UKC

Hopefully the below is explanatory. Do you think BMC Members should be given the opportunity to vote on whether GBClimbing is made independent of the BMC?

"The BMC" disagrees, things are better as they are, no more will be said on the matter. I jest, but I think the recent announcements do hint at a cultural problem of detachment and maybe some arrogance at the BMC? I'm generally in favour of financially protecting the rest of the organisation from competition climbing, but I'm not sure it really solves the broader issue on its own.

The Wildcat thread being yet another (minor) example - it contained nothing more than a post asking about another strategy for securing access some other people had been considering, and the official BMC account came along saying they were going to get some posts removed (which they did, and I am now banned from replying to it, for reasons that evade me). Even though everybody realises the BMC does important work on access, I'm not comfortable with them anointing themselves the arbiters of what is permitted to be discussed on the topic.

Because some posts, when read by landowners (as they will be) do not help the volunteers negotiating access on our behalf? 

I’m not a fan of competition climbing as I think it will change the ethos of climbing, but I am a regular indoor wall climber as well as an outdoor climber and I have seen how popular competition climbing is with young people and some go on to climb outside which is great.

What I want to see from the BMC is its priorities focused on what the majority of its members want – access. Indoor climbing has its own commercial promotors as does competition climbing. That doesn’t mean that I think competitions should be separate from the BMC or that the BMC shouldn’t be the NGB because it is all climbing, but I do think that it should be properly managed and that members don’t get sucked into having to subsidise competition climbing. If that means GB Climbing being a subsidiary of the BMC so be it, but the important thing is that GBC’s finances are ring fenced so that members are clear how much it is costing them.

This will be particularly relevant when the increase in subscriptions comes up and also when the requirement to match fund increases from 15% to 25% or heavens forbid when SE reduces its funding.

 I assumed it would cover all those and talent development. They all cost money except the YCS which makes a few bob

Which is my point precisely - that other people's approaches to access are not to be discussed if they feel they may interfere with their own efforts. I've been a member of the BMC for a number of years, both individually and through more than one club (which I haven't yet bothered to reclaim the money from) and I don't feel comfortable with them "representing" me in that way by using their contacts to shut people up, nor should they be shutting down discussion in meetings as was also mentioned (although I don't really have strong feelings about this specific case).

I am sceptical that pretending to the landowner that there is universal acceptance of the arrangement is really going to help things either.

Others are of course free to agree with "the BMC" - I use quotes as I appreciate that it was only one person.

PS: For reference, my post in that thread was purely about the attitude of the BMC, I shan't repost it as it was evidently considered semi-ban-worthy. However, I had intended to reply after the deletion with something to the effect of "Great work, I think everybody is in agreement that this is a great success", which I thought was rather witty for those who had read it before - alas it was not to be!

Rab presented to the Board the two options of an independent subsidiary or an independent internal department with an oversight body (the CCPG) but he was adamant that it had to be treated as independent as if it was a separate entity. The Board went with the latter option but the independent bit was forgotten and the CCPG has for the most part become a toothless rubber stamper. Unfortunately ring fencing has failed. A stronger structure is needed. 

This was one of the areas that took quite a lot of energy during the organisation review and as the summary of the member surveys said:

The involvement of the BMC in competition and sport climbing is seen as a major challenge, and some feel this area is so separate from the BMC’s other activities in securing access to crags, mountains and open countryside, that the two need to be managed separately.

The final recommendation on this was:

"The BMC should create a joint subsidiary for competitive activities in partnership with Mountaineering Scotland and other relevant home nation governing bodies for the purposes of managing competitive activities and to support elite level competitive activities such as Team GB"

"Following the member consultation and discussions with Mountaineering Scotland, the ORG felt compelled to strengthen and amend this recommendation. The ORG recommends that
a joint subsidiary should be created, in partnership with Mountaineering Scotland and where appropriate, other recocgnised UK governing bodies for relevant competitive activities. This is required to ensure transparency of decision making in relation to all aspects of the Olympics and competitions across the home nations."

I'm sure there were the reasons, but I never really understood nor got got a full explanation as to why this was implemented as an internal department and not more in line with the recommendation. We are where we are, but it may well have helped ensure more transparency,  ring fencing and separation of activities which is what members still seem to be raising as issues. The issues the BMC has currently are more complex, having had to deal with Covid and the economy as it is, but this still seems like a sensible recommendation.

I gather it wasn’t unanimous or clear cut either way but the clincher was the cost of setting it up and the GBClimbing Board.

I think it's a little premature. We're still awaiting the statement on GBC finances we've been promised. On the face of it, GBC looks like it could be a considerable financial burden if the BMC has to plug the gaps in its finances, and there seem to be serious concerns about how effectively it spends its money and what financial controls the BMC can exercise. 

I think competition climbing should remain in the BMC if possible, but it is starting to look like the tail is wagging the dog, and if it is a risk to the financial sustainability of the BMC and its core activities then I might change my mind.

Both myself and my kids are regular indoor and outdoor climbers, ranging from trad through multi pitch sport to alpine.

I'm not into competition climbing, but I do believe that it should sit within the umbrella of UK mountaineering representation (i.e BMC, MC of S etc).

My concern is that the BMC appears to have lost its way somewhat and is possibly no longer properly representing the interests of its members. 

So I have voted 'yes' in the poll, but if the BMC were to organise a poll, I would also vote to retain GB Climbing under the BMC, although I would be open to alternative governance mechanisms to the current model.

Depends...

If the poll merely asked whether GB Climbing should be independent of the BMC then I'd be against such a poll.

If it gave all the possible governance structures (*) that increased that independence (after suitable publication of how those alternatives would work), then I'd agree with having a poll.

(*) i.e. keep current, independent subsidiary, subsidiary with MCoS etc, totally separate, and any others 

Just voted "Don't know". I'm not sure we (the members) yet have enough information on the BMC's finances to judge. Basically, who is subsidising whom? Is Sport England and other grant funding  helping to fund senior posts from which access and other member interests benefit? Or Is the 15% match funding that Sport England requires coming from the subscriptions of members with no interest in competitions and talent development. In the latter case my vote would be "Yes".

Martin

My understanding of the question is that you are asking people if they are in favour of the principle of separating GB climbing from BMC.

• I can understand why people respond - "Don't care". There are many reasons why people may not care
• I understand why people respond - "Don't know". The issue is a bit complicated
• I understand why people respond - "Yes"  Because they are either in either in favour of a separation; or against and want the matter resolved so the BMC can move on.
• But I don't understand why anyone would vote "No". 

Quite. Any vote would be in danger of having some of the same problems as the Brexit vote where one of the options was ill-defined so people had lots of different ideas of that they were voting for, except in this case both options could potentially be entirely unclear unless it was really carefully managed. At least nobody would have the budget to put any slogans on buses.

Because they are scared of the result?

I've been pondering the consequences of a split, and the difference between wall climbing and real climbing in general.

As observed elsewhere, the BMC don't seem to be engaging with walls and wall climbers well. And why would walls want to encourage their customers to climb outside?

What is to be feared from a split? That a separate competition climbing entity moves from wall-only events, to real climbing events, and therefore comes into conflict with the wishes of BMC and its members in terms of access, ethics and bolting agreements?

People should not discuss access in case landowners get annoyed? And BMC should censor its own members? What kind of fresh BS is this? Can't believe the state of UKC forums that this nonsense got 30ish likes...

Nobody has suggested that access shouldn't be discussed, only that having contentious discussions about specific crags in a forum that the landowner in question is known to read is likely to be counter-productive. It's just good sense.

In some quarters amongst the very old guard there is some history/baggage/grudge related to the involvement of a former BMC Presdent who was also I think the UIAA President when the IFSC split away from the UIAA. This has been cited as a bad thing insofar as the IFSC has gone on to be bigger and more successful than the parent organisation.
 

However, I suspect it was a good thing as the IFSC under Marco Scolaris with a single minded drive and purpose got climbing into the Olympics - good if you think climbing in the Olympics is good that is!

Would that drive and ambition been successfully realised if the IFSC had been stifled being part of the UIAA and the compromises that might have entailed? My wholly uninformed guess is no. Non core businesses that have been spun out of larger organisations have been noted to perform better. An example is Astra Zeneca spun out of ICI.

In the same way I think GBClimbing might go onto big and better things unshackled from the BMC. Or it might fall on its face. But at least it is responsible for its own destiny. Certainly it’s not doing very well at the moment. Huge sums being spent with seemingly little actually helping the athletes. Ive heard that one parent of a particularly successful athlete say that their success was despite rather than because of the BMC !

In fairness that post I made contained nothing that wasn't discussed in an area meeting that Manor Adventure staff could have attended, ideas gleamed from a Google search about a legal topic and a statement of the obvious about how local climbers feel.

I got a telling off over email from Ian, apologised and said he was welcome to report any of my posts which were a concern, he duly did and everyone responding to my post had theirs taken down.

I tried to initiate a discussion to clarify details at the area meeting and was shut down as some old bloke was making very visible throat cutting gestures at the meeting chair during the previous topic as the timings on the agenda were at risk and I think he started making gestures again when I asked a question. I did initiate a short discussion with Paul Davies during the previous agenda item on the value of volunteers and the necessity of two way trust that had been compromised by the communications absence the week before last and the gesticulating chap with the white hair seemed upset.

I guess it depends what 'success' looks like...

I'd venture that the majority of BMC members have no interest in competition climbing; traditionally, climbing was something people often took up specifically because there was no competitive element.

If a competition climbing entity becomes successful (by whatever measure of success), then, provided it doesn't impinge on BMC and members, isn't everybody happy? Unless the BMC leadership see competition climbing as a cash cow at some point in the future (because it appears to be a money pit at the moment), and wish to cash in on that future.

Seems like the BMC need to decide what their purpose is. Again...?

