UKC

I do not want to derail this thread https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/starting_out/finding_people_willing_to_le... Personally I think climbing clubs are a great idea. Howver they do seem to have problems with engagement. With the senior clubs I suspect a problem of too many people in too many clubs. How can you be an active member of 4 or 5 clubs?
With local clubs though I suspect the issue is they are so desperate for members, and so welcoming. That they forget to tell the prospective members that actually the club can only work if its members put something in. And when many of the new members never put anything in, the club is baffled.
But if they never told them they should, why would they?
And by the same rule when someone has joined a club and some person is asking them to clean a hut or run a meet. The new members quite rightly can think "
Hang on, you never mentioned this when you wanted me to join"
Maybe clubs should better communicate what The Deal is.

One of the best things  we did was to actively encourage relative new comers to take on the day to day committee work. The only downside is that there are more bouldering and sport climbing trips compared with when the old guard ran things ????

Thats because ultimately the club is people, and as it moves through time, the people change, so the club changes. It is nice though if clubs can connect with older members.

I suspect you're probably right with regards the senior clubs, I actively participate in activities with both the CC and the Oread and more rarely with the NMC, between the two I am away from home nearly every weekend of the year and have no shortage of partners. Other than easier access to the respective club's huts I would have very little to gain from joining an additional club and I would either have to decrease my level of activity with existing clubs or be a member of the extra club for hut purposes, there isn't the time otherwise for someone who has a full time job.

When bringing new members into the Oread I make it quite clear that running the club is something which is done in a voluntary fashion and that I would like to see people contributing to the club, over time this could variously be; attending meets, attending working parties, supporting the committee, attendance at AGMs, assisting with the introduction and mentoring of newer/ less experienced members and running meets. Mountaineering clubs act for the collective good of their members on the clear understanding that people contribute to this where they are able.

In my experience the sort of people who "just don't get" the idea of a club (more specifically local clubs) just end up coming on one or two meets/ days out and then drift away when they realise that the club expects them to put something back into the club. Occasionally it results in a somewhat wasted day, however if I'm climbing with someone completely new or who I don't know/ trust I will tend to have them tag on to a day I'm doing with a more regular partner so I'm confident the belaying is good/ I'm not on my own if the new person does anything really stupid.

Edit: With regards what Graham D has said, I'd bloomin' love it if some of the younger members would organise some bouldering meets, a more diverse meet calendar is all the better to appeal to the full range of the club's membership.

If I was a climbing club I'd let everyone know that you get BMC associate membership and 3rd party insurance through them for pretty much the same price - i.e. you're covered for Cheddar and dropping rocks on people (not deliberately Mwahahaha), and if you were going to get cover anyway then membership of the local MC is basically free. 

Direct BMC membership is very cheap in the first year and you get a great discount on guidebooks though.

I cancelled my BMC membership and meant to join a local MC but I could just never get around to showing up on the exact date they were collecting subs.  Can't I just do this online, guys?  It's 2018 and I have to be proposed and seconded, vetted, and/or show up to an aspirants meet, really?

If clubs go down the road you have suggested they will likely just end up with a large number of members who don't actually participate in the club's activities, this (potentially) introduces issues with quoracy at AGMs and more importantly makes it difficult for active members to build a cohesive social circle within the club.

BMC discount on guidebooks isn't much use if you are ordering online as it is usually wiped out by the postage.

The vast majority of clubs allow you to submit application forms at any point  in the year, if you don't want to go through the whole proposing and seconding process before getting to know the club well you could always apply for prospective membership which typically isn't as onerous as applying for full membership. If you want to be a full member of the club able to participate in all of the club's activities, influence the direction of the club and stay at their huts unsupervised a club can quite rightly expect that you gain the approval of two members prior to joining the club. I value being able to climb with club members and being confident that they are competent belayers and can build good anchors, equally I value the ability to turn up at the hut without much prior planning and know that someone's not going to have trashed the joint (clearly this doesn't always work in some clubs but it does help a bit).

Clubs exist for their members to be able to climb regularly together, and are not training organisations. So it's perfectly reasonable for them to want to have at least some idea that prospective new people are safe, competent and not complete tossers.

Me and my group of friends climb regularly together.  We have a whatsapp group.

