The National Indoor Climbing Award Schemes (NICAS) has added four new trustees to its executive board to provide expert guidance and support through an exciting period of growth for the charity and for climbing. Working alongside skilled coaches and climbing wall centres across the country and beyond, NICAS has introduced over 170,000 people into climbing, providing them with the foundational skills to explore all that climbing has to offer.

The new board members join an existing board packed with extensive experience across the outdoor industry supportive of meeting the overall aims of NICAS. Stepping down from the board after fully serving their terms are Ben Levey and Carys Rowlands.

Joining the board are Rotimi Odukoya, the founder of grassroots climbing initiative CLMBXR which aims to encourage black and ethnic minority groups to give climbing a try. On joining the board, Rotimi commented:

"I am really excited to join NICAS as a trustee. Having started CLMBXR in 2019, I have been in a fortunate position to introduce newbies into the sport. I have seen the impact climbing makes when it feels accessible to all and I know that NICAS feels the same way too.

Knowing how much climbing has impacted my life both physically and mentally, I am really passionate about the ways which NICAS can help the next generation of climbers not only in the UK but internationally too."

Joining Rotimi is Climbing Coach Juan Avendano, Jill Cowley, the Head of School, Humanities and Performing Arts at De Montfort University and Matt Bird, Director of outdoor communications agency, Band of Birds.

Nick Parkin, Managing Director of NICAS commented on the new appointments;

"This is a very exciting time for NICAS. Recently we have doubled our workforce to expand our suite of products to provide even more ways for people to have an amazing introduction to the world of climbing. With the addition of the new members to an executive board already packed with knowledge and insight, I am confident that NICAS is in safe hands and will continue to flourish in the coming years."

Ian Taylor, Chair of the Board of Trustees, commented, 

"The enormous success of NICAS to date has been down not just to the hard work of the team led by Nick and NICAS providers but the expertise and passion provided by our executive team. Nick and I have been overwhelmed by the range of talent we have managed to secure onto the board and I am looking forward to working with them."

NICAS will present its new products at the ABC Conference this September.