This is the issue as I see it. We're all keen to hate on comp climbing because we don't want to subsidise it. I definitely don't want to. Doesn't interest me in the slightest and the IFSC has made a lot of decisions I vehemently disagree with. But if it were to turn into cash the other way in future I'm sure we'd all be more than happy for the BMC to run it. So having given it some thought it feels a bit like we're all (self included) basing our opinions on the direction of cash flow rather than the principle. If the spend can be reigned in we'll all probably go quiet.

Because there are real implications for the crossover from indoor to outdoor sport

The BMC seemed to be funded adequately under its current model, that seems to be sustainable. I'm not sure I see a need for further income, but I'm sure people would welcome a reduction in subs. Presumably, the imagined income is from sponsorship or TV rights for competition climbing. We shall see, I guess.

Well yes, most of us are pretty tolerant as long as we're not paying for it. I hate comp climbing on principle and personally I'd prefer it to go away and die, but if the BMC can run it without any detriment to the core services that I do care about then I'm happy to just ignore it and leave them to it. 

Do we all really have the requisite knowledge of company law and governance and accounting/ finance for our votes to inform the best outcome?

This genuinely isn't meant to be a dig but I suspect most on UKC don't. I wouldn't without doing some more research into the specifics and as a chartered accountant and auditor I am likely more informed than many.

Unless you give much more detailed info about the proposal and the pros and cons* the question just becomes bus-side rhetoric.

*It would be naive in the extreme to think there are not significant cons to spinning out a an operation into a subsid.

A representative body getting comments from its own members removed from the Internet is "just good sense"? The level of political education in the C21 is astounding... No wonder politics around the world is in the state that it is...

Voted "No" because I think it's too complicated an issue, basically. As I see it, even as an access and conservation organization the BMC benefits in various ways from being associated with top-level climbing competitions, but figuring out a) what constitutes value for money for the majority of members who view it as an access and conservation (and 3rd party liability insurance) organization, and b) how to organize the BMC to ensure that those members get that value for money are quite complicated questions that don't lend themselves well to being voted on by a large number of people who probably haven't got the time or the inclination to dig into the arguments properly, particularly when there's going to be a vocal minority who want to simplify the argument to the BMC being taken over by evil competition climbers who want to steal your money and stop all access work as a result and this being the only way to save it..

I reported one of posts in that thread too as I care too much about going climbing at that particular crag than scoring points on a internet forum and thought an extra email might speed up the process of the posts being removed as has already been discussed on the thread.  The BMC AND THE LANDOWNER should both be applauded for resuming the access agreement even if it has some limitations. 

Do you want to separate the BMC from 'sport climbing'? What happens when 'indoor people' want to climb outdoors? That's a very extreme endcase, but these things happen

It's also a simplistic yes/no question with the consequences badly explained and I'd have thought you might have learnt a lesson on how easy it is to spin this sort of thing, with no comprehension of what comes after.

Rare of me to agree with Steve Woolard, but I'd be looking to ringfence the competition part is a transparent manner, within a BMC framework

What do you mean ‘inevitably end’. A lot of indoor climbing is already under the umbrella of the ABC not the BMC. What specifically do you see the BMC losing out on? The question in the OP is overly simplistic (which is why I voted don’t know) but you seem to have some specific views on what we would lose.

The ABC is a trade body rather than a representative body, or a governing body so it does a different job to what the BMC does (although it does work with the BMC and have an overlap in some areas). I know that technical issues affecting multiple walls sometimes come back to BMC Technical Committee for technical commentary so even with them being separate organisations there isn't a division of "not my problem" between the two (not least because the success of climbing walls, ABC members, is generally in the interests of their users, existing and potential BMC members.

If a lot of indoors stuff is already under the umbrella of the ABC, and you remove comps and that structure from the BMC as well, then the relevance of the BMC to indoors climbers becomes even less.

One of the frequent cries on this forum when there's overcrowding, or litter, too much chalk etc. is to blame it on indoors climbers.. if ethical lectures and nice posters are all the BMC's involvement amounts too, then don't expect much traction from them.  Who will fill that space? Safe belaying and all that sort of stuff? Don't expect 'this is what I do outdoors' to be worth much as you're saying it's a different sport, different rules

Personally I wish the BMC had more involvement with indoor climbing... it's closer to the bolt clipping a lot of us do than hiking (although that shouldn't be separated either).

I voted No & hopefully this poll will go nowhere.

As with much of social media it is a relatively small number of people shouting about things while most members just get on with some climbing.

Clearly forums are a good place to explore ideas. However, the route for any changes should be via the area committees & member council (or whatever it is called - I'm not sure).

My worry about this agenda is that it could take an awful lot of time from Officers & volunteers. Time, that in my opinion, would be better spent doing more of what the BMC currently do, which is fine by me.

In fairness, it's trying. This is where most people now start to climb, and if the BMC can catch them early it can ensure that membership numbers are maintained or even grow.  This was part of the discussion around 'Climb Britain' and the BMC is keen to pursue it.  The problem is identifying what it can offer to indoor climbers. 

Quite possibly indoor climbers, and younger climbers, are more interested in competitions than the current membership. However I wonder how many actually participate? I question whether merely following competitions, no matter how avidly, would be sufficient reason in itself for most to join the BMC. I may be wrong, but I don't expect the BMC's support for competition climbing to do much to boost the membership numbers.

Almost the entire financial deficit in 2022 can be attributed to the costs of supporting GB Climbing and the World Cup at Ratho. To me that seems disproportionate. There are questions over how well GBC spends its money, and whether BMC is able to exercise any control over this or is simply there to pick up the tab. 

If competition climbing can pay its way with a contribution from the BMC which is proportionate to the value its members put on it, and which does not jeopardise its core services or financial sustainability, then I am content for it to remain in the BMC, although I have zero interest in it myself. If this cannot be achieved then we have to ask what it can bring to the BMC to justify the cost? Perhaps then it should go its own way. 

Thank you everyone who voted, whatever your vote was. I’m encouraged by the majority view that there should be a member vote on the issue of whether GBClimbing should be separated out. With 244 people voting that indicates that there is probably enough wider support to force a vote if Members Council and the Board fails to deliver.

I was shocked at the time when the Board voted not to follow the ORG recommendation of setting up a separate subsidiary given the research, knowledge and talent that went into that report.

The ORG recommendation for it being made independent was underpinned by its independence facilitating openness and transparency. With GBClimbing run as an internal department, openness and transparency has been in short supply. The finances are opaque and the release of a critical report into GBClimbing has been suppressed. Something has to change and tinkering isn’t enough.

I am writing to the CEO today to obtain a clearer breakdown of the cost of GBClimbing to the BMC and hopefully the report will be released to Members Council.

By the time the next time Members Coulcil meets the strength of feeling expressed on here, at Area Meetings and elsewhere will be known. Consequently I hope they will be discussing and then pushing the Board for a member vote or the creation of an independent subsidiary for GB Climbing. However, with the President very much in the no camp I’m not hopeful. 

Does UKC actually get much traffic from people involved in proper comps? I am not talking about the little winter bouldering leagues etc. They will be most heavily impacted by good/ poor administration of GB Climbing, followed by general BMC members (as subs might go up). 

Regardless of Andy's views he, and the rest of the board, are legally bound by the articles of association. Articles 11.8 and 11.9 define the process for getting this sort of thing onto the agenda for a member vote at a general meeting, or at a members council meeting for subsequent discussion at area meetings:

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/bmc-articles-of-association

I wouldn't support such a motion as I think it would incur a significant cost of staff/ volunteer time and I don't understand the topic at hand in sufficient depth to be confident I would make a well informed choice in such a vote, but if members who are better informed on the subject believe that a different arrangement will work better for comp climbers and the BMC the process is there for them to use. 

My view is that the issues need to be identified and those that can be addressed within the current structure noted as such, if anything significant is left over then possibly members council should consider how effectively other structures would address these issues and if they would break other things.

Some useful good sense.

What Shark isn't saying is a theoretical improvement in governance almost certainly comes with a greater running expense,  increased bureaucracy and no reduction in BMC overall liability. Any change is likely to have significant impact in 2024, alongside identified improvements required and the added workload of an Olympic year. Governance changes can't happen until the 2024 AGM without a very expensive additional EGM. Even the BMC 30 type positions seemed more honest to me (ie that the BMC should have nothing to do with running comps).

As a Council member I'm not even sure what the full picture is yet, and it would take a lot more issues than seem likely to want to just restructure, with the significantly disruption, more complexity, negotiation with Mountaineering Scotland and greater running costs (as general resources would need a more formal separation, so can't be shared as much as now). I do know I want the next few months to demonstate improved process to deal better with stakeholder concerns (especially parental, athlete and coaches), as it's not unacceptable in a well run unit to be so defensive. I do also want to see the CCPG report debated in Council with full input from Board and the senior management. I certainly want to see some more openness on realistic costs to membership of different units and how this has changed over the last few years (but what we already know from the financial data, that we do have, simply cannot be hiding major new additional costs in GB Climbing). I estimated earlier we have seen roughly 2 FTE growth in GB Climbing staff in terms of membership costs... having checked in more detail it's less than that as some staffing I assumed was not SE funded actually is. Growth in GB Climbing staff costs to members must be roughly the same as growth in ACES staff costs even after the restructure (around one and a half FTE).

The £90k one-off Ratho investment was significant but was agreed by Board, SLT, Council and the organisation financial support expertise in FAC. Going back over this now seems pointless, as we already have the lessons learned.

But that is not what your poll question asks is it? Or is that what you meant?

Independent means independent.

Hi Howard

In simple terms I understand your argument, but there is income, outside GBC, which is tied to the whole 'ecosphere' of which comps are a part.  This means that the net effect of "dropping competition climbing" would not necessarily mean we were in a better financial state.  There are scenarios where we might be, there are scenarios where we would be worse off; and the outcomes are based on the assumptions you make about what SE/UKS might do, what the 'new body' might do and what members might do.

