UKH

My last post attempted to sketch out how a GB Climbing subsidiary might look. However, from subsequent conversations it became apparent that my understanding of how the grant system worked was wrong and also it was brought to my attention that there isn’t a common understanding of what currently constitutes GB Climbing. 

Therefore, I thought it worth updating on the information I’ve learnt and how it might apply with a subsidiary.

Where will the National Governing Body status sit?

The BMC is the National Governing Body of Competition climbing and this wouldn’t change if GB Climbing became a wholly “owned” subsidiary. The BMC would continue to exercise control of competition climbing by dint of this ownership and its representation on the subsidiary Board thereby meeting the objects in the current articles.

To what extent does the subsidiary solve the current operational and cultural issues at GBC?

The answer is it doesn’t. It is abundantly clear that there are major problems at GBClimbing and simply dropping the current structure and its personnel into a subsidiary isn’t going to automatically solve them. These operational and cultural issues need addressing beforehand (starting now!) irrespective of plans for a subsidiary.  

In terms of tightening financial control the CEO’s background of running a £20m+ budget and 60 staff at British Canoeing should make this bread and butter for him with respect to staying within grant for the funded activity and also staying within the agreed budget for the unfunded activity (ie what the BMC chooses to fund). 

Longer term the greater accountability and transparency created and codified in a subsidiary structure will help mitigate some of the current issues reoccurring in the future.

What about the members? 

Good question! What are we trying to achieve with GB Climbing and how does the big decisions that GBC have been making serve the actual members (including athletes)? Members being placed at the centre of thinking and acting seems to have been forgotten at GBClimbing. For example hosting the World Cup was largely a waste of £90k on this measure other than athletes and spectators having less far to travel. Whilst still integrated within the BMC these decisions should place member benefit first in terms of cost justification rather than that of prioritising the wishes of UKSport, Sport England, the IFSC and Sponsors. 

GBClimbing is rather different to the rest of the BMC though. A representative body consults with its members – it doesn’t dictate to them. In contrast a governing body makes and enforces rules over its members and that’s the way it must be in competitive professional sport. Squaring the circle here is difficult in a single body that tries to be both at the same time. A less member centred culture would sit better in a subsidiary IMO.

What is GB Climbing? 

I say it’s any activity that is involved in competitions or competition climbers that fall into the category of athletes or aspirant athletes. However, some take the narrower view that it is solely the elite performance activity (National Teams and the Development Programmes). However, that wouldn’t include the competitions run by the BMC and other events (symposiums, conferences etc)

Frankly there shouldn’t even be an argument here as the scope of the oversight body, the GB Climbing Competition Climbing Performance Group

(CCPG), includes domestic competitions * so any moves to limit the scope or refer to GBClimbing in narrower terms should be called out. 

Defining GBClimbing is important in terms of structures, accountability, responsibilities and recognising what is and isn’t grant funded. We also need to identify what to drop into a subsidiary or not that can be cohesively understood to be GB Climbing. 

My take is that anything that is indoor climbing but community related should remain in the BMC. This would be work that drives equality and inclusion that would be traditionally also supported by Sport England. Let’s call it non athlete activity to make a more easily understood as why it doesn’t sit within GB Climbing. This is an already recognised area within the BMC Office so leaving it in place should cause minimal disruption to staff and I think most core traditional members would be supportive and interested in this work than for example international competitions. 

Therefore, GB Climbing (the Athlete type activity) can be divided into Elite Performance which includes management of the various teams which is mainly grant funded and Events which includes Competitions that is mainly not eligible for grant funding.

How does the grant funding work?

Only the Elite Performance is currently guaranteed to be funded and fully funded at that (forget the 85/15 ratio) Funding might be possible for certain competitions such as World Cups but in general competitions are not eligible for grant funding. Based on the purpose symposiums may or may not be funded. Attendance at IFSC conferences and the like? I have no idea. 

Direct funding of athletes expenses is not eligible for grant funding except for the elitest of the elite. To mitigate against it being just a sport for those with predominantly rich parents a fund raising BMC charity could be set up that provides financial support for promising athletes of more limited means. As an altruistic body promoting inclusion, I'd see this as sitting more comfortably in the BMC alongside ACT and Mountain Heritage charities. A funding body of this type has been set up in the USA and reportedly works well. 

What would the financial relationship be with the BMC?

With the subsidiary there will be a inter group transactions which will make it far clearer exactly what level of subsidy, if any, the BMC is making. The BMC should charge for a share of the costs that GBC benefits from (IT, Office space, HR, Accountancy etc) or at the very least receive the grant funding that is allocated to it to covers these shared costs. GB Climbing might invoice for the profit on memberships it generates if it doesn’t administer its own membership scheme. 

The BMC in its lead role administers all grant applications for its Partner Organisations (ABC, NICAS, Mountaineering England) and would do this for GBClimbing and must approve GBClimbing applications as part of maintaining control over GBC as a subsidiary as required in the articles. 

A pathway to a subsidiary 

No doubt our new CEO will be focussing a lot of his attention on sorting out the operational and cultural problems at GBClimbing. 

