UKC

https://chng.it/WRLdt7wGJ2 240

To date the proposed resolutions linked above to disclose financial information has received the support of 261 members and the resolution to establish GB Climbing as an independent subsidiary has received the support of 221 members. 

Thank you everyone who has signed so far. 🙏🏻

Whilst there is still some way to go it would only take each signatory to persuade one other BMC member to sign up for us to easily clear the 0.5% threshold which is likely to be in the region of ~350 members (exact number to be confirmed). 

If successful the resolutions will then be included on the AGM agenda with all members given the opportunity to vote on them. 

Aside from the number of signatories still required there are a couple of other stumbling blocks that have emerged that I want to make folk aware of (nothing ever seems to be straightforward with the BMC).

*Governance wonkery alert* 

Firstly, there is a process that has been created in the last couple of years for member resolutions that I wasn’t aware of that was recently flagged up to me by one of the Directors on BMC Watch.  

This process requires a member resolution to be agreed with the Company Secretary and a web form is then created on the BMC website that members need to sign into to support the resolution. I don’t know how involved this web form registration process will be but I think it likely to be far less straightforward than registering on Change.Org

There are a few things I’d like to say about this web form process. First of all I set up the petition on Change.Org in good faith and those who have supported the resolutions so far have also signed in good faith and this web form process is not common knowledge (to say the least). In fact it has not ever been enacted to date because no member resolutions have been raised since its inception. To require those who have signed up to then have to re-sign would be a needless and irritating duplication. 

Consequently I have made the case that the members who have signed on Change.Org can be verified on the Membership database by name and postcode downloaded on a spreadsheet provided by Change.Org. I know for a fact this possible and furthermore this process of verification is for example more verifiable by the BMC to undertake than the physical signatures route which is also allowable in the articles. 

I also worry that the BMC route would be clunkier requiring passwords and membership numbers which will make it even more difficult to reach the required numbers especially given the context that ~350 members is a high number when typically, AGM voting participants often number lower than 1000 members.

Finally, it generally seems wrong to me that a member led resolution is administratively taken out of the hands of those proposing the resolution and put in the hands of the BMC office. 

I have made these points to the Company Secretary who kindly met me, and he will come back with a decision on whether this internal process must be followed or not.

The second issue was that I have recently explored is whether to concurrently escalate the resolutions through Members Council (whilst still gathering signatures on Change.Org). 

Members Council just require 25 signatures on a proposed resolution to discuss it and potentially vote it through directly onto the AGM. However, a potential fly in the ointment is sub clause 11.8.2b which is less than clear on whether a resolution rejected by the Council then voids a Members Resolution that subsequently gains the requisite number of supporters. 

Jonathan White a former Director who has recently carried out a Governance review believes it doesn’t but Andy Syme President who has been heavily involved with the creation of the current Articles believes it does. Again, I am awaiting a definitive response on this. 

If Andy’s interpretation is deemed correct, he has offered that if the resolutions don’t get the required level of support by the cut off date (27th April) then the Resolutions can then be put to the vote by Members Council on the 28th April. 

Irrespective I hope that the content of the resolutions are discussed at the next Members Council meeting on the basis of the level of support so far means it deserves to be. This can be facilitated by discussing the resolutions at the upcoming round of Area Meetings with your local area representatives to then escalate to Members Council. I will be doing my bit presenting at the next Peak Area meeting on the 8th of March. 

Link to BMC Articles:

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=2145

Previous UKC thread 

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

Here are a selection of public reasons given for supporting the petition to have these resolutions included:

“I fully support this proposal. All organisations should be transparent with members in how they utilise their finances and details should be published in a timely manner. It is wholly unacceptable for the BMC to use members funds to support GB Climbing activities which are making a loss”

“BMC should concentrate on access not funding an elite to compete”

“Its unacceptable for the BMC to be making a loss from Climbing GB activities”

“the BMC should serve the members and be transparent”

“The BMC must explain to its members where the money has gone”

Sheesh. I'm not a member but would support a resolution that says 'BMC members should spend more time climbing and less time navigating labyrinthine bureaucracy'

Most do! Those involved with the beuracracy would usually like to spend that time climbing too!

A pragmatic solution would be to put it on the agenda that is sent out with the formal notice of the AGM as a provisional item, if Members Council want it on the agenda it goes on, if they reject it and it gets the 0.5% of signatures (414 members based on 82,810 members stated in the August 2023 board minutes) before the AGM starts it automatically goes on the agenda, if it doesn't get the signatures and Members Council reject it it gets struck off the agenda.

Both of us, Rodney Gallagher and Andy Syme all bear some responsibility for the lack of clarity given that we were all involved in what I believe was the most recent change to the articles? There was quite a lot of work involved in that process over a short period of time so I am not surprised that there are areas which can be improved.

I wish so too. Making things obscure and complicated is a BMC trait.

I gather Jonathan White whilst still Director put together a report with over 100 governance improvement recommendations. That should keep the new Company Secretary busy.

Re members it has been flagged up that the number of members has sometimes been confused with number of memberships which can be different given that some are both individual and club members (maybe ~2000) but obviously don’t get two votes. Also it seems the articles don’t specify at what point in time the member number should be taken from…

If members council won't force your first proposal onto the agenda, then what the f*** are they for? Their whole raison d'être is to hold the board to account, which that absolutely is. And striking down of that motion absolutely isn't. So if they don't help with #1 I have no confidence in members council.