In terms of providing you and others with more information:

1. Paul D agreed to provide more details on GBC finances at Peak area meet and I see Simon is writing to him.  I'll leave Paul to provide that once he's back from leave.
2. I said (in the video) I would provide a response to various questions about GBC by end Aug and I will do that, probably (re)covering some of Paul's points I'm sure.  
3. Re the wider question on should they stay or should they go.  As someone pointed out here *, and/or on BMC Watch, even the work of trying to work out possible options and implications and provide a narrative that the average member can understand and make an informed decision on will take a lot of time; let alone implementing such a plan.  I do not see the benefit of doing it now when there are other things that need to be focussed on; such as implementing the plans and actions for growth which most people agree is critical.  If Members' Council at their next meeting request the Board to focus on this, or if members raise a resolution for the next AGM, then the Board/Staff will need to do this work at that time and it will happen.  

Going forwards I'm looking at how we can set up a, manageable, system of rolling comms where members can submit questions which can be answered in regular updates (monthly?).  Whether this is written, video, open forums or a combination I don't yet know.  

* Whilst I have been writing this Spencer and Offwidth have also made the point. 

It would be foolish to rely on the Sport England/UKSport contribution staying at 85% and it hasn’t been confirmed whether that is calculated to cover all employee costs such as employer NI, pension contributions. These bodies are also under financial pressure and if GBClimbing moves to world class funding the BMC’s contribution will increase to 25% ie an increase of about 60%.

As stated before a separation should include a budget set in advance of declining contributions by the BMC over a 3-5 year period to zero with a constitutional safeguard that no further contributions will be made to prevent a bailout. This means there will be with a reduced running expense,  reduced bureaucracy and a reduction in BMC overall liability.

In my personal view, it wouldn't necessarily need to be a subsidiary with Mountaineering Scotland, a subsidiary could be wholly owned by BMC (of which the BMC has a number). A governance change like establishment of a new subsidiary (or a change to the objects to have nothing to do with running comps) would potentially need to go through AGM, but it's open to the Board to propose and Council to approve. The requirement in the Reserved Matter is: "to seek approval of the Council, and/or refer direct to the Voting Members". Of course board and/or council might wish to put something contentious direct to the voting members.

There is inevitably some expense to good governance, though the cost of failures of governance can be much higher. Whatever is done, it should be a solid bet that it will improve things, and not theoretical.

Nonetheless, I agree with you that the first step is more transparency on the report, better communications, and progress toward dealing with the stakeholder concerns.

A subsidiary of the BMC would be independent of the BMC as it would have its own Board of Directors who in turn would be wholly responsible for the finances and operations. For example if they were a limited company subsidiary of a PLC and for example in the event of insolvency it wouldn’t be responsible for the debts. I think that it should also be financially independent but we are morally obligated to support it financially with a in the medium term to give it the opportunity to stand on its own feet. 

Then unfortunately it's failing. Miserably.

I visit a number of different London walls regularly - mix of route based and bouldering walls and there is literally zero representation of the BMC at any of them (aside from couple of "check your knot" signs on the walls on the routes, which have been there for a decade).

Not a poster, not a person, not even a question as to whether I'm a member so get discounted entry, not a sign in the shop saying I get 10% off, no info on member benefits etc

Literally nothing.

Can someone more closely involved explain to me exactly how the BMC has been trying?  To me it looks like they haven't made the slightest bit of effort.

The failure to attract enough new members from two groups identified (Hill walkers and indoor climbers) was one of the main issues identified for the recent financial strife yet here we are discussing GB Climbing, something the BMC has always been clear it wishes to continue to support.

This is like someone who spent loads of cash as they expected a pay rise blaming their shortness of cash on Sainsbury's costing too much, rather than the main issue, which was their poor financial planning, and failure to get the pay rise.

I voted no.  This is not the issue.

Humbug. That work has already been done by a working group led Rab. He presented a paper with two options to the Board. One was an independent body and the other was an independent department. Just publish the report for all to see. I’m sure the narrative and recommendations in the report don’t have to be dumbed down that much for the ‘average member’ to understand if at all. 

But that was about then (the pros and cons of what should be formed), not about now (the pros and cons of how it could be transitioned).  The circumstances are different and that would need to be included to give people a fair understanding of the implications.  

The info was sufficient for the Board to decide whether GBC should be managed internally as a department or externally as an independent body. Equally it should be sufficient for the members to be able to decide.

I don't have a particual problem with that solution but it's not especially  independent if it's a subsidiary. A lot of people are going to be encouraged to think independent means f all to do with the BMC, a problem with your badly worded proposal.

Referenda rarely give optimal outcomes, generally because many people voting will be doing so on the basis of prior assumptions and poor understanding of the potential or likely consequences of their decision. No matter how much info you offer, many people will not take the time to educate themselves properly before voting.

Seriously , you must think this pathetic pedantry, but if you're going to start throwing these spectacular proposals out for a vote, you should think about exactly what you're proposing, and what it means when other people read it.

Brexit should have taught you that

Institutional bubbles neither

So easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater - beware and tread carefully

Normally similar costs would apply to an internal department or a subsidiary. Unless of course......

.... you are suggesting we shrink and possibly end GB Climbing? 

I would be very surprised if that could be achieved in practise in the real world. Almost all small subsidiaries like this are required to have guarantees from the parent company* by banks or other significant creditors. The effect is that the BMC would still be on the hook for any losses.

*Or sometimes the directors are required to guarantee personally. (edit to add this footnote)

In my experience, running expenses would unquestionably go up, not down. Separate directors for the subsid need to be paid and you would be paying various service providers extra for either providing services twice or giving a more complex service (eg payroll, accounting and audit to just pick the obvious ones from my specialism).

I voted no because the last thing the BMC needs is more constitutional uproar. Besides, competition climbing is and should be part of the wider climbing and mountaineering scene, with feed through into outdoor climbing. There are better ways to solve current issues. 

Here, I agree with you. But the transparency you want would be poorly served by your solution. As a parent company to a subsid, the BMC would prepare consolidated accounts* which would show the income statement of the group. You would only see the balance sheet of the individual parent company, so you would have no more view of how the BMC is fairing without GBClimbing than you do now since the income statements are effectively merged. Perversely, you could see the individual IS of the subsid, but very few people have been directly interested in that on UKC as far as I can see.

I think you would be better served by pushing for the board to report income segmentally in the financial statements. I can't remember ever seeing any entity do this if it didn't have to but so far as I can remember there's no reason why it can't be done by choice*

*I know there are some exceptions on the consolidation point. I don't thiiiink they apply here but I confess I can't be bothered to check either of these points in the accounting standards right now because that's my day job and I've done enough of it today. Anyone with more familiarity than me in small companies and/or not-for-profits feel free to wade in.

Other sporting bodies survive and thrive without the largesse of a parent body. I can think of many ways GBClimbing can generate income but I think a focus on what really makes a difference and cutting costs and living within your means is a good thing so yes, shrinking could be a good idea. Currently GBC seems only very good at spending large amounts of money and very little seems to be to the benefit of athletes. If the growth and support was being praised by athletes and their parents and others involved in the comp works I’d be open to a different view. The opposite is the case. I hear nothing good from those sources about GBC. It’s embarrassing. 

Thanks for all this. It’s disturbing that we might still potentially be in hock with that structure 🤔

What Iain said above, but I'd also add; if the GBC part is separately incorporated (its own company reg no basically), then there will be at least one "person with significant control", which then would lead to the shareholders of the co. If the BMC were to be a shareholder with >25%, then in the event of insolvency, the IP would have to do a report fro the secretary of state as to the actions of the directors / PSC's. Theoretically the BMC could be disbarred from being the director of a company. The only way around this would be CPG's complete independence from the BMC, with its own shareholders and directors. If it is just organised as a subsid, with only consolidated reporting, then it cant avoid subsid liabilities, without some very very clever lawyering, and good luck trying to get anyone to stand as a director. Restructuring with the intention of transferring risk from the parent co to the creditors of a subsid is not a good look, in the eyes of officialdom.

With the BMC currently acting as lead for all partner organisations (Nicas / ABC / MTL etc) in receipt of public monies this won't be able to happen during the current funding cycle, and would jeopardise funding in future cycles, as Sport England would be very interested in why the structure has changed, and as their money is purely for public health / increasing participation, and UK Sport is purely for high performance stuff, the BMC would lose all of its funding from both bodies (it would have nothing to do with high performance, and no evidence of participation increase if it is not actively seeking to sell climbing to the masses), and would lose its coordinating role, and hence any influence with the ABC / NICAS / MTL etc), and any access to that part of the money accessed as a result of the joint funding applications. I understand the sentiment about separating the organisation into comp and representative bits (speaking from a comp point of view, I was very very much in favour of this approach a while back), but I think that horse left the stable about 4 or 5 years ago. It may well be a case now of being very very careful what you wish for.........

A referendum would be useful to gauge peoples desires / wishes, but wont be able to be translated into a real change; the act of separation would be too difficult, and also pointless, as the cause of the problems imho are not how the organisation is structured, but how it operates and is managed.

Thanks also. A few consequences there of decoupling to factor in that I hadn’t realised.

This. Surely improvements in financial management, transparency and accountability are really what people want?

The other option appears to be to abandon competitions and all the public fund attracting work completely.

That is why I made the point that we need to understand what GBC brings to the BMC. The costs are very visible, the benefits are not.

Of course there have to be assumptions about what UK Sport and Sport England might do.  However if the price of SE's £198k funding of the BMC (separate from its funding of GBC) is to contribute £180k to GBC (£270k if you include Ratho) then I have to question whether it is worth it, especially as that contribution is apparently open-ended.  However I acknowledge this is looking at it in simple terms, and we should now wait for the detailed information you have promised, which I hope will include these aspects and explain the 'ecosystem' you refer to.