I suggest that the changes include a focus on implementing the broken promise from 4 years ago of ringfencing GBClimbing (in terms of all the athlete type activity outlined above) “with the same formality and robustness of arrangements as if a subsidiary was being set up”. This will not only be a good end in itself, but also ease the path to implementing an actual subsidiary if that is what is decided. 

What happens if the members vote for a subsidiary?

A task group would probably be set up drawn from the Board, MC, Staff and comps community to focus on the articles for this new body. The group would consult with key stakeholders namely the athletes, parents, grant funding bodies, the IFSC and partner organisations to help map out a suitable structure that works for all. Recommendations would be presented to the Board and a Director would be recruited for the subsidiary who would implement the transition. 

*CCPG Terms of Reference

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=1858

Under "What would the financial relationship be with the BMC?" you've overlooked the most important question: what is the BMC's financial liability for GBC as an independent subsidiary?

In theory the answer is none, since a parent company is not liable for the debts of its subsidiaries. However in practice the BMC as the NGB could not let GBC to go bust, and UK Sport/Sport England would probably not allow it even if the BMC wanted to.  The reality is that the BMC cannot ringfence itself from GBC by putting it into a subsidiary. 

Of course the BMC should have a representative on the GBC subsidiary board and any overspend by GBC should not come as a complete surprise.  However without a majority voice on the subsidiary board it would not be able to prevent decisions which might lead to an overspend. If it did retain a majority voice, then the subsidiary is not really independent and all we have achieved is another level of governance in an organisation which is already too complex.

Either way, the BMC Board is still going to have spend quite a lot of time overseeing the activities of GBC, but very possibly with less influence over it.

As you correctly say, simple putting GBC into a subsidiary isn't going to solve the current problems. They can only be solved by someone getting a grip. However a subsidiary could bring its own problems. I am still not persuaded that a subsidiary offers any significant advantages.

Many commercial organisations will ask for a Parent Company Guarantee (PCG) before they will do business with a subsidiary. It's absolutely standard. So the Parent Company remains responsible for the debts of the subsidiary.

My point is the BMC could not allow GBC to go bust, so even without formal guarantees in practice it would remain responsible for the subsidiary's debts.

A good run down of the situation. Thanks

I still don't believe that a subsidiary is necessary (It would be expensive to set up!) and, if it was set up with the current ethos and staff, would not solve any of the problems (or perceived problems) caused by GBC. 

Th LONC from the athletes and the poor financial management and the growing staffing levels all point to an empire building mentality amongst the current GBC management, with no regard to the effect it is having on the BMC, it's members and the athletes involved, who not only pay their own expenses, but also have to pay entry fees for an invitation only event! I do not doubt that amongst the GBC staff there are some excellent people, but the overall perception is that the current management and staff are not achieving it's overall aims!

I am staying as a BMC member in the hope that the numerous problems (often management created) can be sorted out, that communication with the members is improved, and their opinions are considered in all future decisions. I do realise that you cannot please all of the people all of the time, but I am hoping that the BMC can start trying to please the majority of members most of the time.

I look forward to an urgently speedy communication from our new CEO outlining his perception of the problems, their causes and his possible remedies! Something as constructive, honest and open as that will go a long way to improving relationships with the members.

P.s. Whoever has the new CEO's ear, please tell him to not use 'management speak' and acronyms, as these are often perceived as 'avoidance/obfuscation strategies'! 

Communication, communication, communication! (Something the BMC is appalling at!)

Sorry this got a bit long. I feel that I needed to say these things as an ordinary member who has seen the recent chaos!

Have to say I agree. I think the BMC needs to decide if it’s all-in or all-out on being the NGB. Being ‘in’ comes with non-optional responsibilities. Without wishing to reopen all the arguments in the other threads, you’re responsible for athlete’s careers - you can’t for example decide to just drop some international comps this year because you don’t feel like it, or want to spend more on access in this cycle. Morally, there are a bunch of minimum requirements that if the NGB can’t guarantee it has no real right to be the NGB.

It feels like this proposal is a sort of halfway-house attempt to make GBC more responsible, but with the BMC retaining ultimate NGB status. It’s likely to end up being the worst of both worlds.

Fully handing over NGB status to the current group running GBC would get the BMC out of the responsibility, but it’s probably not even possible - there would have to be options for others to ‘bid’ for this privilege/duty.

If somehow it was just handed on a plate to the current lot, it would be an absolute disaster for the comp community, a large number of whom signed a LoNC, but I suppose at that point it’s not the BMC’s problem anymore, and it’s up to GBC leaders to figure out how to not be regarded as failures by a vast number of its athletes.

I agree with many others in the other thread, the BMC is tying itself in knots instead of just getting a grip of its comp department, for that’s all it is, a department. In any normal organisation the CEO would sort them out - it shouldn’t get to “this is so bad can we somehow make it into a subsidiary or something”. Nothing the athletes have asked for is unreasonable, and nobody would necessarily demand that every single request is acceded to, but serious action is needed - on finances, strategy and culture, and I’m afraid the CEO needs to stand up and make clear he’s the boss and tell them what they need to do. Now, if that’s not happened because he actually thinks GBC is all great now, it’s a different matter and the community is free to have that argument with him, just as he can and should make his case. What we can’t have is the GBC tail wagging the CEO dog, if indeed that’s what’s going on.

