UKH

A group of BMC members, including Bob Pettigrew, have launched a counter set of articles of association to the ones that many volunteers of the BMC have been working extremely hard on for the past 12 months, proposing that the BMC should not seek to be the tier 3 Sport England national representative and governing body for climbing, hillwalking and mountaineering. This will have a detrimental effect on the organisation and the sport as a whole.

In order to give a clear message to members, and to define the direction of travel for the BMC, we have proposed the motion below that will be sent to the BMC before the deadline tomorrow, which will go along side the new "official" articles of association to be voted on at the AGM.

John, exactly in what way will loss of Sport England recognition be 'detrimental' to the 'sport'? Not sure it will affect my enjoyment of pottering up obscure routes.

I understand the loss of immediate funding is a concern but we had always been braced for its loss anyway.

I'm unclear about the rest of your post. A lot of it seems to be quotations from the 'alternative' proposal?  So it's a bit unclear what you are actually saying.

I’m a bit unclear too but that’s because you are on the National Council Implentation Group yet I see you a signatory of the counter proposal! 

How do you square that? Or did you resign again?

221 votes by 10pm

Where can we view this counter set of Articles?

https://sites.google.com/view/bmc-rr/source-documents?authuser=0

In reply to alx:

Never. However, the next best thing is a decent proportion of the membership voting at the AGM (or by proxy) by over 75% in favour of the National Council recommended constitution.

In reply to alx:

This is a sound argument for increasing the number of signaturies needed to put a motion to the AGM. If it's a popular motion, it's fairly easy to get 200+ signatures as has just been demonstrated.

Can anyone please summarise in plain English, preferably in as few words as possible, what the hell is going on at the BMC? 

I have actually skimmed the BMC consultation documents, I just don't understand the point of them, apart from making management consultants wealthier.

The BMC mems and arts of association are outdated, and restrict acess to some external funding. An organisational review group was set up to "modernise" the organisation/ structure of the BMC. They came up with some proposals, a group of members dont like all of those proposals, and came up with some of their own. A bit of a power struggle ensues.

Edit - nobody is any wealthier, except I supose the solicitors - its all been done on a voluntary basis.

Cheers -appreciate it.  Womble bond Dickinson don't work for free, but they only charged £15k - I've been unfair.

Just to carry on playing Devil's advocate - so what?  Why does the BMC need external funding? 

I always see it's on the verge of being destitute each year.  And then they send me something else saying they've bought some prime real estate in Kent (Harrison's Rocks) - aren't we wonderful? 

Are such crag purchases paid for out of the access fund, which can't be touched by the indoor comp climbers?

This whole long-running pantomime is the very embodiment of why I don't give a tuppenny  toss about the BMC anymore, nor the group of rebels/freedom fighters or whatever they want to call themselves nor this latest motion. The whole shambles is like a 70s TUC Conference, bogged down in unfathomable  motions and opaque counter motions understood only by the truly committed and those who really need to get out more. Even the  'layman's summary' of the BMC Review was so turgid and bureaucratic that I lost any interest in reading it within the first couple of pages. You would be hard put to come up with anything more perfectly crafted to deter ordinary members from taking an interest even if you tried. How is it even possible to be so mind-numbingly dull?  Until tonight I was blissfully unaware of the counter motion and I haven't the faintest idea what this new motion is about but please, please I beg you, don't anyone be tempted to try to enlighten me because I really don't care. Even the words 'governing body' - normally a red rag - can no longer raise my hackles.

A small group within the BMC have demanded a referendum on leaving the BMC and setting up on their own. Their proposal is to take the main elements (Wilton 1-4) and leave, saving over £3.50 per week. 

A Mr Nigel Flange, spokes person for the group said;

"For too long now the peoples of Wilton, have been subjected to the tyranny of the BMC. With their talk of exotic locations such as LLanberris and Widdop, they pander to the wishes of a small elite. And we certainly don't want the hoards from Scotland, with their rough, unkempt mountains, coming down here and spoiling our nice polished grit."

I notice that a Mr Joe Brown has signed this motion and has therefore joined Bob Pettigrew (MBE, lest we forget) in his theatre of the increasingly absurd. Some of the names on that list don't surprise me in the slightest, but a few do. Maybe they have valid points to make, but by joining a campaign that was characterised by a loose connection to reality the last time around, kind of takes away any legitimacy they may deserve.

I don't suppose the racism and sexism that was casually displayed by you-know-who last time around should reflect on the rest of the signatories, but they may well get tarred with the same broad brush.

Very witty.  You may even have a good point.