That would be welcome. It cannot be right that these discussions have to take place on social media, in which I include UKC. Many members won't be aware these discussions are even taking place - I only became aware of the 'BMC Watch' group on Facebook through a chance remark in a post here.  There should be an official BMC channel for information and discussion which is open to all members.

Howard

In 2023 Budget

• UKS Grant £640,182; split 621,030 to GBC and 19,152 to Sport & Community Development
• SE Fundng £620,522; split 205,000 to GBC and 397,512 to Sport & Community Development and 18,010 to Admin and Governance

So that's £1,260,704 of income we will get in total and £434,674 separate to its funding of GBC;  more than double the 2022 figure you quote.  The 'member cost' of GBC in 2023 is budgeted at circa £195K and £81k for BMC overheads (e.g. IT etc which is not UKS/SE funded, UKS/SE funding does cover pensions, NI etc)

Figures are based on drawing down the funding available which requires us to specifically do something, e.g. employ someone, do something within the agreed objectives etc.  We can't just take the money on the promise

Thank you for those figures. 
 

Glad to hear that NI and pensions are included - so for complete clarity 85% of the total costs of GB staff is paid for by grants yes?

Re the Admin cost of £81k - how has this been calculated? 

Is a cost allocated for the CEO’s and Commercial Managers time been included for GBC ? 

Are the Safeguarding staff employment cost been included for GBC? 

Is the cost of staff attending IFSC conferences included for GBC ? 

What do Sport and Community do and how will they spend £397k ?

Thank you

I was basing my figures on the 2022 Annual Report, which shows GB Climbing getting £0.421M funding from UK Sport and £0.166M funding from Sport England, and separately £0.198M from Sport England to support the development of BMC’s activities. These figures, and especially the latter figure, seem to have increased significantly for 2023, which is obviously good, but we need to understand how much of that is dependent on the BMC's support for competition climbing.

If GBC is driving funding towards the BMC's core activities then clearly that has to be taken into account and may indeed justify it remaining within the BMC, but it also has to be offset by the costs of supporting GBC.

Can we not expect that, other things being equal, the BMC should continue to be eligible for SE funding, which I understand is aimed at encouraging participation, if it were to focus on participation rather than competition?

This is the sort of detail we need if members are to properly understand the situation.

The other money would go to the new alternative to the BMC

Less the £81k admin cost yes.  There was 0.6FTE in GBC paid for by without grant funding, media which was not something UKS/SE would cover, but that has now been changed under the reorganisation.  That cost is included in the £181 and £195 figures I have quoted as GBC costs.

The BMC do not cross charge between departments so it was based on the CFO making an educated guess on what might be if we did this.  Some things (IT costs and depreciation) are easier to estimate that others (additional electricity costs)

That is in the admin cost

Safeguarding is SE funded and her remit works across more than just GBC.  I assume, but don't know for sure, the CFO included that within the admin estimates.

UKS have specific funding lines to cover international meetings, this covers IFSC, but not UIAA, so there may be some costs for attendance at UIAA Ice climbing meetings but that is again included in the £181k and £195k figures

See https://thebmc.co.uk/bmc-staff-list?s=5 and scroll to Sport & Community

Some of the money supports roles, or part supports the roles; Helen's role is fully funded, Janes is part funded etc.   Beyond that money is spent against the agreed funding lines with SE.  

Not necessarily.  See Ian W's post further up https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/poll_are_you_in_favour_of_a_mem...

However you think of it, UKS/SE see comps and indoor participation as intrinsically linked so any assumption we could 'cherry pick' the bits of funding we want are very speculative at best.

Theoretically the BMC could continue to be eligible for SE funding, but it would be VERY unlikely to be forthcoming. Increased participation has over recent years been very much from the indoor environment, and the BMC SE funding in the past has very much been hanging on the coat tails of this; cutting itself off from this area of growth would very much jeopardise any chance the BMC has of receiving any funds, unless it can demonstrate it is actively promoting, and achieving, increasing participation in outdoor climbing. From some of the posts on UKC / BMC Watch, this is not something some members appear to want to see happening.

In theory we could also apply for SE funding for hillwalking but if we have decided to give up on indoor climbing then I would question whether SE would see us as a good bet for their funding!

^^very much this, but perhaps that is what the membership (think they) want? More than once i have seen reference to "freedom from SE / UKS".....

I put the think they in parentheses as this would be another case of biting your nose off to spite your face (as i strongly suspect you already know.......).

Places where that particular niche of climbing politics gets way more than its fair share of exposure. In my experience most climbers don't seem to mind new outdoor participants and a significant proportion actively encourage it, providing they are introduced in a way that meets the BMC ethos (many BMC clubs are always actively recruiting,.... student clubs often almost totally renew themselves every few years).

Ditto for the minority who definitely want the BMC to have nothing to do with SE/UKC.

They have every right to their point of view of course but those loud anti outdoor participation (and anti SE/UKC) voices on UKC and BMC Watch never seem remotely representative of the average climber to me.

The issue is the cost of supporting competition climbing through GBC, not about cutting off the BMC from indoor climbing. That's an entirely different matter.

(There may well be discussions about dropping indoor climbing taking place elsewhere which I'm not aware of, but it's not what I would be seeking if I were to come round to the view that GBC should separate from the BMC, which I still have an open mind about).

Yes, but you need to demonstrate the relevance of the BMC to indoor climbing if there's a separate organisation managing comps, champpionships, recognised by the OL organisation, UKS etc, and probably similarly charged with enhancing the publicity of indoor climbing and comps.

What would the BMC role be in this world?

BMC's role would be to support and advise indoor climbers, especially new climbers who now mainly start climbing indoors.  I can only guess, but but I suspect ordinary participatory indoor climbers massively outnumber those involved with competitions. 

However I can see that funding bodies more accustomed to competitive sports might put a higher value on these than do most climbers.

The issue remains that whether you see them as separate and distinct the funding bodies don't and the body taking 'comp climbing' would at the very least be incentivised/encouraged to see it the same way as the funding bodies.

We have to deal with the situation that exists not what we would like it to be.

GBC is not yet where it needs and aspires to be.  The BMC need to work out how to move into the indoor space: his will need to be in partnership with walls, ABC & NICAS and needs a clearer offer to appeal to indoor climbers.  All this is being done while still delivering everything we used to do.

This will be easier and, I believe, more successful if we retain the NGB status and the associated funding.  

And what does 'support and advise' mean here?  How to belay? How to boulder safely, run courses on this? Even a belaying license?  If you look at the BMC website now the indoor part is VERY comp focussed, and the lack of any real involvement with indoors at non elite level is a valid criticism to throw back, but removing the comps part and creating an alternative organisation will not make life any easier

A real winner would be if being a BMC member gave you a discount at walls, especially if the membership cost for wall-goers was like club membership (could each wall become a BMC affiliated club). Even if it was only a £1 discount, it would incentivise regular/frequent wall goers to become members and then possibly some of them might become interested in other stuff the BMC does.

Edit: just need to work out what would incentivise walls to want this. Would increasing membership numbers increase the Sport England funding, could some of this be used advantageously for walls. Trying to come up with a win-win-win situation.

There is very little of value which a representative body can offer to indoor climbers which wouldn't already have been done to support outdoor climbers, or by the walls to meet their legal responsibilities. A lot of stuff which benefits outdoor climbers is beneficial to indoor climbers too and if they want to join the organisation to support that kind of thing being done that is great, but 95% of that stuff would happen even if indoor walls didn't exist.

Access - A wall isn't going to stay open long if it doesn't let it's customers have access to climb. The closest the BMC could get to contributing something valuable here would be to have some kind of licence that means you don't need to register and pay one off/ annual membership fees whenever you visit a new wall. They already have a publicly accessible climbing wall finder, however this doesn't go much beyond what google can provide.

Technical - The vast majority of this is duplicated from outdoor equipment safety and training techniques barring the stuff about interfacing with the climbing wall's support structure. The stuff which is indoor specific is the responsibility of the wall rather than that of the user, if the issue is common to multiple walls then the ABC will lead on it with support from the BMC (as happened with the Fixe lower off issue a few years ago). Advice about types of gear is already provided by the BMC, there is plenty of stuff on other websites that is also good quality so this isn't a unique offering and won't offer an ongoing incentive for people to be members.

Subsidised instruction - It's pretty common for people to come along to a couple of indoor sessions with an instructor before climbing on their own/ with friends, the cost of doing this is a lot less than what is associated with climbing outdoors  with an instructor (you need a lot less instructor time to grant the same level of independence in an indoor environment compared to an outdoor environment). Possibly some subsidised development coaching to understand how to incorporate circuit boards and campus boards etc into your training regime (presumably covered by the FUNDas courses delivered by Mountain Training?).

Third party liability insurance - No need for people who climb indoor and outdoor to have same insurance cover twice over, given the predictability of the indoor environment it's a tough sell that liability insurance is required for competent climbers (statistics probably say otherwise, but you have to convince people of this).

Skills/ Safety training and updates to good practice - This will be handled by the instructors at indoor walls and via Mountain Training. Floor walkers pick up on safety issues with people's belay techniques and so on. If the update to "good practice" is a result of previous method being deemed unsafe then the BMC can contribute some value by raising awareness, but we aren't getting huge leaps forward in the safety of gear and what we have available compared to the introduction of sit harnesses and belay plates.

Support for clubs - What's required? Competent members turn up and go climbing, if anyone inexperienced wants to climb they can be signed in by experienced members, afterwards people go and get beer sometimes. What else can clubs provide indoors within the constraints of the indoor wall environment?