The easiest solution is to get a grip. My recommendation would be to get someone independent who has access to the signatories of the LoNC (I’m not sure if one of the journalists had this info?) and poll them again to see if No Confidence is now Confidence. My guess is that almost nobody will have shifted but maybe it’s better than that and some people can see progress that others haven’t. However, having had a letter of no confidence, doesn’t it make sense for the CEO/Board to ask the same people if confidence has been restored? At least then they know what they’re dealing with, because trying to kid themselves with anecdotal evidence that everything is better - if it’s not - will rapidly backfire and make the situation even worse. The new CEO losing all credibility (which will rapidly happen) leaves things in a bad place. He can’t afford this to happen, nor can the board.

What do you think these "moral responsibilities" are? 

In no particular order and non-exhaustive: equitable distribution of the limited number of international licenses issued by the global governing body, the IFSC, ensuring that licenses don’t go unused if there are athletes strong enough to use them. Health and safety of elite athletes in international competitions. Running a national competition series and providing suitable opportunities for athletes to prove whether or not they are capable of representing their country. Finding sponsorship opportunities to support the international team. Supporting inclusivity w.r.t. to national teams, including the para teams.

I think it is worth stating that the BMC isn't tying itself in knots over this subsidiary idea, it's the idea of one member that has the support of other members. BMC staff are not (yet) using up valuable time on this proposal and it's one of the reasons I have not supported it as I see no benefit, whilst seeing it as a distraction from the main goal of all these discussions, sorting out GBC!

Whether they are spending that precious time on getting a grip of GBC is for you and those involved to judge!

Thanks for removing most of the misrepresentation this time (now just omitting breadth of costs and risks). It still remains in my view a very expensive, risky and disruptive solution for the wrong problems. It is also already taking time for debate away from the very pressing issues of stakeholder relationships in GB Climbing, the worrying future of third party insurance (if insurance costs keep increasing as fast as they are,  the BMC needs a new model), the flatlining of membership in context of  increasing participation, growing diversity problems on key committees (especially Council where we could soon be without any voting women), and leadership discussions for the organisation (we have a Presidential election at the AGM, with not a hint of candidates, and a 3 year term for the Chair ends later in 2024); or even celebrating the loads of really good stuff the BMC continues to do despite financial austerity, and sincerely thanking staff and volunteers for this (in spite of the at times awful political atmosphere!).

I thought this article today and linked report on Swim England provides a useful flag in the area of performance standards: what we should be trying to avoid and good practice to follow.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2024/mar/14/swim-englands-toxic-cult...

Where are the funding bodies in all this? (which picks up on the second part of the OP's question). Presumably they have their own objectives from the money they are providing and expect results  which achieve these.  What Key Performance Indicators have they set, and is the BMC achieving them>

UK Sport is aimed at elite athletes and this year is presumably particularly focussed on the Olympics. Is it interested in the level below, who are not currently Olympic hopefuls but who might be in future? Have they had anything to say about the criticisms Alphahacker has made about cancelling events and restricting licences?

Sport England is meant to promote grass-roots sport, but I have the impression from previous discussions that the funding goes to GBC, although some of it benefits other BMC activities by paying for staff with dual roles. Does this mean that Sport England's idea of the "grass-roots" is confined to competition climbing at the lower levels?  Does any government funding go towards leisure climbing, which is what the overwhelming majority of climbers participate in? If not, and if we are reliant on whatever can be syphoned off from the competitions, that makes it all the more important to keep competition climbing firmly under the control of the BMC, even if it is the tail wagging (or paying for) the dog.

Thanks for the link. Really useful and interesting reading

Can you please desist from this.

I have not set out to deceive and you seem to be deliberately and repeatedly setting out to plant the seed in peoples minds that I am lying. 

My personal interpretation of the word overspending turns out to be different to yours and others. I have altered that because I do not want to mislead. Other things are because we hold different points of view. 

As I understand it UKSport is purely focussed on targeting Olympic medals and its 4 year funding cycles track the Olympics cycle. As I understand there are three streams of funding to the BMC namely for the National able bodied lead/boulder teams, The UK Sport Programme (The systems supporting the Academy to Podium model whatever that is) and Talent programme focusing on junior athletes

Yes. Part of Sport England is focussed on funding high level competitive sport. This was news to me when Roger Murray the Chair mentioned it at the last Open Forum. 

They are very often not. Some more examples:  upto a £500k 2023 deficit (then reversed back to £300k), we had no governance compliance officer (when we had). Even at the recent Peak area meeting you claimed the 400 member support for an AGM motion rule was something "slipped in" by a member of staff, when it was fully debated and agreed by internal BMC process, including Council. The context for the ~400 (ie  0.5% of the membership) requirement for an AGM motion was the BMC took a £150k hit and had real disruption and a hit on morale due to the Motion of no Confidence (MoNC), under the old rules that required 25 signatures. 25 members can still call for a Council debate, as can an Area meeting. You only needed 400 votes because you haven't taken those routes.

