Watch is a group of people interested in good governance and general health of the BMC (although I disagree strongly with how some on there seek to achieve that), it has no actual power within the BMC and while you may get sympathy and a bit of awareness on there if you want something to make its way onto council's agenda to address contact your area rep, your constituency rep, or write a letter with 25 members' signatures and submit it to the office. There a couple of councillors on there as well (I know Andy Say is definitely), as is the president (Andy Syme, although I don't think he follows it as closely as some others given that he spends a lot of time focused on his role as president).

I've said it before and will say it again, if GBC, or the wider BMC, is punishing athletes for raising concerns about how something is done and the management are aware of this, they are not fit to act in the role of NGB.

Your posts are broadly consistent with many views on Facebook and elsewhere and have been made many times on here (including in UKC news posts) without bullying.

I would only question one point... you must mean chosen to delay applying to Uni (offers of places would always be held open for elite sport involvement)  or getting qualifications for a job to focus on climbing (rather than focus on A levels etc), given the ages of the athletes involved.

As for site comparisons, some posts on BMC Watch are unfair and some are plain untrue, and as such I see an anti-BMC bias in the moderation on that site: clearly false posts are removed by moderators here. As an example of blatant unfairness, individuals have been singled out for criticism when under BMC governance any failure must be wider than senior paid management. The BMC has a Board and governance structures involving Council and CCPG to try and prevent the failures outlined in the CCPG review report. 

I'd agree but that's why independent complaint (etc) processes should normally be used. As too many have clearly lost trust, the complainees have used other routes: several have gone direct through councillors they trust, plus David has been very vocal and sits on CCPG as a parental rep. This is no help for those facing 'slower than it should be' resolution: a point made by a young athlete at the AGM: their window of opportunity will have gone.

The CCPG review report clearly shows that this is not working

Must it? Sometimes it’s simply that a paid employee is failing to do their job properly 

It shows GBC has had problems and lists them. Council were initially 'kept out of the loop' apparently due to concerns (including staff being identified before internal processes were completed) but that was pretty daft and subsequently increasingly frustrating given the fact that various reports were made publicly on parental Facebook groups.

No surprise you have that opinion, since you have form on such actions. Making public statements about individual staff where no disciplinary issues have been identified and where they can't reply, is at a minimum unethical and at worse potentially libellous (certainly applying to any staff below the CEO).

How do you know what gets posted on the private parents FB group? 
 

Also as it is a private group the reports you are referring to (whatever they were) aren’t exactly public. 

People sent them to me and I picked up stuff second hand that came from some coaches and athletes. It seemed an open secret to me in late 2022. I'm amazed you didn't know.

Not sure what open secret you are referring to or why you would assume I would be privy to the posting in a private FB group set up only for parents of athletes.

Up until recently I’ve kept a distance from the BMC as everything seemed fine and dandy on the surface. Clearly all a facade. 

How on earth am I supposed to explain why people didn't contact you? As for membership numbers our Peak NEC rep was raising concerns about risk there in our area meeting from mid 2022.

The Board has primacy and with that comes responsibility and accountability,  no excuses, no sloping shoulders, no blaming others

There were specific instances mentioned in another thread. When the sun stops shining I will try to go back and find the posts. I think they were posted under pseudonyms for the very reasons mentioned, i.e. deselection/bullying.

You may be able to find them yourself. I am not sure whether they were on UKC or Facebook.

We can agree the Board has primacy but it's not the only part of BMC governance with responsibility. Also, if other parts of governance don't act (or are hindered) responsibility becomes even more complex. Whatever, Council have been working hard on these genuine problems since late March; also urging more openess to members.

The history of governance shows that people with power will sometimes create problems in almost any system. Which is why the Council position, following good governance practice, was a broadly 'no blame' approach to problem resolution.

Specific instances of what John? If we are talking about athletes worrying about being deselected for whistleblowing, that seems to have been genuine and most certainly should never have happened. Since the AGM that's been public domain as far as the BMC is concerned (as opposed to an earlier 'open secret') but also it's been clear that athletes and parents can trust David (as a parents rep) and those BMC councillors acting as proxies, to ensure such concerns don't get ignored in future. If you want people to complain on BMC Watch I think that's a bad idea, unless all else fails.

Thanks John, not seen anything specific other the Innsbruck cars stuff, just rumours about their being issues that had been poorly dealt with the BMC.

The Innsbruck incident was bad enough.

For those not aware this is where it was reported that the £27k of transport costs incurred due to poor planning by the BMC/GB Climbing was then retrospectively charged to the parents who were then threatened with non-selection if they did not pay.
 

I’m not aware of this. Can you elaborate given minutes won’t be published till next year.

Nothing much more than that. The BMC say the processes are confidential and independent and should be used but some athletes and parents clearly don't trust that route. My view is the process specifics matter less when so many concerns are so obvious (as they have been more anonymously raised through other routes). The BMC needs to get on with rebuilding trust and act on the CCPG recommendations.

I agree the Innsbruck incident alone is appalling but John was suggesting there were other issues on top of that.

It has been reported to me, as an Area Rep, that a Junior selection event had problems set at an inappropriate level (adult semi-final standard I seem to recall).

Some juniors refused to participate, some were left 'in bits' as they struggled to get off the floor and of those that did participate some (three or four) were left with finger injuries.

As I say, this is something reported to me that I can't independently verify but on the face of it it's not good.

Thanks Andy, definitely not what the athletes should expect!

And there's a whole debate in the use of the term 'athletes' isn't there? Personally I prefer to think of them, and refer to them, as 'climbers'. Laura Muir is a 'runner'; Jonathan Edwards was a 'triple jumper'. Our squad members are 'climbers'. All of them are generically 'athletes'.

I know it's a total pedant point but I would like to think of the GB squad as competitive climbers; reinforcing that they are part of the BMC 'broad church' rather than summat a bit weird that we just accommodate. You've only got to look at what Toby Roberts has done on rock and that lad who came back from the Bern competition and fired off an on-sight of Strawberries (can't remember the name 🙄) to realise that they do belong.

Sorry, Spenser. Pretty off-topic and not aimed at you but I can't help thinking that this 'athlete' label is designed to simply enhance 'sporting respectability' with the powers that be. Of course, if they want to be 'athletes' rather than 'climbers' that's fine.

Enough. I'll get back to trying to sort out the smorgasbord that is UKC logbook entries for the Frankenjura. (WHY can't people put crags in the right bloody place on the bloody map.....)

Oh they are definitely climbers as well, I was trying to differentiate between portly gentlemen like ourselves who are climbers and the finely honed technical masters who compete in these competitions, particularly given that the issue raised is specific to competitions.

I think I've gone past 'portly, Spenser! 😂