UKC

There is a huge amount of Jibber Jabber, mainly by the usual suspects about the BMC, and UKB has posted some questions to ask, all fair enough.

But who beyond the usual suspects will actually bother to attend an Area meeting?

More than usual would be my bet.

Good question. I'm hoping a lot will come as it is very important but with GDPR impacts on area comms, some who are fed up with and no longer read  UKC (and especially  if they don't live in the Peak) might not even know. It's worth distribution on local Facebook groups.

The Peak area actively welcome non members (but only Peak area assigned members can vote on any formal motions).

As an aside, I took an issue to an area meeting once that generated significant heat on UKC and yet no one else attended and I had to raise it as someone who disagreed with the majority UKC view (for explainable concrete reasons) and everyone else at a well attended meeting agreed with my position ( which I didn't express until after debate).

I have attended a couple, the great Lancashire Bolting Farce, with certain people going apoplectic about bolts.

But on a positive note, I attended another, and despite the ignorance about anything to do with climbing by a couple of galoots, I got a good hearing, and Andy Say really looked into the issue for me, but it was deemed to complex an issue by the central office for most members.
Dave Turnbull bought me a pint and I got some free chips.

I will not be going, but if more of the UKC spluteratti attended it may be a good thing.

I’m hoping to be a bit less busy from now on, so me, for a start.

As normal due to my major epileptic seizure I have lost my driving license ( hoping to get it back) I cannot drive to any unfortunately 

If Austin is still going he lives near Stoke I think?

I can offer a lift from Derby on Tuesday if you caught the train but that's not much use on the way home.

Is your own post not Jibber Jabber then, and do you not count as a usual suspect, for some reason? 

One of those irregular verb things...?

I know what is right

You have an opinion

They jibber jabber.

Although I have been a club member for the BMC for around 50 years it was news to me that I am "assigned" to any Area. The website gives the impression I can elect which Areas I am interested in, but on closer investigation it appears I am "assigned" to the Area in which I reside. In my case that appears to be the North West, although I climb there probably less than once a year and have no knowledge of or interest in its local issues.  The Peak District NP boundary is literally across the road from my house, and that is where I mostly climb.

There is a provision under 30.3.1(b) of the Articles of Association to give notice to the CEO that you intend to attend meetings of other Areas. I have just given notice, and I suggest that others from outside the area who plan to attend the Peak Area meeting (or other area meetings other than their local one) to do the same. You can of course only vote once.

How did you find out which area you were assigned to? Goodness know what it thinks for me...

I can pick you up if you want to go Gary.

The list of local areas is here:

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/bmc-areas

For most people the nearest area meeting would indicate which area you are part of. For some people it makes sense to be a member of an area they aren't geographically resident in (Peak Area discussions are of more interest to me than midland area ones as my recreation is mostly done North of Derby than SW of it).

No, which area you are part of is determined by where you live.  There is a tiny map on the BMC website which is too small to be of much use, but the local areas page linked to above shows a link to "Area Terms of Reference" which includes a large-scale detailed map. I live in Cheshire East, which is part of the North West Area, but my nearest meetings are usually the Peak Area. More importantly to me, my nearest climbing is in the Peak and that is where I am most concerned about any local issues.

In practice it probably doesn't matter as my credentials have never been checked whenever I've attended a meeting, but strictly I can only vote at the meetings of the Area to which I am allocated. Since this is the case I find it surprising that nothing in my membership information tells me which Area I am allocated to, and I had to do some digging to find out.  However as I mentioned above there is a mechanism to notify the CEO that you intend to vote in a different Area.

That's exactly the point I made, for most people the nearest meeting will be the one for their local area, but for some people a different meeting will be more relevant and there is a straightforward mechanism to change your area.

The Peak creates a bit of an oddity given that the area offers much better climbing and walking than 2 of the 3 areas surrounding it.

Thanks. It's exactly this kind of bureaucracy that you don't know you don't know that makes me wonder if it's even worth attending meetings... so I can fully see why the BMC might struggle to attract membership from anyone younger than me...! 

They have a huge amount of members who are students via university mountaineering clubs, almost none of them are involved in the BMC unless they already had involvement via the Youth Climbing Series though. I am not sure if expecting their involvement is reasonable though as running a university club is more demanding of time than a traditional club and student clubs often struggle for committee members.

I shall. There's no point in taking gossip for granted and whining on here but not actually turning up, asking questions and getting factual answers on which to form opinions and either support or challenge the BMCs approach.

It sounds like Andy Say is already getting prepped!

I was surprised by Howard's info as well but let's not overdo it. The rule was probably put in place as a safeguard against someone overeager touring all the area meetings and voting multiple times. It sounds like it's not really enforced in practice if a regular Peak climber who technically belongs to a different area turns up at the Peak meeting.

That's been my experience. However I wonder whether someone who wished to cause trouble could claim that a vote was invalid because the constitutional niceties hadn't been observed. 

The same could be said of many members of other clubs.  I am currently the president of a club with around 80 members, and most show little interest in the BMC.  In our case the BMC contribution makes up the lion's share of the annual subscription, and at each AGM when the subs increase I have to spell out the benefits of being an affiliated club. Whether the members continue to agree will depend on whether the BMC continues to deliver those benefits.  If too many of its resources get channelled into areas my members have no interest in eg competitions the time may come when they no longer wish to be affiliated.

The CC looked into it in 2018 or 2019 and it was suggested in preliminary discussions that you would wind up paying more for liability insurance as a club of 1500-2000 members than you pay for BMC membership. If members are engaged with the BMC, or apathetic about it and benefit from the protection the insurance gives them (including the reduction in personal financial risk associated with being a committee member and providing informal instruction to novices) a sensible argument can be made regardless of the other issues with the organisation.

Yes, but that’s hardly a ringing endorsement of BMC membership is it?  And given enough encouragement people will investigate other insurance options (look at the numbers who join the OAV for no other reason).

I've travelled with Lynn to most areas now and Andy Say in  the NW was the only local officer applying strict enforcement I never voted out of area as I knew the rule.

The BMC recently did an excellent job with covid advice for club huts and have always helped clubs in numerous ways, just as most BMC volunteers seem to be club members. I've always seen the arrangement as mutually beneficial.

Can a UK club even join 'OAV' for 3rd party and officer insurance?

I suspect the biggest 3rd party individual risk for club members these days is avoidable accidents indoors.

On its own, no, but it was intended to make a point about how to appeal to apathetic members who don't care about the wider things it does for the community like access, technical advice around bolting, equipment failure investigations, support to clubs around legislative changes as many of these happen in the background that many club members won't see direct evidence of.

The eagle ski club (over a thousand members all over the UK) affiliated to Mountaineering Scotland  a few years ago (mainly for its cover for club officers) not the BMC.

Was any consideration given to switching affiliation to Mountaineering Scotland? (Not trying to suggest it, just genuinely wondering if it was investigated)

Not that I am aware. Much of the committee has changed now (I am no longer a member of the committee) so the view may have shifted. The discussion was centred on the support the CC wished to lend the BMC in future and we decided that it was worth remaining affiliated and supporting things like the youth meets etc.