I'm more than happy to work with you on drafting, so there is no need for such public disagreement, even where we disagree politically (it's still a Councillor's job to represent their full constituency), and as I've said there are a number of Council members who might also help who regularly attend the Peak area (I'd forgot one before... 2 Peak area reps one who is Deputy President, a Lakes area rep, a Clubs rep, a Hillwalking rep and me as an NEC)..... someone joked that with a few more we could almost be a quorate Council meeting.

I don't think you are malicious in this misrepresentation (or I'd call you out as I did with the dirty tricks of the MoNC) but you should fact check much better and at least mention things like cost and risk of such change (where we can agree to disgree over scale). I've been clear I agree with your first resolution on more openess on spending (aside from the associated background).

As the co-owner of UKB and moderator of BMC Watch I am also unhappy with moderation standards that allow public denigration of indiviual staff, as it's unethical and unfair given they have no right of reply as employees (UKC don't allow such posts).

Your two examples only serve to prove my point. 

I was extremely clear that when I said I had heard the deficit was likely to be £500k I also said I hoped it wasn’t true and when it became clear from my source it was an error I immediately posted on UKC to say so.

The item I said was slipped in wasn’t the 0.5% threshold for member resolutions but the web form process for member resolutions. I used slipped in because it was far from common knowledge (only Andy Say seemed to know a about it). 

FYI on the latter issue I was informed yesterday that the Change.org info is not sufficient for reasonable verification 😡 which is based on a very strict reading of the articles. I have shared the email with the Area rep who will raise it at the Council meeting next Tuesday.

This feels like a further unreasonable barrier to direct member democracy on top of an already high threshold of signatories. 

The above particularly sticks in the craw when the Board are willing to flout a major article in making the AGM online without consulting Members Council which is in turn a collective breach of their code of conduct. 

With their collective knowledge and support of a governance officer and legal advice if they need it they should be held to a higher standard and than ordinary members who quite frankly they should cut a bit of slack for.

I apologise for misreporting the web form detail from that meeting.... it's not what I nor others thought we heard. It was more the "slipped in" description that annoyed me (negativity about staff doing their job... a web form seems a practical solution to company law AGM motion requirements to me). As for your final paragraph you're not the only one who thinks that but that doesn't make it right: publicly attacking staff is unethical. If you have an issue with behaviour there is a complaint's procedure.

On the deficit surely a 5 figure increase is enough concern without resorting to spreading rumours?

I don't think a web form is at all unreasonable when the democratic Council route has such a low bar but I'd be amazed and upset if a motion would be rejected with well over 400 names on a petition that just missed the formal number on that form.

I'd like an adult debate on finances at the AGM, as things are tight enough this year but if membership growth remains flat and 3rd party insurance costs continue to grow faster than inflation, we need more significant savings or income soon. Enough members are upset with a well below inflation subscription rise decided last summer for 2024.

Ignoring formal process did annoy Council and a significant number there would still like to see a hybrid meeting. However, the cost savings had to be made somewhere and we favoured other priorities more at the Council meeting on the budget.

I'd also like time for things like dropping the member voting age to 16. Also your suggestion of a new BMC charity to support athletes from less wealthy families to help with the large costs of elite comps.

Simon didn't say that the requirement for 400 members signatures (actually 0.5% of voting members so possibly a little bit less than 400 depending on numbers of non-voting members/ duplicated club memberships there are) had been added in, he said that the requirement for verification of BMC membership before submission has been added in.

The meeting on Friday wasn't supportive of the notion that all signatories must re-sign the petition via a BMC web form to verify their membership status, it also isn't stipulated in the articles how the BMC ought to do this, however the process was in place for last year's AGM at least:

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=2220

Does Change.org offer the facility to contact signatories of a petition? A pragmatic solution would be to ask all signatories to sign the web form with membership details and then ask the office to verify membership status of anyone who hasn't signed the web form by a specific date.

Simon didn't follow the process (presumably because he didn't know there was a defined process rather than any attempt at chicanery), but the BMC didn't do a great job of publicising the process (specifically because this year's AGM notice was released after Simon's motions were published and the BMC's awful website made last year's process difficult to find).

I report what I hear if there is sufficient credence and Im not betraying confidences. The sources were informed insiders so I didn’t think it was doubtful. My track record is pretty good and often cuts through the spin or fills a silence from official channels. I think members who care should get an insight on what is going on behind the scenes. 

FWIW this is what I said:

UKB Shark

08 Feb 2024

I’ve heard from a couple of sources now that the loss for 2023 will be a staggering and appalling £500k. Please say it’s not true.

At the Open Forum on 13 Dec Roger Murray Chair of the Board of Directors said it would £300-350k. That was only 8 weeks ago. This in turn was up from the £250-300k cited in the November update.

