UKC

Here’s my summary and take on last night’s ‘Open Forum’ hosted by the BMC’s Board of Directors:

There was a 100 in attendance and we were told a 100 questions sent in in advance. It was less ‘open’ than past open  forums as only the Directors were allowed to speak - the attendees were muted throughout and you couldn’t see who the other attendees where. Even the chat function was disabled. Questions could be sent in by attendees during the course of the meeting but only the Directors could see those questions. A lot of what was said by the Directors was scripted. The whole setup seemed somewhat over controlling to me and disengaging being talked at like this to say the least. Hopefully future forums will improve on this.

Three Directors spoke namely Andy Syme (President) Roger Murray (Chair) and Martin Hurn (Nominated Director). Of the three Roger was by far the most engaging and least scripted.

Andy Syme spoke the most. It wasn’t helped that his audio set up was echoey and picked up whispering of others in the room. The content largely reiterated what had already been sent out in updates so was superfluous and time could have been used better elsewhere. The lengthy listing of competition successes would be a complete turn-off to an attendee who had no interest in this facet of climbing and reinforced the notion that rather too much of the BMC’s attention was in this area. 

Roger addressed my question at length (which I’m sure had been posed by others) on the £200k+ budgeting error. How this came about has obviously been looked at in great detail. The description of the UK Sport funding (which is markedly  different, more complex, more constrained and contractually obscure than Sport England funding that the BMC is more familiar with) was illuminating. Despite his comforting bedside manner the more I have subsequently thought about his answer on this the less reassured I am and don’t feel the full story is known or has been relayed. 

WRT to the former Head of Finance Roger said she resigned having implemented a new Sage system which he describes as great success believing that she had left the BMC finances in a steady state unaware of the £200k+ inclusion of non existent grant funding. 

In terms of the deficit for the year Roger says this is now likely to be £300-350k as opposed to the £250-300k cited in the November update which was published only three weeks ago! He says he has been assured by Ian Dickinson the Head of the Finance Committee that the reserve limit of £500k won’t be breached this year. On this note I have heard rumours that some spending that truly belongs in this year is being pushed into next year maybe to avoid this breach. If true that is disappointing as it is another example of a dishonest accounting sleight of hand pulling wool over the eyes of the membership. 

Martin Hurn held forth on the GBClimbing issues. He seemed irked by claims that the Board was seemingly not doing anything and went on to explain what they had been doing. I’ll leave it to others closer to GBC to comment on how satisfied they were with the answer. The no confidence letter was mentioned but the leadership issue was not in anyway addressed. They have a consultant (Jo Coates?) described as a force of nature working with GBC and are waiting on her report which rather sounds like a stalling tactic given the amount of info already supplied by the CCPG report and listening sessions. 

The CEO recruitment is down to two candidates who Roger was clearly excited about as he described them as fantastic with either capable of doing the job and doing it well albeit both would approach the role in very different ways. 

There was passing mention of a restructure in the new year. No doubt this would be led by the new CEO. 

The Open Forum has worked well previously and I was disappointed it wasn’t continued. The intention is to continue it now and I hope that becomes embedded this time. The dates for the next ones are 13 Mar, 22 May, 11 Sept and 11 Dec - some possibly to be held in person. There should be a survey sent to attendees to provide feedback which is also a welcome initiative.

Thanks for posting your impressions of the forum. But it does not sound like a two way interaction, more a 'here is what we doing, and please do not ask awkward questions, which if you do we will just give you the party line'.  Hope the next one is better. 

And if any one asks, no I was not one of the attendees.

John Gresty

The meeting was recorded. Hopefully the BMC will release the recording so those who didn’t attend can form their own judgements. 

Natalie Berry has produced a fairly detailed report https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2023/12/bmc_open_forum_meeting_december_202... which, having not attended the meeting, I read with interest. Do you think that's a fair assessment of the meeting, or does anything need amplifying?

It’s a comprehensive, professional and factual account of the meeting. Natalie is always thorough. It’s not an editorial or opinion piece though.

I think I’ve amplified the things I found important except to comment that I got no sense from what was said of their being personal ownership for what has happened from the Board or contrition.

I understand that each of the Directors have personally invested a huge amount of personal time dealing with the issues that is well above and beyond what might be expected for volunteer roles and this was also covered by Roger.

However, the insurance issue aside, all the problems have been of the BMC’s own creation with the Board insufficiently aware or responsive to what has been going on at large in the organisation. The expected loss is an eye watering overspend of members money but they haven’t felt compelled to apologise. 

However I must temper my previous remarks  by praising the current Access team for being very open about their recent activities.  

John Gresty

Thanks for that, John. Whilst there have undeniably been some systemic failings and specific problems over the last year it IS important to recognise that BMC staff continue to work on our behalf and do a thoroughly good job!

Aye. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

There is some ambiguity in what you said - I would hope this means that they are delaying the spending of cash until next year. If so, they are quite entitled to do that and it won't in any way affect the profit or loss in the accounts. It's not sleight of hand, it's sensible management of cash.

The alternative is that it could mean they are delaying booking accounting expenses or liabilities until next year. I think that's unlikely, not least because it is also not sleight of hand, it is fraud.

