The British Mountaineering Council has announced that Lorraine Brown, GB Climbing's Head of Performance, has resigned after three years of service.
© BMC/GB Climbing
The performance sport consultant and director, who held previous roles at the English Institute of Sport, stepped down from her position on 12 March in order to prioritise her health and is returning to Edinburgh for personal and family reasons.
Brown said:
"It has been an honour and a privilege to lead GB Climbing and be a part of the BMC family. I am deeply grateful for the experiences, memories, and friendships forged during my time at GB Climbing.
"While I am sad to bid farewell, I leave with a sense of optimism for the future, there is a brilliant group of performance athletes looking to forge success at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, and a future potential group who will be laying the foundations this year as they seek to realise their LA and Brisbane Olympic Games credentials."
Paul Ratcliffe, BMC CEO, added:
"We extend our heartfelt thanks to Lorraine for unwavering hard work, dedication and contributions to GB Climbing. We wish her all the best in her future endeavours."
Jon Garside, BMC Head of Sport & Community Development, will take on the role of Acting Head of Performance with immediate effect. He will be "working closely with the staff team to oversee operational delivery and to lead GB Climbing through the next six months," a BMC press release reads.
The recruitment process for the Head of Performance role will begin after the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Read more on the BMC website.
Comments
Is this a second "commuting distance" resignation at the BMC?
Google tells me the second definition of ‘commute’ is:
“reduce (a judicial sentence, especially a sentence of death) to another less severe one”
Who?
There's some more context here re a previous letter of no confidence from parents/athletes to GB Climbing, including team selection criteria:
https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2023/09/open_letter_gb_climbing_athletes+parents_cite_loss_of_confidence_in_leadership-73446
Also re: concerns around funding and oversight of GB Climbing here:
https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/crag_access/what_would_gb_climbing_look_like_as_an_independent_subsidiary-768743?v=1#x9890581
and plenty of chat on the BMC Watch facebook group.
Sadly poor moderation on BMC Watch allows personal attacks on BMC staff to remain public, including some new ones in the last few days. These are serious issues under discussion, not helped by unethical insults to people who have no right of reply. The morale in the organisation is significantly impacted by such attacks that just makes their job, to help the organisation recover, that much more difficult. The strategic responsibility to resolve these issues lies with the BMC Board, operationalised by the new CEO, so please let's depersonalise this at the staff level. For what it's worth I think the new CEO is already having a significantly more positive impact and deserves a chance. The Board are being more open on finances to Council than anyone can remember (and we are urging this is seen by members)... we just need more movement on GB Climbing stakeholder relationships (again urged on by Council).