OP UKB Shark

13 Feb 2024

In reply to UKB Shark:

An update here. I have a revised report that the initial fear of a £500k loss, whilst provided in good faith, was overdone. This is good news insofar as we are likely to be looking at a turnout something closer to a disaster than a cataclysm and the reserves minimum won’t be breached.

I have repeated ad nauseum that the BMC needs better communication in all areas, but especially in telling the members/prospective members/countryside lovers/ politicians/world etc about the good things the BMC does. The staff and volunteers may then get the recognition they deserve for their unstinting hard work, despite them having to put up with all the dubious 'management' decisions and chaos resulting from these.

Come on BMC it is time you blew your own trumpet much louder. (Maybe if 'management' could get themselves sorted out the full time staff would have better self-esteem and more time to do the jobs they are actually supposed to be doing.)

The disruption caused by lack (or misleading) of communication with the members is what is leaving spaces for the rumour mongers, stirrers, and agitators to fill with their particular hobby horse!

I realise now I misheard. However, we always had to verify signatories as eligible voting members. A web form is a practical solution to meet requirements for including such a member led motion at a company AGM (based on criteria set after democratic process where there was a deliberate decision to make that route more difficult, to protect the BMC and the risk of real costs being passed on to members).  It's not some kind of sneaky undemocratic action, given the much lower democratic bars elsewhere. Complaining about the form in advance assumes a complete lack of organisational flexibility for reasonable issues. As an example of how flexible the BMC have been, the MoNC wasn't rejected despite clear faults (including names who didn’t sign!)  it was allowed to be submitted again.

The normal democratic route is through areas and/or Council. I sympathise with his worries about timings of the Peak Area meetings but I struggle to understand Simon being ignorant of a Council route (and his Council reps), as he was an ex Council rep. Why didn't he just contact us?

I agree a web form is a practical and sensible solution, but it needs to be communicated clearly that is how it is done (especially as the last time a motion was successfully put onto an agenda this way it was John Roberts' mass participation one which was done through Change.org IIRC).

Regardless of viewpoint of the motion's content it needs to be clear whether or not the motion can be properly submitted to the AGM because otherwise we will waste the AGM's time discussing if it should/ shouldn't be on the agenda before we even start discussing what the motion wishes to achieve, no one wants to sit through that on a Saturday night!

This is a new level of tedium. You know exactly why as I have said all this to you before.

I wasn’t ignorant of the Council route. I contacted the Chair at the start of February with a view to going down the 25 signatories to Council route and when I found out the next Area meeting wasn’t for another 5 weeks decided it was a non starter in terms of timings so decided to press on alone. 

As we now know it is in fact the BMC view that it is an/either choice for member resolutions which can be progressed. Pursuing one avenue negates the other.

Following your logic there should be no direct member resolutions!.

And where do you get the notion that the MC route is normal? Nowhere I’ve read.

In my 14 year involvement with the BMC I am not aware of any resolutions progressed in this way through Council yet I am aware of three direct resolutions.

To the best of my knowledge the Council route for resolutions is not only not normal it is practically non-existent. 

If anybody came to me for advice on how to progress a resolution and knowing what I know now I’d definitely advise them to go it alone if they were are confident of getting the required number of signatures due to the jeopardy built into the Council route by the articles.

I haven’t tested this but believe that you can. I’ll wait on from the feedback from Tuesdays MC meeting before doing so. Hopefully MC will back the view that this is overly onerous for those who have already confirmed their support and get the stipulation overturned.

I do think that if forced to go down the web form route and (effectively putting the process in the hands of the office) that I should be allowed to send out an email to all members that advertises the petition with a hyperlink back to the petition.

Apparently the CEO is coming over to watch the CWIF finals on Sunday (first time ever for a CEO) so if you want to bend his ear then I will happily give you a VIP ticket

Does the VIP ticket involve Chateau Petrus in which case I’m in 🥂

(Is this compensation for not sorting me out with tickets for the Olympic final )

I think the solution is to accept that this is all a bit of a mess and that the BMC needs to make the process much more visible year round in future and agree a sensible solution for these motions.

Believe me I’m tryIng

So I bumped into a good friend in the pub this evening. He's not a climber, but he is an Olympian, and is now a well established elite level coach in his sport. So I quizzed him over a pint, and I thought it would be worth giving a precis:

• First of all, the sort of tensions that are happening between the representative and NGB sides of the BMC's role are typical of all sports. They happen in long established traditionally competitive sports like track and field, let alone cycling or canoeing, and are huge in sports like surfing, which have very similar cultures to climbing and mountaineering.
• Spending on competitions is always an issue. Without sponsorship (and even with sponsorship) it is very difficult to fund attendance at all the competitions one would want.
• There is a lot of paperwork involved in sending athletes to a competition. An NGB has a duty of care to its athletes, which realistically requires the presence of coaching and / or management at the competition. If this duty of care is not manifest, then the NGB will be directly contravening UK Sport or Sport England policy.
• That's for adult athletes. For under 18's there are significant additional safeguarding responsibilities.
• From a practical perspective the roles of parent and coach or team manager are very different. You can't just send an accompanying parent with young athletes. And my friend recommends that even when parents are qualified coaches in their kids sport, they should avoid try and avoid being team staff when their kids are competing - if they are there at an elite competition, they should be there as parents.
• That said, each NGB will have its own risk assessment for international competition, so will understand the right level of support needed based on the competition and its location. So the support required in a Western European competition will typically be less than in Russia or Asia.
• It may well be that international licences are not being given to young athletes because the NGB cannot afford the support required to meet its duty of care (especially to under 18s). However, with the right volunteer support (despite the earlier point, this may include team support from athletes' parents in supporting roles, primarily outside of the venue) then the level of team staff required can be minimised.