Auditors quite rightly pay close attention to this issue of timing, because there is a fraud risk there. I would hope that the BMCs auditors do enough work over this that we can have reasonable confidence that any such time shift isn't material.

Edit: I initially wrote and re-wrote a load of semi-technical accounting speak above to explain why delaying cash payments doesn't affect P&L.

I then deleted it all in the interests of trying not to cause the brains of non-accountants to dribble mournfully from their ears. If there are any wierdos like me that are actually interested in the technicality I'm happy to explain in more detail by email or PM or something. I hope everyone else will just trust me...

Thanks for the summary Simon. I wasn't able to attend and it is helpful to get more than one perspective on something like this.

YHM

I attended and asked 2 questions, both of which were answered (insurance & governance).

Without doubt the BMC is going through a difficult time, as are many similar organisations post COVID.

Mistakes have been made, but I get the impression that they are trying to learn from them and improve.

I have no interest in competition climbing, but I'm happy for the BMC to be involved.

The new CEO will have a lot of work to do, but that is the nature of the job.

It would be nice to see the Directors moving away from operational involvement to concentrate on strategic matters and holding senior Officers to account (which Roger acknowledged).

I keep meaning to attend a Peak Area meeting, but I'm too busy going away climbing.

The BMC is not perfect, but I feel that overall it is doing okay.

Nonetheless, it is important for members to keep asking questions and for the leadership team to respond.

I attended as well - my questions related mainly to competition climbing and they weren't answered.

I can see how you might have come away thinking that things are broadly on the mend, but... I have quite a lot of recent experience of comp climbing/GBC, and I can say with confidence that the account given of GB Climbing was misleading - full of evasions, bullshit, false accounts, spin and, frankly, gaslighting. It became clear that at least some of the directors are prepared to prop up a leadership team they know is incompetent.

As I know they are misleading members about comp climbing, I no longer trust what they have to say in other areas - including, crucially, finances.

This was my take on it. I through Martyn Hern was very condescending and dismissive of the concerns. They haven't even bothered to reply to those who raised the issues and used Jo Coats as an excuse. Do they really need another review 🤔

Do you have any details or is this just opinion?

I’m a bit reluctant to share much publicly at this stage, but here’s one small example.

The director with oversight of GBC said at the forum that there had been a 'successful induction event' for the 2024 GB Squad.

This mandatory event was billed as ‘fun and interactive’. There was no fun, and the only interactivity was at 3pm when some post-it notes were handed out. Apart from that it was 7 hours in a room being talked at.

They hadn’t sent out any info about the venue other than the name, so lots of people (including staff) couldn’t find it.

They sent out an email at 6pm the night before (when lots of people would already have been travelling) asking athletes to complete a task in preparation – in many cases people simply didn’t have time to do this.

There was supposed to be an anti-doping session but the relevant member of staff wasn’t available so it didn’t happen.

There was supposed to be a Q&A session but that didn’t happen.

GBC were unable to supply basic information (e.g. about medical/health policies; the purpose of the squad; dates and content of the squad programme over the winter).

Many athletes/parents will have given up a day of training, or missed/rearranged work commitments to attend, but came away without having been given the information/sessions that were promised. Many athletes incurred considerable travel/accommodation costs. The information that was provided could easily have been sent by email or via a Zoom call.

You asked for facts rather than opinion so I’ve tried to focus on that, but as you might imagine based on the above, a lot of athletes and parents were seriously unimpressed (though not alas surprised). I think they would dispute the idea the event was 'successful', and their word probably carries more weight than a director who I’m pretty sure did not attend so is not in a position to judge. 

I have more mixed feelings about it, myself - I would prefer on balance not to be funding competition climbing with my subs. 

…..  however, on reading the Winter 23 issue of Summit, I was surprised and rather relieved (but somewhat suspicious) to see that (apparently) no part of my subs are going to fund competition climbing; at least, that is what is implied in the Membership Fees 2024: “Where does your fee go?”section, in which no mention is made of competitions. 
 

Seriously? Even Paul Davies said it’s £2.30 a member (which you can take with a pinch of salt)

Can you reproduce what the breakdown is said to be please (I’m a club member so only get the Spring edition). 

it’s not a formal breakdown with figures, but a set of bullet points with brief paragraphs:

Improved access ….

influencing and lobbying government …..

Conservation projects …..

Protecting your safety through advice, training and support, discounted training programmes …..

Producing inspirational informative content ….

Encouraging people from all backgrounds and ability levels to share a love of the outdoors ….

 …..that’s it for “Where does your fee go?” There is a panel underneath entitled “Benefits of membership” in which the eleventh and last bullet point is: Access to mountain leader and instructor qualifications and national climbing competitions.

I must say I have been expecting some more reaction to this, given the controversial nature of the issue. It beggars belief that those putting together that issue of Summit simply forgot to mention comp climbing in a panel entitled “Where does your fee go?”, but the more serious alternative is that it was deliberately omitted. It may of course be that there’s an angle I’ve missed, so if there is an explanation/justification, I’d really like to hear it