As for #2 I have sympathy for the arguments against forcing the debate. But on #1, they will retain no credibility if they won't help to push that.

Should clarify that:

I'm saying you should definitely approach MC with it if you haven't already. (Guessing some of them will be reading this anyway and might chime in). If they say no to the first item then my faith in them is shot, and with it any hope I had for a recovery in BMC governance. At that point I'd have to start making a lot of noise pushing for the clubs I'm in to drop/switch affiliation. And when I say "I", obviously I can't be the only one with this opinion.

So, FFS members council, who I know are listening, put item #1 on the agenda.

Quite frankly it would only take a public declaration by the Board to acknowledge the content of the resolution and commit to meeting to it for it to be redundant and shelved.

There is nothing there in terms of disclosure that shouldn’t already be in the public domain or available to members on request.

It’s ridiculous that we have to force the Board to do what they should already be doing as a matter of course. 

Well, quite. The board should have released the figures, but they haven't. MC should have forced the board to release the figures, but they haven't.

I have a fair bit of respect for at least some of the people who sit on MC, but if the MC actively prevents the members from forcing the board to release the figures, that's gone.

Raise a very similar but sufficiently different one then

Nice try! It would have to be materially different. See wording of 11.8.2 b

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=2145

I'm going to say give the MC an opportunity to act in the members' interest here, and encourage them to think carefully about the consequences of not doing so. But then beyond that, who is the arbiter of "materially different"?

I haven't seen or heard of any members of MC saying they wouldn't support the 1st motion.

Unsurprisingly there is less support for the second motion as it is going to incur a lot of disruption, and cost (both monetary and staff/ volunteer time) to achieve something that may not be very useful and can't be implemented quickly.

Crazy that it comes to this. BMC/GBC should simply be transparent about what money gets spent on. This is basically public money derived from taxation (plus our money from membership fees). Should be publicly available how it’s spent. 

Well, yeah. We're all astonished by the state it's in. If a reasonable group of people was in charge they'd be shocked and embarrassed and do something about it. But that's not where we are.

I am currently half way through drafting something that suggests how an independent subsidiary might be structured and achieve financial independence. And yes it most likely won’t be implemented quickly (because that’s the BMC for you) but will help insure that the BMC doesn’t have to subsidise GBClimbing anymore thereby protecting its finances in the long term and enabling it to go back to concentrating on its other mainstream activities. 

Note, at the SW area meeting on Tuesday, the CEO said that the accounts are being audited and should be published shortly, which would render motion 1 pointless. I personally would be against motion 2 and made this clear at the meeting. 

That would be the best outcome. 

Noting that is not the first time we've heard that, let's have it on the agenda anyway though shall we? Just in case it's bullshit this time too.

If that happens everyone's happy. Taking a generous view, belated accounts that are audited and accurate are better than figures that shift. 

Can a member of an affiliated club sign your petition, or is it just for individual members?

Affiliated club members have identical voting rights to individual members (and rightly so) so yes.

What Spenser said

Ta muchly 

There is no requirement for the audited accounts to separatly identify GBC cost / income so I suspect they won't either at all or at the level of detail requested. 

I don't think this would render motion 1 pointless because I don't think it would give the detail which is wanted. Doesn't need to be in great depth but does need to detail what the GB Climbing part of BMC spent on different activities divided into eg staff costs, ground travel, accomodation, airfares. If any funds were actually directed towards athletes this should also be detailed!

Motion 2 is about separating out GBC which is only involved with the elite competition climbers. The BMC would still be able to support local competitions and as a result encourage young people into climbing generally.

As I tried to say at the SW meeting there is a real difficulty for young people who enjoy climbing to develop their climbing passion if they are not into competition climbing or have parents that climb because most clubs won’t admit them until they are 18 because of the safeguarding issues and the BMC should be being proactive in supporting clubs in this regard, and if the BMC wasn’t so obsessed with the elite competitions they would be able to do so.

The BMC launched a pilot project hoping to address this last summer:

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/youth-clubs-pilot

I don't know how it's progressing, but you aren't the only one who has rightly noticed it is an issue.

I'm afraid this was about getting existing youth clubs, scouts etc to affiliate to the BMC and therefore increase the BMC's income. It does nothing to make it easier for youngsters to get into climbing

It doesn't read like that at all? It sounds like a similar set up to my local canoe club (Midland Canoe Club) which gets loads of kids out on the water.

I'm not sure how much Scouts has changed in the last 8 or 9 years, however I can't see them being able to focus on one or more mountaineering activities, or hold a training session each week, back then most groups were struggling for volunteers just to do the core programme of stuff.

I’m going to express some cautious optimism having met the new CEO on Monday. He was down to earth and open to my suggestions of greater detail in the annual report and the filed accounts. It was then even more encouraging to learn that at the latest Members Council they received an almost overwhelming amount of accounting information. 

Webpage up about with details of the 2024 AGM and justifying why it is online only 

https://thebmc.co.uk/bmc-annual-general-meeting

Seems that under 18’s aren’t allowed to vote (for reasons I can’t fathom) which would again whittle down the voting member numbers