Hope this is of some help.

Thanks. 

“It may well be that international licences are not being given to young athletes because the NGB cannot afford the support required to meet its duty of care (especially to under 18s)”

Couple of comments on this w.r.t. to current situation.

We’re not taking our full quota of athletes to senior comps and we’re missing two world cups. Completely missing events is a tricky one to understand because it’s not like we have zero coaches.

However, I believe (anecdotally to be fair) that the majority of the comp community believes that GBC’s capacity in one way or another is the limiting factor in the ways you suggest. One of the main problems is that this isn’t what the community is told (at least not to my knowledge). What we hear is that comp attendance (or specifically lack thereof) is all down to some performance strategy, and only sending athletes who are “ready”. This irritates the community no-end because it comes across as nonsense when we have proven top class talent denied access, and up and coming talent that’s clearly strong enough to gain from experience.

In my conversations, the community by and large just doesn’t buy this “performance strategy”. They either think the leadership hasn’t got a clue what it’s talking about and doesn’t understand climbing, or is simply unwilling to admit that the problem is actually one of capacity. In both cases it’s completely eroded credibility - the opinion the athletes have of the leadership was clearly expressed in the LoNC. IMO, there is no way whatsoever that credibility can be restored by simply doubling down and claiming this is all about performance. The athletes can all see who’s been rejected and they know that many of these decisions are outrageous. It really does feel that the leadership thinks it can just carry on repeating the same argument over and over again. I’m afraid it’s not making the slightest inroad. Even if you buy the argument, subsequent actions often seem to completely contradict it and the whole thesis degenerates into an incoherent mess. People feel like they’re being treated as fools. This will never work: non-climbers trying to explain an illogical performance strategy to elite athletes. It leads to complete erosion of respect. The CEO must surely recognise this - he simply has to, or this won’t get any better.

I’m not sure which I’d rather the answer be: they really do believe in this strategy, or they’re not being transparent about financial and staff constraints. If it’s the latter it would be infinitely better to just come out and say it. Nobody is asking for miracles - if they can’t afford it, they need help. There is *definitely* financial and other help out there, that the community itself can help find, but there’s nothing to be done if they just keep repeating that this is actually their preferred strategy in any case, and therefore they’d stick to it no matter how much money they had.

Other major countries manage to get their full squads to full international series so we’re clearly doing something wrong.

That's because you misinterpret what Council do and how they do it.

Member led business and member input to business led by the Board or SMT is what Council does under our Articles. It doesn't lead to AGM motions unless we need an Article change: we just implement once we have a position where everyone in organisational governance is in agreement (Board, SMT, Council and staff and volunteer expertise... normally via Specialist Committees). This does become part of the AGM when Articles change, but normally such changes get bundled together in a single motion.

A separate members AGM motion can occur where the BMC governance structures can't come to a suitable compromise with a significant group of members with concerns. The best example I know of such a process was the 2018 Options debate. When significant members concerns were raised about the official proposal for our BMC Company's new governance structure (as agreed through internal democratic process), the BMC agreed to hold a meeting to discuss this in Manchester.  In that meeting a compromise to strengthen Council's ability to hold the Board to account was agreed and used to produce a new proposal for the AGM. That became Option A. Enough members still felt the compromise was unacceptable, followed process, and they submitted an AGM motion under rule and that became Option B. 

The either/or issue certainly requires some clarification and Council are aware of it. However, it can't prevent Council themselves deciding to discuss the key issues in your proposed second motion. As for your proposed first motion (more member openess on finance): that is supposed to be happening anyway.

The higher bar was set for member's motions direct to the AGM to encourage Council compromise instead, and to try to protect the BMC (and members subs) from any repeat of the very real damage (financial and otherwise) caused by the 2017 Motion of no Confidence. 0.5% is a rather arbitrary level but also was felt to be low enough for such motions to be possible where member concerns are widespread. If a member feels Council compromise is impossible they must try to meet this higher bar. However, as a member of Council in a members organisation I would urge a sensible approach and not block motions that clearly have wide enough support to meet the bar but just miss on process technicalities.

Typical flanneling.

Name the instances where a proposed resolution has been submitted to MC with 25 signatures in the last 14 years that has been included on the AGM agenda because that is what we are specifically talking about here.

I can't name one. .  

Here is the clarification:

We have looked back over the articles and reached a conclusion on why we historically (and continue to) state that only one of 11.8.1 or 11.8.2 can be used per resolution.