The BMC already struggles to provide a unique offering to indoor only climbers because of all of the outdoors stuff it does. What would an indoor only representative body provide to climbers to justify them joining it, given that the BMC already does so much, so well? At an elite level indoor climbing may not be much like swimming, but at a grass roots level it's pretty close, I pay to use a facility to do exercise in a manicured environment with much of the outdoor unpredictability removed. I don't need to interact with anyone to do it, kit is widely available from shops etc, once you are competent to do it safely you can easily pootle along for years being mediocre at it but enjoying yourself and doing no one any harm. The most value a representative body for swimming could have contributed to me is stopping the council from closing my local swimming pool due to decades of neglect for the building's structure by the self same council, I don't see climbing walls having that risk at the moment?

Totally agree.  I believe these types of discussions have gone on a number of times but for 'reasons' the 3 parties have never found that win-win position.  Working with ABC on wall accreditation (SE Funded) as a partner should improve relationships between all parties and that may in turn make finding the win-win easier.

I entirely agree that the needs of indoor and outdoor climbers and what the BMC can do for them aren't that different.  The difficulty seems to be in persuading indoor climbers of that and that joining the BMC would benefit them.  Let's face it, a lot of outdoor climbers aren't members.

I think third party liability is actually more important indoors. Indoors is where I see more sloppy belaying and where I'm more likely to have a climber fall on me. If I'm not mistaken, the claim which led to the cost of BMC's third party cover increasing significantly came from an incident indoors.

If GBC is punching above its weight and bringing additional funding and benefits to the core operations then that case needs to be made, because at present only the costs are clearly visible.

I would be interested to know how many people actually participate in competitions.  My assumption is that is in the hundreds or low thousands, but I could be wildly wrong. I also assume it is of little or no interest to the majority of climbers, but again I could be wrong. I don't know anyone who shows any interest in them, and the Tour de France seems to attract more interest on UKC than the climbing comps, but I don't pretend that either group is representative of climbers as a whole.  Nevertheless it asppears to me to be a niche activity when taken in the context of climbing and mountaineering as a whole.

Whatever the number, it can represent only a small proportion of those who climb indoors so if the funding bodies don't see them as separate and distinct then I wonder how well they understand the activities they are funding.  However if these small numbers are the catalyst to bring in wider funding then perhaps that is sufficient justification not to enlighten them.

Interestingly, last night at the North West Area Meeting all those that spoke in the discussion were in favour of keeping GB Climbing as part of the BMC and the positives of keeping the structure as is.

The criticisms were levelled at the senior leadership team and their management of it, not GB Climbing itself not the structure under which it operates.

Unstructured thoughts:
1. Comps have had too free a run of both finance and governance
2. The comp arm hasn't supported athletes and parents particularly well 
3. Unrealistic growth targets have lead to important work being cut short, because comps have been ringfenced
4. Access has to be a Top 3 priority
5. Leadership has been initially poor at communicating, this has improved
6. BMC has very little to offer indoor climbers
7. Potential growth can come from indoors and those transitioning to outdoors, who need support
8. There has to be a compelling offer for indoors, both to climbers and wall owners. This could be around shared disclaimers, insurance, discounts, database support. And probably coffee.
9. I'd prefer comps to stay in the Big Tent and share a rosy future

Better leadership comms, simpler governance, clearer marketing, shared benefits.

Bearing in mind Ian and Iain’s comments above I’m revisiting my thoughts on this too as whilst the independent subsidiary route provides better transparency, accountability and autonomy for GBC it doesn’t appear to offer full protection to the BMC against a financial meltdown. Hiving off GBC completely would appear to be to the detriment of our sector altogether in attracting funding for things other than GBC.

If GBC remains within the BMC as a department then to reduce the risks the organisation I’d want to see operational disclosure improved to members council and the members starting with the release of the CCPG report and proper action taken in response which might entail disciplinary action for failings. Let’s have some accountability and consequences for once.

I’d also want to see better financial disclosure and following my email expect a full breakdown of the figures I’ve requested for 2022 and 2023 so that what is provided can be sense checked so all costs relating to GBC can be confidently taken to be included. Paul Davies has indicated this might all be included in a further BMC article.

I’d want also to see the Governance tightened up. For whatever reasons it appears as if CCPG has allowed GBC (presumably the CEO and Head of performance) to make significant  spending and operational decisions and commitments without reference to the body and so CCPG has been weak in its oversight role. It has certainly been lax in publishing minutes. It has a new Chair. The membership has yet to hear from him. 

Finally I’d want to see GBC be more focussed on bang for the buck with spending more rigorously controlled. Just because the grants are available and the BMC ‘only’ has to contribute 15% doesn’t mean it has to be spent and if it is spent it should have impact. When £900k+ is being spent and athletes are saying it’s not helping them improve then something is horribly wrong. 

What we could have achieved with half that back in 2016/2017.........

If I understand correctly, 15% is the minimum contribution required by SE as a condition of their funding. In reality the commitment is open-ended, since any shortfall between expenditure and income has to be picked up by the BMC.  That makes proper financial control and oversight essential.  The fact that in 2022 this shortfall forced a cost-cutting exercise and a reduction in staff suggests that these were lacking.

The thing is that the BMC has things to offer outdoor climbers that they can't freeload for (so none BMC members who climb outdoors freeload all of the access work the BMC does along with technical/ safety stuff).

These are: Third Party Liability insurance, access to the club hut network, access to certain crags due to having liability insurance (cheddar comes to mind), subsidised skills courses for outdoor climbing, discount on maps/ guidebooks (although this is offset by the need to pay for postage so often still cheaper to buy in a shop), expedition grants for mountaineers, access to mountain training courses (little benefit to most people). It is possible to access/ benefit from everything else without ever paying the BMC a penny.

The only one of those which will have any use for an indoor only climber with no outdoor aspirations is the insurance (if they can be convinced it's necessary, the incident which you cite was at Sunderland wall and from my understanding involved an inappropriately supervised inexperienced belayer). The BMC could offer subsidised access to coaching and run subsidised learn to lead days which would present a genuine benefit to indoor only climbers, but otherwise the excellent work the BMC does will be accessible to individuals regardless of their decision to be a member or not.

I guess this says it all. The BMC intends to change from what it was originally set up for and what the majority of its members want to something that serves a small minority in order to satisfy SE and UKS

That is not what was said or the context.  Howard asked if we could retain some funding but get rid of comps.  The answer is probably no because the funding body see them as tied.  The options therefore are keep the funding, and accept competitions are part of it, or lose the funding.  As to how much the funding is and what we pay to release that funding that is clearly negotiable; as a silly example if they offered us £10M for comps if we paid £1.5M we would have to say no we can't afford that.

The BMC has not dropped anything it did pre SE/UKS funding and is doing more in many areas.  I understand peoples concerns that we are not delivering the the true potential of the money we receive into comps and/or indoor climbing, which is being addressed, but  the only change in the BMC is to expand what we do to cover the growing scope of the activities people in our community do which is being done as well as what we have done in the past not instead of.  

It is undeniable that the BMC has had to make major changes in order to satisfy SE and UKS to get funding for competition climbing which only a small minority of BMC members think is important. To me that is a clear sign that the BMC has lost the plot and is not serving the majority of its members

Changes to BMC governance were also a move to what is regarded as better practice, not just for funding. I'd add the old structures gave us the Climb Britain debacle and the Rheged fiasco that almost bankrupted the BMC.

On funding, Andy has already listed other parts of the BMC which receive grants above, it's not just in GB Climbing and not all of GB Climbing funding is for comps.

Here is a reminder of how members voted when the alternative governance option was discussed at the 2018 AGM.... item 9.... only 6% voted for it.

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=1639

I'm not talking about governance, I'm talking about the focus of the organisation away from what the majority of members want and instead chasing SE and UKS funding despite competition climbing only being of interest to a small minority.

But while you mention governance,  has this really improved. In 2020 we had directors resigning on mass and others being censored by the MC. This summer we have staff being made redundant because of incompetent financial planning, and a highly critical report into GBC which is too sensitive to share with the members. So much openness and transparency.

If something like the Climb Britain fiasco happened again would the so called governance prevent it, I doubt it.

And it's not about making organisational changes. The ORG did their job and it doesn't matter whether GBC is an internal department or an independent subsidiary because if the people running it and overseeing it are not doing their jobs properly then there'll still be problems.

The Board was given supremacy and made funding decisions on unfounded growth targets which resulted in staff redundancies. So what are they going to do if the SE or UKS funding stops or is significantly reduced? Clearly they can make all the staff redundant, but what happens to GBC does that cease or will the members be asked to pick up the shortfall? This is the sort of question that the Board should be considering.

In the real world organisational failures like these would result in the top person falling on their sword, if not the whole Board resigning.

Of course you are. Option B specifically prevented SE and UKC grants but brought the BMC up to borderline modern governance levels.

Things have been far from ideal, but good governance structure only reduces the impact of people behaving badly in important governance roles. 

Planning failed in very unusual times but many membership organisations faced much  worse...look at what is going on in the Guides and the YHA to cover unexpected deficits in news articles last month. I'd say plans were a long way from incompetent.

The "highly" is rumour, since only the senior management and Board have seen it. I prefer to wait. I do know it is critical on some known factors from parental Facebook pages and from knowing athletes: GB Climbing has had poor financial control and planning on an overseas trip; stakeholder communications are well below par; there are known welfare issues. It's a management responsibility and needs fixing.

Well I beg to differ. Council backed Climb Britain, whereas we have been asking questions for nearly a year and in some individual situations (Ratho) a few voted against backing decisions and most expressed concern on most areas, as we heard about them.

We might agree on that structural point. People with expertise in the area have pointed out the differences between a subsidiary and department are much less than some claimed in practice. As for ORG, they did an unfinished job in my view in not dealing with plans or costs.... resolving that was expensive, time consuming and led to some difficult decisions.

Unfounded growth targets is simply not true. There were multiple contingencies built in to their planning with course corrections being the worst case.

They do consider that, on risk registers. The posts are contracted based on the funding, so if funding ends the roles end.