But myself and other J Random BMC members, who've simply paid The Cheddar Tax, have no clue what you're on about.

If you'd like to explain, I'm all ears. 

I think that I have signed it, I am in Japan so change.org is in Japanese with no translate option.

If you can make governance 'sexy' there is a fortune available for you in consultancy. Almost by definition these things are dry but very important: without articles organisations like the BMC cannot function properly, if at all. That then affects all the good the organisation does, both its employees and it's army of thousands of volunteers doing work for free.

As for the arguments, that's the perogative of a democratic organisation. Those of us who support the democratic agreed National Council proposals just wish the minority 'opposition' could stick to fighting clean. Sadly they seem convinced dirty tricks are the only way forward as their arguments are not good enough to get the votes out, but 'project fear' might be. Its really sad to see the likes of Andy (a member of National Council and the Implementation Group),  Crag and Jonathon have seemingly joined with the scurrilous, so called, 'BMC 30' with that particular group's dishonest secret plots and communications (which haven't stopped: the latest being the bullshit line that the BMC exec plan to dump the fabulous participation statement on risk)

Also surprised to see John Porter (Alpine Club President) and Colin Knowles (former BMC Director representing NC) as signatories.

In reply to Jim 1003:

I don't think I have to take that. Especially from a 'Jim'. I post under my full name and express my own views.

The alternative proposal with your signature on it states: 

Funded partners (Mountain Training, ABCTT) funded directly (current arrangement).

The funded partners have a temporary, direct holding award, to plug the gap whilst the BMC gets its house in order.  It's a bridge-grant to the funded partners, who were previously funded under the last round of funded via the BMC's application.  It is not a long term direct funding arrangement.    Your statement is simply disingenuous.  The current arrangement is that the BMC apply (re-apply), in the whole sport bid.

The BMC’s funded partners would need to apply directly to Sport England for funding (arrangements for this are being made).

What are these arrangements?  As chair of one of the funded partners (ABCTT) I'd like to know what you propose this arrangement is going to look like (beyond "setting up a meeting with Sport England to discuss it if the BMC articles are not approved at the AGM").  And I'm sure colleagues in the other funded partners would like to know too.

How do we know you are not a BMC exec spy plotting with the Japanese Alpine Club?

I see that Crag Jones (another signatory to Pettigrew’s counter proposal) and his “independent” site still hasn’t published your resolution 

Hey! Who changed my user name? 

The KGB

There must be a way to stop Pettigrew doing this nonsense year after year.  People are starting to think it's a BMC problem rather than just an few idiots.

I'm not suprised having been one of the 'hugged' 'BMC trolls' that Shark is referring to in his new name, but I am equally saddened.  This will be presented as trying to bring the BMC back together but you don't do that by running with jackals.  When individual signatories from the 30 apologise in public for what Bob, Doug and Leo wrote on their behalf in the leaked letters and the private communications to Rehan, when he was President, then forgiveness can be considered. It is perfectly possible to hold different viewpoints honourably in a democratic organisation but not by pretending to do this whilst spreading poison in secret.

Yes. Increase the number of signatories to a reasonable % of the membership

Well that's a surprise! I am an NC Rep from NW Area.

And your point is.....?

We've just passed 500 signatories!  Thanks everyone!

Let's keep it going - I'll be submitting it just after midday.

I think we need to be careful when thinking about all the signatories to the motion in a very negative way. I think that they genuinely believe what they are proposing is best for the BMC. (Although I disagree with them.) In particular, in support of Andy Say, Andy came to the SW area meeting to help explain the IG's proposals, his explanations were completely unbiased, he did not attempt to put forward his own point of view in any way, and in the end, the meeting voted by a very large majority to support the proposals.

What we need to do is get as many people as possible to vote in the AGM (by proxy or whatever), and persuade members to vote in favour of the NC's recommendations. Remember, if we can get 10% to vote, Andy has promised a streak ascent of Flying Buttress...

If he wants to stir it every time the AGM rolls around he could at least pay his membership dues like the rest of us.  His honorary membership should have been withdrawn after last year's fiasco made it plain there's nothing honourable about the way he uses it.

It won't be forgotten any time soon that he stayed away from (his local) Peak area meeting last year leaving Mark Vallance to carry the can and speak for him as best he could in spite of very poor health, something he clearly found arduous and stressful.  Unforgivably spineless on Pettigrew's part.

Can we try to keep the personal digs out the thread ? its clear that people hold very deep personal views which for me are making the actual issues under debate (as far as I can tell put through the proper democratic channels) very difficult to follow.  Thanks

No.