To key wording is the ‘either/or’ binary choice highlighted below.

11.8. Notwithstanding the above, where a General Meeting (whether the AGM or a General Meeting

under Article 11.4) has been convened by the Board or is already scheduled to take place in the

normal course of the Company's business, Voting Members may propose a resolution to be put

to such meeting provided that one of the two criteria below has been satisfied. Either:

11.8.1. half of one percent (0.5%) of Voting Members have submitted in writing to the Board

the text of the proposed resolution within the timelines detailed in Article 12.6. Voting

Members may indicate their support of such resolution by physically signing the same

(or a copy thereof) and lodging at the Office or they may indicate their support of the

resolution by Electronic Form. A resolution raised under this Article must be presented

to the next General Meeting or AGM as the case may be; or

11.8.2. where at least twenty five (25) Voting Members (but less than half of one percent

(0.5%) of Voting Members) support a proposed resolution, they may submit the text of

such proposed resolution in writing to the Council. The Council will review the

resolution and may refer the resolution to Members through Area Meetings for

discussion and feedback, and will either:

(a) accept the proposed resolution and, thereafter the proposed resolution shall be

proposed to the Voting Members at the next General Meeting or AGM, within the

timeline detailed in Article 12.6 . The proposed resolution may, with agreement of

the proposers and the Council, either be raised under the original proposers’

names or by the Council; or

(b) reject the proposed resolution and in doing so, provide a written response to the

proposers detailing the reasons for the rejection. The decision of the Council is

final in this regard and the proposed resolution, or materially similar resolutions,

may not be raised again under Article 11.8.2 until at least 12 months have elapsed

since the date of the submission of the first resolution to the Council under this

Article 11.8.2.

Our reading of this remains that there are two separate submission routes and one cannot be used in place of the other in the event that the first route is unsuccessful.

I fully understand the decision you copied above, but, being a unique situation, Council now need to consider if that is indeed what Council want. In my view we don't want to be discouraging Council debate that seeks solutions. The very reason the higher bar was set for AGM motions was to reduce risks and encourage constructive internal debate.

I think the Option debate meeting and compromise was a good example of how things should work in complex governance debates. It strengthened BMC democratic checks and balances without changing the governance tier applicable for government funding.

As I said, in the meantime, the decision certainly doesn't stop Council discussing issues raised by members, without any formal resolution to Council (even if Council don't support the concerns, it removes any potential jeopardy to a formal members' motion to the AGM in the same year).

In the end we are a democratic members' organisation and Council is the body that represents member views and I think it should always facilitate debate where significant numbers of members raise concerns.

In rule that only applies since the governance change on AGM motions. Since then the route was possible but it's just not been used. The route that member raised issues usually take in Council is every pre-meeting (once a quarter) we discuss those raised formally from Local Areas and other constituencies and if necessary that cascades into the main quarterly meeting agenda (all viewable in the minutes). Some of these are so serious they end up in AGM presentations (notably this year, camping on Dartmoor).

So let me get this straight: either you have enough signatures, in which case 11.8.1 applies, or you go to Council (11.8.2).

But if you don't have enough signatures, then how does 11.8.1 apply as an option? It strikes me that the only reason that you might submit a petition under 11.8.1 is if you think you have enough valid signatures. In which case either there is some form of fraud going on (in which case the petition might rightly be rejected) or the board is being obstructionist in not putting the motion to the AGM.

If you put a petition to the board knowing you don't have enough signatures, you are an idiot. But if a petition is never formally submitted, then I don't see how an approach to Council under 11.8.2 could be rejected on the grounds that the petition under 11.8.1 had failed.  

FWIW I'm in favour of greater transparency, but I am strongly against splitting GBC out of the BMC. Maybe I'm just letting my inner Logician out of (Plato's) cave

That’s a fair point assuming you understand the ‘rules’ from the outset and have enough time and according and that would entail: 

Getting in touch with the BMC Co Sec, agreeing a web form and having it posted on the BMC Website (depending on staff availability 1-3weeks)

Monitoring the number of responses to see if you look likely to reach the required threshold of 0.5% of membership (say 4-6 weeks)

Attend the Area Meeting (say 1-4 weeks depending when it’s scheduled) and formally submitted the motion with 25 signatures 

The Area reps attend the next MC meeting and  table the proposed resolution (say 1-4 weeks depending when it’s scheduled)

I'm not sure that is necessary. I would have thought that any Councillor on MC, having satisfied themselves that there was sufficient support, could present the resolution to MC for discussion and possible adoption.

It does leave open the issue of MC itself putting a resolution to the AGM...

I strongly suspect that their "only one bite of the cherry" interpretation would fall in a court of law - obviously there's no desire or intention to go down that route.

It quite clearly says that only 1 of the criteria can be satisfied; i.e. you cannot have more than 0.5% member support AND it also going through council. But quite obviously there would be no need to go through council with more than 0.5% member support.

It quite clearly DOES NOT SAY that you can only try to satisfy one of the criteria.