Mistakes have been made but that's normal in company structures and no one would survive long in business if everyone was falling on swords like the People's Popular Front of Judea kamikazee squad. The more important question is did they act based on members interests and the evidence I see from talking to them is they did,  but not always properly in conjunction across internal governance structures. Lets not forget these growth plans also led to a 1.5 FTE increase in core ACES staffing since pre-covid, (amongst other things)... and after the restructure  we still have 1.2 FTE more core staff in ACES: around a 20% increase since pre-covid.

Typical Offwidth smoke screen,  I would refer you and the Board to all the members surveys that put access etc at the top of the member requirements and competition climbing near the bottom and that those competing are only about 1.5% of the membership

Unusual yes, but the consequences were predicable and to expect membership growth after Covid and then the Russian invasion of Ukraine really, perhaps the Board also believes in Father Christmas.

You're a very good apologist for the BMC both coaches and competitors have said GBC is not fit for purpose. If this isn't so why doesn't the Board release the report.

Sounds like the governance isn't working, and what has our Members Champion and MC appointed directors been doing.

I can't believe that you with a trade union background is advocating making people redundant and terminating peoples contracts early  is a good way of running an organisation. These are peoples livelihoods you're talking about.

You have ducked the real question, will the BMC stop being involved in competitions and cease to be the NGB if the funding ends?

These are more than mistakes. Look at the uproar this has caused, and not for the first time. If the BMC had shareholders the Board would be under a lot of pressure to resign.

A nonsensical situation. MC was asked to comment on a proposal which addressed the issues raised in a report they weren’t allowed to see. My understanding/guess/wild imaginings is that the report names names holding people to account (perish the thought) and they are being given the right to reply but taking their sweet time about. 

If you boot Comp climbing out of the BMC you will leave an unholy mess. 

The BMC loses a BIG lump of funding.

The Comp Climbers will need a new organisation, as there's an Olympics next year, and other international orgs need someone to talk to.  The new org gets the money and they become the official face of climbing to UKSport etc.

The BMC becomes the Ramblers deluxe.

Careful what you wish for.

Doesn’t sound too terrible when you put it like that 🤔..

The BMC does have shareholders, it's a company limited by guarantee. The members each have one share.

I think also you may be surprised at the mistakes that can be, and are, made in large companies with good governance structures. Good governance will never completely eliminate mistakes - it should ensure mistakes are caught and corrected in reasonable time. From what I understand that is what has happened with the finances in this case.

We have repeatedly heard in the various threads over the last few weeks that there are more people working in access since the SE funding began, not fewer. I would also question that the members really don't want comps. Granted a very small proportion of members compete, but it doesn't follow that they are therefore not interested in comps at all and/or don't want the BMC to govern them. I'm not good enough to compete but still think it has it's place and want our athletes to do well.

Wash your mouth out Simon! I never saw you as a red-sock-ist*. What next? Golf?

*yes I know that they go up hills too and mountaineering is a broad church. I have nothing against ramblers really, I'm jesting. Golfists however are beyond the pale.....

And another thing. How well equipped are MC, or the Board for that matter, able to judge the merits of otherwise of “the proposal” as most of them won’t have any great knowledge of competition climbing. A big problem with an organisation comprised mainly of people doing one sport presiding of another sport. I hope “the proposal” has been properly sense tested by those steeped in the comps world. 

Oddly enough my wife suggested this evening we have a go as where we are going on holiday has a golf course next door (but also a steep crag not far away)

Ah, the dreaded smoke screen of linked facts that led to Les calling me the biggest Internet troll ever! 

How about linking some information that shows nearly all members don’t care about comps. I know access was always top, but even back in the org survey 18% felt comp governance was a main priority of the BMC (and over 60% a main or medium priority). The figures bandied about, around 1%, are those who join to compete or directly support comps, membership interest  in comps is a much larger minority.

https://johnroberts.me/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/BMC-Organisational-Review...

Plans for membership growth were pre war but actual growth looked OK until late 2022.

Ignoring the ad hom, I've been seriously impressed with most stakeholders who have been impacted by less than ideal decisions in GB Climbing: they gave proportionate support of the good work and calmly pointing out what needs to change (most recently as reported from someone at the NW area meeting). Only a few were more angry and said what you do.

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

I've said time and time again there are problems and this has been obvious for 6 months and that Council have been pushing the Board on this. I think the Board should release the report to Council. There are legal worries, I guess because individuals could be identified; even so a working group of Council could look at it and report back, so that Council's governance duties can be fulfilled.

I'd say its clearly working, but not quickly enough. As for those Directors, ask them.

Because people are often severely impacted in restructures (even sometimes if they stay) great care is needed. I'm relieved the restructure was carried out quickly, with no compulsory redundancies, but would have obviously have preferred it to have been avoided. I've personally been pushing for almost nine months now to reassess member growth (in part to avoid the risk of such processes), in support of David Brown who first raised concerns (ex Council and ex FAC). In the more general picture, fixed term contracts are a norm for grant funded posts (end of a fixed term contract is a redundancy) but I always urge any organisation to look to retain staff in other roles where they can.

I didn't think that was your question, as it's pretty dumb, given there is no way I could answer it without a crystal ball. I'm sure the BMC would try to do something for its members impacted from total loss of grant funding.

As for you final point,  Iain answered part, but your 'uproar' now seems to me a small angry minority with agendas. There would have been genuine uproar if a core ACES role was lost, as seemed to be an outside possibility when Dave posted on Facebook. I said I was totally clear such a decision would not be acceptable to members and it didn't happen.

A key reason this poll was posted has turned out to be based on misunderstanding the real differences between a subsidiary and a department  (much smaller than claimed). There are enough real issues that need to be dealt with (especially in GB Climbing) without invention and exaggeration.

I can't see any serious liklihood of that 'unholy mess' happening before the Olympics next year. A majority of a UKC poll of a few hundred, likely influenced by misinformation, doesn't mean a majority of members will seriously countenance such a move, effectively a repeat of the 2017 Motion of no Confidence, asking the BMC to separate from elite comps. I've copied the President's numbers again below...... we are talking about risking  £1.2 million funding (with £430k not even in GB Climbing) with the huge impact on the staff in those roles and the chaos it will cause in the organisation as a whole (staff and volunteers).

I think that GB Climbing should remain as part of the BMC. 

I also think that it needs to accept that it is part of the BMC and put more effort into the aspects of the BMC that bring in the money (and members) to subsidise it.

From recent experience they appear to believe that the financial and other problems at the BMC are nothing to do with them and that they have no reason to help with solving them. They are perceived to be a small, self important group who rely on money from the BMC and who do not then spend it on their athletes.

They should stay as a stand alone part of the BMC, with a strict budget, which should be fully accountable. They should also do more to support their athletes.

I made the point, on another thread, that at the para-climbing training session at Awesome Walls Sheffield there was no BMC publicity. Apparently the competitors tee shirts had a very tiny BMC logo on the front, but how often do you see the front of a climber. Even between routes they are facing the wall, away from the watchers. 

Apparently the 'organisers' did not want to 'distract from the training' by doing anything that may help the BMC in the publicity and member gaining areas. 

That was the essence of the response I got to my post!

On the BMC web page there are only two types of comment. Those supporting the BMC stance, and those awaiting moderation. Seems an odd division!

I posted something critical but felt it was adding nothing to the debate, so asked for it to be removed.

It went up straightaway I think, because it was in my name. ‘Awaiting moderation’ probably = anonymous. I think you should own your comments if they are critical.

As you can see I do own my comments. I always use my own full name on any forum or comments page. I believe that if I want to express my opinion, people should know who I am!

Every single comment negative... do you mean another thread John?

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/restructure-statement-and-update

I'm not sure that a discussion about the future governance of competitions should have many implications for that transition.

Hardly a shock, given you led the Option B debate that would have left us unable to gain Sport England participation funding. I'd strongly disagree, as that outdoor transition is happening anyway, irrespective of what the BMC does, and I think the best chances of influencing that positively are through a strong BMC, central to comps and supporting local walls, clubs and instructors in trying to promulgate good practice on that outdoor transition. Without the political infighting on comps and outdoor participation, that has blighted the BMC since Climb Britain, I think we would have been in a much better place right now.  The idea the BMC could stay 'ideologically pure' on comps and outdoor participation was never accepted by the large majority of the membership; and even if it was, it would always have minimised our influence on sustainability and conservation. We would be much more sidelined on indoor climbing and more out of the loop on the inevitable increases of climbers transitioning to the outdoors.

I really see no need to change BMC governance structures. What we actually need is to make them work properly. Pretty much all the current problems stem from fixable management tensions that were not a consequence of our governance. It seems to me those on all sides of the debate benefit from a strong BMC influence (unless the reasons for their position are dishonest).

When this issue first arose it seemed to be a fairly simple question of whether the sums BMC was paying to support GBC were too high and were disproportionate to the value its members place on competition climbing. This seemed to be important because these costs appeared to account for most of the financial shortfall for 2022, which had led to the loss of jobs and might possibly have affected core work which the members value more highly.  We have been assured that this work has not been affected, but it might easily have been.   Funded jobs may only last as long as their funding, but whilst that funding continues they are probably more secure than unfunded roles when cost savings have to be achieved.

It now appears that regardless of the arguments for and against retaining GBC the BMC simply cannot afford to lose it, because so much grant funding even for non-competitive activities is tied to it. This is worrying, since it means the tail is very much wagging the dog, and a very small tail at that. It is especially worrying that there are concerns, to put it mildly, over the conduct and management of GBC and whether it is spending its money effectively.  It doesn't appear to be benefiting the athletes.  BMC doesn't appear to have sufficient grip on this, and whilst there is a minimum set for the amount of funding it must provide there is no upper limit, as any shortfall will end up on the BMC's bottom line.