I wouldn't assume anyone is safe, competent or not a tosser just because they're a club member, but my standards might differ.

The club is actually asking you to act as a member. If you cannot manage this for a couple of meets/days, well then possibly the club is not right for you, and your not right for the club.

A Cohesive social circle, aka a Hopefully-Benevolent Clique of Ruling Overlords lol

Yeah, if the club has a hut it's all fair enough.

Some jobs need you to work late and compromise on your social life when the shit's hitting the fan.

Thats good, possibly others could do the same.

Then if you have a job like that, maybe the club is not for you.

Would you bother investing time in climbing with someone new if you knew you would only see them once or twice rather than a regular partner? (Clearly this is different if your usual partners are unavailable, however since joining the Oread and the CC I can't remember an occasion where I wanted to go climbing and couldn't find a partner despite getting out nearly every weekend between January and September last year).

Most clubs are essentially a large group of mates who go climbing together, if I don't find someone's company enjoyable I have no interest in climbing with them, if no-one in the club enjoys climbing with them they will not gain anything through membership of the club and the club will not value any contribution which they may make.

I've climbed with loads of new people, I wish I could remember all their names, random guys from work, someone who worked in the local chip shop, people I've met at the crag, friends of friends.  I basically just told my self: "right, I'm on training/ guiding mode, I'll push my grade and tick off the classics another day". 

So you're saying all your club members are greedy and selfish and have no interest in training new climbers on the off chance they might enjoy it? 

Maybe you're right, clubs aren't for me - whether I'm climbing or not, I don't like spending my free time in the company of selfish tosspots.

Sadly some people will, given the chance, use clubs as a way of getting free training. Having received this training, they'll then go off and never be seen again. 

From what you've written it sounds like probably not; you're doing fine as you are.

That is a crazy leap.

What is selfish about not wanting to spend your hard earned climbing time on a freeloader every weekend?

I agree, in my experience climbing clubs are generally stuck in the past - how many still use the proposed/seconded system? Most I would bet.

How many use whatsapp/facebook to organise trips/meets  - oh no, the club isn't on that, that would mean evolving

And yet clubs wonder why they have an ageing membership.

You are (wilfully, perhaps?) missing my point. Would you just accept J. Random Stranger into your whatsapp group without any attempt to verify whether you enjoy climbing with him/her, or are risking your life by doing so? I suspect not.

Either you've been unlucky with the clubs you've tried, or I've been lucky

How many WhatsApp/Facebook groups have a nice detached building with showers and catering where if you want you can camp, and all for £3 to £7, in places like the llanberris Pass or Langdale.
Sadly these places also need looking after and you also kind of want to check out someone if your going to trust them with a key to come and go as they will.

I would assume that you already knew many of these people or at least had judged them as being someone you wanted to climb with though? I do regularly climb with new members of the club and have become very good friends with some of them, I have surrendered days with good conditions where I could have gone off and done my own thing to climb with these people and see this as an investment.

People who turn up and expect to be taken out climbing (sometimes including me providing a lift) and either have no interest in learning how to be independent climbers/ mountaineers or participating in the wider activities of the club, to me, represent a poor investment of my time. Particularly as I could be climbing with someone who does want to participate in the club's activities or go off and do some personal climbing.

The Rucksack Club is certainly a "Senior Club", established in 1902 and with around 500 members and huts in England, Scotland and Wales. https://rucksackclub.org/

We've recently introduced a new "Deal" to make it easier for people to get to know the Club and to decide if it's right for them (and vice versa). Associate Members have the benefits of BMC club membership (including the vital 3rd party insurance mentioned elsewhere), and more importantly receive our regular newsletter and get to join the Facebook group, as well as enjoying reduced hut fees etc. All this for less than the cost of a quickdraw. You can even apply by email! 

This is intended to last for a year or two while the associate member comes on a few meets and gets to know a bunch of people (that is, after all, the whole point of a climbing club!) by which time it's an easy step into full membership.

New members are encouraged to participate fully in the life of the Club - coordinate meets, contribute to the Journal, play a part on the committee etc. Like other aspects of life - the more people muck in, the less there is to do, and we can crack on with climbing routes, sending blocs or bagging Munroes.