I also note that if it "fails" through council, it says no further tries through council for 12 months. It DOES NOT SAY anything about restrictions on trying for the 0.5%. In a court, I'm pretty sure that the mention of some restrictions, but the omission of other restrictions, means that the court will interpret the document as meaning that those other restrictions DO NOT EXIST.

In summary I think the BMC office are just simply wrong on this point.

Why only allowing one criteria to be satisfied? presumably a scenario where there was less than 0.5% support, was submitted to council but support then exceeded 0.5%. In that circumstance, it is clear that council should stop any deliberations etc because they would have become superfluous.

Thanks Michael... very helpful analysis. I can raise that in the Council discussions on these matters that the Peak Area asked for.

Thanks. What is your view on the justification for having to use the web form route:

Verification of Signatures/ Resolution Submission

Whether the Verification of signatures must be done by the web form process ot whether providing name and full or part postcode that matches what is on the BMC membership database is acceptable? 

This query relates to article 11.8.1 and the relevant text is below:

Voting Members may indicate their support of such resolution by physically signing the same (or a copy thereof) and lodging at the Office or they may indicate their support of the resolution by Electronic Form

My first conclusion on this was that the wording of the Articles does not prescribe what an electronic form is because it is reliant on the definition from the Companies Act 2006. The relevance of this to the point at hand is that the Articles do not insist the electronic form has to be a specific electronic form hosted on the BMC website. It could perhaps be, to reference examples from the Act, an email or fax. 

However, in terms of the practicalities of verifying the change.org petition, my conclusion is that the advisable route to pursue is nonetheless to submit the resolution to the BMC via the means described in our AGM communications (emailing it to agm@thebmc.co.uk and the BMC setting up a webform for members to vote). I say this for the following reasons:

The BMC does not have express permission from its members to process their data for the purpose of verifying voting data from a third party source, per the GDPR doctrine of purpose limitation;

Obtaining this permission would require additional work from each of the change.org signatories as they would have to give the BMC express permission to process their data in this way. To reference the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) ‘You can only use the personal data for a new purpose if either this is compatible with your original purpose, you get consent, or you have a clear obligation or function set out in law’;

The BMC needs more data than simply name and postcode (or partial postcode) to verify members for certain. Members signing these resolutions via an official BMC webform allows us to collect all of the data needed to be sure that every single signatory has the right to vote. You’ll appreciate the importance of 100% accuracy for a matter such as this. 

I add to the above that this view is not intended to dissuade the submission of your resolutions, in fact quite the opposite. There is no suggestion that those who have signed the change.org petition have done so in anything other than good faith and it is paramount that they are able to democratically express themselves as voting members. Through our communications, we have given a clear means for resolutions to reach the AGM with more time to do so than is strictly prescribed by the Articles. 

Neither is this response intended to imply that the BMC Articles are beyond criticism. If indeed there is a practical challenge created by 11.8.1 that may be suggestive of the need for future article changes to reflect the changing technological and data protection landscape, then that would be a matter for consideration. For the present year however, and mindful of time considerations, our suggestion, as above is that resolutions are submitted via the requested means communicated by the BMC. If submitted soon, I would contend that there is more than sufficient time to gauge and gather support.

Sorry, haven't got further time to consider this in detail, but from what you say, the definition of "Electronic form" is outside the articles.

I don't think GDPR comes into it, verifying identity for a motion affecting the governance of the BMC is simply part of running the BMC which surely comes under using "the personal data for a new purpose where this is compatible with your original purpose" because we gave our personal details when we joined the BMC so that the BMC could be properly run, it's simply part of running the business.

Am I remembering correctly that there were previous BMC AGMs with remote voting where you could proxy vote etc and it was conducted through a 3rd party platform and presumably there was some verification against my data held by the BMC. I don't recall the BMC asking for my explicit permission to use that data held by the BMC to verify the information supplied via the 3rd party. It may of course have been a simple tick-box on the voting form but surely that doesn't count because i) that's not the BMC asking, that's the 3rd party asking which is not the same thing, and ii) that's part of the information that needs verifying which needs explicit permission, etc.

However, in my view the biggest issue with the change.org data set is that it didn't ask for BMC membership numbers, which although not a particularly secure data item, would at least give the BMC reasonable confirmation that it was me living at my address that had voted.

Good point

As far as I could see when setting up the petition on Change it didn’t offer the ability to customise to ask that question.

The statement that “The BMC needs more data than simply name and postcode (or partial postcode) to verify members for certain” seems baseless. How much certainty do they need really? First consider this is only to get the resolution onto the agenda not to have it passed. Secondly it seems ridiculous when you consider the other option is to present signatures (Voting Members may indicate their support of such resolution by physically signing the same (or a copy thereof). How do they verify signatures? They can’t. A postcode matched against a name is better verification than a name and signature and is a straightforward thing for the Membership Manager to do - I asked him.

If they really wanted to take it a step further they could bang out a bulk email to the identified members saying “It has come to our attention that you have been identified as supporting a BMC resolution through Chamge.Org. If this is not you please get in touch with the office”