It must also be a concern that both the funding bodies seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of our sport. They both seem to be putting competition climbing at its heart, whereas to most climbers it is probably of little interest, as the survey indicates.

I am still of the view that competitions are an aspect of climbing and should remain in the BMC, and any event with the Olympics looming next year this is not the right time to consider separation.  However questions must be asked about the management of GBC and what control BMC has over it, particularly with the Olympics looming. These should not be a charter for GBC to blow more of the BMC's money.

There must also be questions about how both competitions and the BMC's core activities are funded, since funding seems so dependent on GBC.  Is it really the case that Sport England, whose role is to encourage and support grass-roots participation, would cease to fund their representative organisation, which represents 80,000 or so members and a much larger number of participants who are not currently members, if GBC were to separate?

Please read what I wrote. I was specifically referring to the governance of competition climbing (i.e. CCPG/GBClimbing); not 'the BMC'.

We are where we are.

Great summary post. Just to pick up on this section as it is an aspect I’ve always been uneasy and unclear about. 

Even when I was at the BMC the workings and outlook of Sport England were a mystery and I was keen to get involved but somehow never got to go to any of the meetings. Suspected I was kept at arms length. Always felt that the only insight into how SE ticked and what their priorities was via the CEO who had has his own agenda as does the current one I’m sure. I don’t know if the Chair or President goes to any SE meetings but in their shoes I would make a point of it to find out for myself rather than rely on secondhand info.

I disagree with many of your points but this resonates very strongly. I was once BMC Development Officer, with responsibility for comps and for climbing walls, and the messages I was being fed by the equivalent of the CEO at the time about UK Sport requirements proved to be utterly dishonest, to the point where when I cottoned on to what was happening I suddenly no longer had a role at the BMC, despite notable successes. It was alarmingly clear that the priorities of the head of the BMC were put ahead of those of UK Sport and ahead of the relevant BMC staff employed to perform their role to the best of their ability, while all the while carefully controlling the narrative to present the right message to the right people.

I sincerely hope that such shenanigans aren't still going on within the BMC. However, I suspect that a strongly held but utterly unworkable view of many wannabe politicians within BMC Area Committees that all could be fine if only comps were to be hived off elsewhere (which is not without Brexit parallels!) could well still be tempting senior management to tread a similar path.

Yes. Spin, narrative, half stories, fudging finances to pursue agendas and personal ends. It happens in politics including BMC ones. You go in wide eyed and believing and then out the other side somewhat jaded and disillusioned. Be nice if transparency and openness prevailed rather than just trotted out as a cliche. For all the governance changes and turmoil I’ve not seen much evidence of a change in culture sadly.

I did read that and I disagree with you, as I do think the current governance structure of competitions means the BMC has the capacity to be more influential on the transition of climbers outdoors when compared to alternatives.

More generally, the GB Climbing problems identified so far are a management issue, not really a result of governance structure: CCPG (although we don’t know details yet) and Council are both certainly calling for some specific improvements, alongside the stakeholders.

Managers will make mistakes in any organisation from time to time, and often get a bit of bunker mentality when it becomes publicly obvious; the key issue to me is the response medium term. I'd add the BMC is unusual in being an organisation with the most complex governance (size for size) that I know, and is still undergoing massive change....all this after covid and now in a cost of living crisis that is near breaking other membership organisations. BMC management deserve some slack IMHO.

Too many loud voices in BMC politics are effectively exaggerating the scale of problems and telling members what they should think, whereas I'd rather believe the data for the problem size, and surveys and votes for what members think. Some critics say GB Climbing is costing us way too much, whereas the financial details presented in this thread seem broadly sensible and close enough to plan; as presented to and agreed by Board and Council. Serious divergence from membership growth plans was only clear months into 2023.

The sad irony in all this is in an organisation that is most guilty in not selling its good work well enough, and needs more members, those critics painting an unfair picture may encourage members to leave. Everyone who really cares about the BMC should be encouraging others to join. The overall political environment has been becoming more negative for the BMC ethos. The next election may bring change but a hobbled BMC does no one in our community any good right now.

I can see the basis of a self-help / mutual support group here.........

Can I join?

I went through more that my fair share of BMC/IFSC/comp climbing politics when I was at the BMC.

That is the British Machiavellian Council by the way

The more the merrier!

John - you up for hosting the meetings?

That's the job of senior management and governance: to control risk.... but also opportunity.

I'd say the BMC benefits massively, when the funding is there, and any change will normally be at contract ends, so risks are normally not high. I disagree with the size of the tail.... the ORG survey showed comps at 18% high importance and over 60% high or moderate importance.

Worrying yes, but it's easily resolvable if management do their job.

Name any sport that funds its youth teams (or elite but not world leading athletes) properly through core organisational income; a lot of this is from sponsorship, which comes easier after success. The lack of development funding is a government political choice. It's an open door in my my view for the next government (assuming the tories lose as predicted).

Some here have an agenda to make that grip look less that it really is and exaggerate the risks of losing everything. Also GB Climbing only takes roughly 2/3rds of the BMC grant income. GB Climbing answers to the CEO and both answer to the Board; and Council hold the Board to account on behalf of members.

Yes at times, but I think that real problem is across nearly all sport. Nearly everything Sport England and UK Sport do is is a result of governments since 2010. I refuse to believe that situation can't change.

Pretty much my position (apart from the BMC control, which I think is clear), and as far as I'm aware that matches most of Council, but within a 'no blame' constructive approach.

Again this is more about the political will from government, behind the funders, than the BMC. It's hardly well hidden. Government want success in participation and competition, within austerity: dumping risk onto sporting bodies. The next government needs to change this. Investment in organisational sport enablers and inspirational role models pays dividends in long term public health impact. The BMC in particular has much wider influence for conservation and sustainability of important environment. 

Yes, but what those figures conceal is that on the basis of 18% "high importance" competitions were one from bottom in the list of members' priorities for the BMC. If you combine "high" and "moderate" then even at 60% it was actually the least important. The same survey showed that only 2% of BMC members joined in order to take part in events.  This is not something members place high value on compared with other aspects of the BMC's work, and yet this is the area on which we are told all the funding depends.

My point exactly. We are told the funding bodies see competitions and indoor climbing as inextricably linked, and that if the BMC gave up competitions then all the funding would stop. That ignores that climbing is just part of what the BMC covers. What about prospective hillwalkers and mountaineers? They aren't going to be encouraged to participate by someone performing elaborate gymnastics on a sheet of plywood. I know how difficult it can be to get funding (I work in the charitable sector) but even so find it difficult to believe that all the funding intended to encourage participation in outdoor activities would follow competitions and that the BMC, which represents a far greater number across a much wider range of activities, would get nothing.

It seems to me that the BMC is held hostage because it currently receives a considerable amount of funding (which is of course welcome) because of its involvement in competitions and doesn't want to rock the boat. That is entirely understandable, but seems a very insecure and unsatisfactory  foundation for the future when all the funding is supposedly based on just one rather niche aspect of all the activities the BMC represents.

Yes it was but still it's important to them and that's more than half the membership and highly important to 18%: hardly a "tiny tail"...and when you dig down to younger members (the future) and those involved mainly in indoor climbing (an area where the BMC has less members on average) it becomes a lot more important.

Yes but then their parents are normally members as well and have often joimed before (I know loads) and lots of members care about comps but don't make a fuss about it here (UKB has more traffic on comps though)  and many more watch the comps on catch up TV.

I disagree about the first point and there is no significantly  likely risk on the second. In the unlikely event members chose 'foot shooting' and told funders to get stuffed, yes then we would have a problem; but why on earth would they do that??

Funding doesn't follow comps though:  1/3rd is outside GB Climbing and some of that inside is supposed to improve participation at grass roots. I was recruited for wider BMC volunteering from guidebook work by a SE funded volunteer support officer. There was a hillwalking officer with SE funding and there is an EDI officer. What we can't easily chose is dropping the biggest area for potential new participation and expect funding for other areas. Option B supporters said we might be able to get small SE grants with Tier 1 governance, with no evidence that tier was formaly confirmed by funders or that grants were even possible.

Funding bodies are currently unfairly constained in my view by this joke of a government and in a year and a bit the outlook might start to change to something very different.

Where we do probably agree is that problems in GB Climbing do need resolution and further funding growth in the area can't be large without other new income sources, like sponsorship, or it seriously risks being rejected by members. I remember when the para climbers had good sponsorship: it made a big difference.

This is potentially a generation thing. I don't have much interest in competition climbing either, I occassionally watch some, but I don't follow the circuit at all. Most of the the younger climbers I interact with in my local University club however are into it big time, they meet up to watch it, travel to comps, etc. It would be a mistake to not consider the generations that replace the current members of the BMC when making decisions on this.

But that is what the ORG survey showed. Comp climbing is down at or near the bottom of the list of members' priorities.  Alkis has a valid point about generational differences, and the same survey shows considerably higher interest in comps among younger climbers, so it will probably move up the list as time goes on. Another reason to keep it in house if we can.

That is the argument Ian W put forward, and which Andy Syme endorsed.  He said " the BMC would lose all of its funding from both bodies"

https:/www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/poll_are_you_in_favour_of_a_member_vote_on_whether_gb_climbing_should-762070?v=1#x9807326

But the BMC is about more than climbing. Indoor climbing may now be the main way people get into rock climbing, but I would guess that the biggest area of potential new participation is hill-walking.  Besides, the BMC would not be dropping indoor climbing, only the competition element of that. Indoor climbing is mostly participatory, as a visit to any wall will tell you. Surely Sport England should be interested in continuing to fund that, separately from competitions?

To be clear, I am not advocating splitting off GBC, quite the opposite. Also, I fully understand that no one wants to upset the current funding situation, which no doubt involved a lot of work to agree.  Nevertheless it seems to me that GBC, and particularly its finances, plays a disproportionate role in the fortunes of the BMC. With the Olympics coming up then despite the additional funding there seems to be a possible risk of an even bigger overspend, and if that were to happen would the BMC be able to withstand a financial shortfall without cutting back on its high-priority activities such as access and conservation? We seem to have got away with it last time, but we can't be sure that will happen again.

I would like to see some reassurance that the BMC can and will exercise proper control over GBC's spending.

Note that if GBC is separated out then the new organisation will compete with the BMC for the growth money, and that will be a tough battle.

I just looked back at member priorities. I note that purchasing property, presumably crags to enable access, is no more important than competition climbing.  But no-one is saying to sell Harrison's to save money. 

I still think you are insulting the views of that 60+% calling them a tiny tail. That % from a survey over 6 years ago when comp climbing was less popular in the BMC and wider community.

I think you are at risk of insulting the SLT, Board ,Council, FAC and auditors that they can't see and control the risks of taking too much grant money into GB Climbing (the President even gave an example of what might be unaffordable above). I'll say again, the exceptional external financial conditions since the start of 2022, that led to a smallish restructure, have caused major damage in other membership organisations, esp the YHA and Guides.

The ~£20k GB Climbing overspend in 2022 was annoying to see for some of us (in a nominally ringfenced department),  but much smaller compared to some optional 2022 spends, like Ratho (decided completely outside GB Climbing, as an investment, with a large majority on Council supporting). After raising reasonable concerns, Council were promised better financial control in GB Climbing in 2023.

In the highest members' priority area: ACES still has 1.2 FTE more core staff now than pre covid for a currently lower BMC membership number than then (despite a big increase since then in participation in BMC type activities). If people care about BMC work and can afford to join they should do so, or at least volunteer time on BMC supported work.

UKS Grant £640,182; split 621,030 to GBC and 19,152 to Sport & Community Development

SE Fundng £620,522; split 205,000 to GBC and 397,512 to Sport & Community Development and 18,010 to Admin and Governance

Simplistically, that shows £826,030 to GBC and £416,664 for other stuff which the BMC does. We are told the BMC would lose this other funding if GBC went its separate way.  The SE money is for growing the sport, but the sport is a lot more than rock climbing. Hill walking is the sixth most popular activity with more than 2.8 million participants, according to SE's own figures, and that was before lockdown. Would they really stop funding that if the organisations decide it was in their best interests to separate? And in that scenario the BMC would not be having to make up the shortfall between GBC's costs and its income (£180,000 in 2022).

Indeed, one of the reasons I am not calling for it be separated out, although I am questioning whether saying it brings in additional funding (in addition to that for GBC itself) is actually a valid reason. I am calling for better oversight of it.

"Land" and "Property" are separate areas in that report. I think "Property" probably means huts etc, and "Land" probably means crags, and this was considered considerably more important than comps (35% v 18% high importance).  Besides, the cost of running Harrison's didn't cause a significant financial overspend. Or maybe it did, but the costs aren't apparent from the Annual Report, whereas the difference between the funding GBC received and what it spent is very visible, so that is getting attention (along with other reported issues).

The ORG survey showed comps were number 13 of 14 activities of interest to members. Number 1 was Access at 87% high importance

My interpretation of that table is that the 60% figure suggests there is support for comps remaining under the BMC, but the 18% shows it is a low priority - only "supporting international events" came lower - which is what I have been saying.  I'll settle for "small" rather than "tiny" tail if you prefer

I've no wish to insult anyone, but the situation raises questions which have still to be answered.  Hopefully we'll get something soon.

Maybe let's try spinning this around as we may progress faster (we seem to have sent Steve to sleep, as he has restated our discussion start point on members priorities). 

Hopefully we can both agree that funding gives significant leverage to BMC expenditure, particularly in GB Climbing,  but also in hillwalking participation initiatives, volunteer support, club support, EDI improvement, safeguarding, governance: all stuff that we both seem to think are necessary but where we don't want members subs being especially unevenly distributed. Members subs and priorities being very important (subs give 58% of BMC income in the 2023 AGM annual report).

Now we both think openness on overall work area expenditures is important and I'm guessing we agree that members' questions are a democratic and governance necessity and without them, and due reminders of member priorities, the organisation could drift.

We presumably agree that the CCPG report needs to go to and involve Council (even if legal sensitivity on confidentiality might require a smaller Council working group to report to Council).

We hopefully agree we can't remove all risks but would hope major risk is clear and open and proper processes are in place to deal with them.

Now,...

2022 accounts and annual report were publicised under rule before the AGM.  Now I'm  not naive and personally raised concerns about publicly for the AGM and knew we might struggle to be quorate, but I was mystified with the lack of members questions on finances. People didn't need to be there to raise questions and the attendance of members reps from Council was very good. The issues in GB Climbing (visible for months on Facebook) dominated the debate.

Following the restructure, significant extra breakdowns have been provided by the CEO on the BMC website, he and other Directors have answered questions in the recent area meetings.  The President has provided details on this thread.

So what are the main questions you think remain to be answered?

I see Council, as members reps, working hard on issues on behalf of their constituencies, in some areas of these debates for many months, but resolving problems is not helped by those with agendas catastrophising (I don't see you in that category at all, but I am still not sure what you want exactly).

Haha, your ability to argue that black is white is enough to put anyone to sleep 😴

My recollection of the second question asked at the AGM was along the lines of - 'Given that the BMC has posted deficits of £105k in '21 and £270k in '22 and is forecasting a deficit of £71k for '23, reducing the reserves by nearly half a million pounds, are we looking at a financial problem? When does the red light start flashing?'.

AGM was assured that, au contraire, all was under control and there were no unforseen financial issues.....

Yes but that was one question on the subject. I expected loads.... unless I missed it there was nothing on subs either, for the first time I can remember in recent years.

Paul said the big divergence from member growth predictions happened around the same time as the AGM....something easy for us to verify on data.... and that led from project adjustment to save money to some 'course corrections' being required. Council knew of course corrections being a potential option, if membership growth was more disappointing than expected, well before the AGM  (before you returned to Council?). The Board set this requirement in 2022. See 7.1 in Nov minutes.

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=2213

Did he indeed! I’d heard the projected increase in membership started in January and at the end of May the BMC should have gained 3,500 new members and it actually gained 68. If so it flatlined all the way to the AGM. 

The on plan projection was 91k by end of 2023, so 3500 extra by May wouldn't be far off (assuming roughly linear growth). I have no idea what recent month membership figures are, nor the variance to the growth plan that would trigger major project adjustment, nor the more significant trigger for course corrections. I'm pretty sure this will be a key issue for the next Council meeting, as it will be the first time the reality of course corrections will be discussed.

I was expecting that the next Members Council meeting would be held following the current round of Area Meetings. Taken aback to be told that the next one is not till the 7th October!  

Given the issues that have arisen regarding finances and GBClimbing it would seem a good idea to hold one soon to find out the reaction from the Areas and take action especially as the meetings are only now held on Zoom.

That's not true, its always been scheduled and its quite soon. You need to be more careful with your sources.

So when is it?

I think we agree on all that you mention.

It's no surprise that most people aren't interested in AGMs.  Usually an issue only surfaces because someone has drawn attention to it. In this case news of the possible redundancies was only flagged up after the AGM.

It's not very obvious how.  If you mean through area meetings, again not many people attend these, and if you can't get to one then the contact details are not easily found on the BMC website.

Visible where? Was this on one of the unofficial FB pages which most members don't know about? 

The figures for GBC weren't available at the early area meetings. At the Peak Area meeting Paul Davies didn't know them and said he would have to get back on those.  Subsequently Andy Syme confirmed on UKC that Paul would do this once he was back from leave. I haven't seen anything, but may have missed something in all the noise.

Bedsides some clarity on GBC's spending, and now the other issues which have been raised (which apparently due to confidentiality are currently rather vague), I'd like to be reassured that the BMC management have now got a proper grip on it. To an extent you have given some assurance, but I know you only by your UKC identity, and I don't know who you are or what role, if any, you have with the BMC and to what extent you are able to speak for it.

According to the MC calendar there is a 'pre-meeting' on 5th September. There is then a full meeting on the 23rd September BUT I think that has been moved because there is another full meeting scheduled on 7th October.* There will then be a 'post-meeting meeting' on 17th October. 

*As I understand it the earlier date was to allow MC and Board to meet physically at the same time. MC now has to have all meetings 'virtually' as part of cost-cutting so I think that may be why the second date has appeared? As had been pointed out I'm pretty new to things this time round so I stand ready to be corrected.

Damm, I wanted to see Offwidth response to see if he knew or whether he would claim it was confidential 🤣

Subsequent to the Peak Area meeting he confirmed in the CEO Q&A article on the BMC website that the shared overhead was £81k but with no info on how this was broken down and allocated. The devil is in the detail here and costs can and have been squirrelled elsewhere. I sent an email to him listing a breakdown of the costs, grant and income attributable to GBC and asking for a confirmation so everything is transparent. He emailed back that he would be doing another Q&A article that would include costs when he gets back. I’m hoping that’s not a deflection…

For clarity Offwidth/ Steve is the Rock climbing rep on Members Council so while he is not able to speak for the BMC as much as Andy Syme (President), or any of the Council nominated directors and not privy to board confidential information, he is heavily involved, knows what is going on with the organisation better than the vast majority of members and is practically part of the BMC furniture given his long involvement at area meetings and with guidebook production. His partner (Lynn) is also a former president of the BMC.

Steve gets a lot of stick and often holds views people disagree with but it's fairly easy to know where you stand with him (largely as he seems to have an aversion to keeping his head below a parapet!).

Sorry Howard... been busy with friends today until now. Spencer gave a fair summary of who I am. I can always ask stuff and you can get my email by contacting me me through the site. Andy Say has put up  the Council dates in my diary (which are never confidential but I had to check).

So the next Council Meeting is the 7th October ?