The "actual issues of the debate" were laid to rest resoundingly last year.  It's not ok to keep buggering around like this and preventing the BMC from getting on with their job.

There was a landslide vote against Pettigrew et al.  They should be thoroughly ashamed.  It's not "personal digs"; it's calling out dishonest behaviour that abuses a position of privilege.

In reply to bedspring:

But it's not their fault!  They want to get on with the job - it's idiots like Pettigrew who keep pushing this nonsense despite it being utterly rejected by the membership last year.

OK I'll leave you to your own thread. 

Wonder if, as an organisation, they will make a recommendation to their members on which way to vote ?

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/rocktalk/bmc_motion_of_no_confidence_-_bo...

Here and similar - and you'll see why there's short shrift.

It's inevitable I'm afraid given the history.
If Pettigrew and the rest of the "30" weren't signatories to the new counter proposals then I suspect the motion would get a much more receptive hearing. But they are, and my initial reaction was "what the hell are they up to this time" - I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

Apologies I deleted my post.
"it's idiots like Pettigrew who keep pushing this nonsense" Stop, just stop. He is not an idiot, he is a person who is just as passionate about the BMC as you and JR and Andy Say and Offwidth etc are.
His passion means that he will keep pushing and calling him an idiot aint going to help, never has never will.
This is all getting so polarised and ideological that it could destroy the BMC. Rather arguing, why not try seeing what your team aggree on with Bobs team, I bet you agree on far more than you disagree on.

Shame you deleted it. I'd have given you a huge like for that. The longer all this squabbling goes on the more I think to hell with the lot of them.

That's good, because they aren't. I think about six of the signitories may have been involved in the MoNC but I'm not that sure of who exactly was. The majority of the Sport England Tier 1 proposal supporters had nothing to do with it, indeed voted against it!

Andy

Its really hard to split the two issues any more Graham as nasty personal attacks continue to be made against key BMC volunteers and misinformation and plain lies continue to be distributed behind the scenes (some of which is so bad it can't be sensibly copied here). Like Mark, I think people should be careful about throwing insults at Andy and some of the others who have joined their names with the 30. However, this increasingly looks something like another effective coup attempt if their vote uses back channel dishonest communications to collect proxy votes in the face of the democratically agreed NC motion following on from the ORG and IG (and, from everything I can tell, a broadly supportive wider membership who cant see what the fuss is all about and usually don't vote at AGM's).  Andy and co should certainly be asked at what point they ceased to be independent from the rump of the 30 and also should be asked to call out the continued dishonest behaviour of Bob et al for what it is.

The MoNC was defeated by a huge majority but that was significantly based on pretty outrageous public evidence (Bob and Leo's letters) that were publicly dissected here and elsewhere to highlight the misinformation and lies that they contained. With the new more respectable names joining the 30 and less public evidence of the continuing dishonest communications it will be a much tighter vote this time.

If we want to debate fairly its important we call out dishonest behind the scenes behaviour for what it is and to expect respectable names to behave respectably and not benefit from dishonest secret scare tactics without challenge.

Really? The leading lights are all seem to be there except those not available to sign being off somewhere remote. I'd add Joe Brown was Bob's leading substitute, gleefully announced in his awful MoNC proposal speech.

Tier 1 level, Tier 3 level? 

Just another example of why the changes the BMC are proposing are as impenetrable as they are. 

yes, i have read your thread on this, still don't get the why.

You have a small group who want the BMC to be the representative body for the pursuance of mountaineering in this country. What they don't appear to want is the BMC to represent the activity as we find it in 2018. There are (based on recent figures and survey) about one million active climbers in the country; with the majority in Walls. This group does not want a National Representative Body who actively seeks to represent climbers as a whole. Some within the group are hostile to any commercial route into climbing. They present the issue surrounding Sport England money as a government body trying to wrest some sort of 'control' over the BMC and force change in its governance. The BMC does not need SE money. It can operate on fees and sales. SE doesn't just give out money. SE has funds available and the BMC bids for this money. A funding round is typically four years; and the BMC will put forward a number of bids with costs. These bids are scrutinised by SE and they fund those they value. The BMC sets the targets for each bid and reports on a regular basis. If they don't meet the targets (that they set themselves) then SE may reduce the funding allocated to that bid. I believe the BMC lost a significant sum in the last funding round because of this reason. SE are responsible for the good use and best value of the public money they disburse; and so will require any Body who bids for cash to have good Governance.

The BMC is the current representative body. An amount of its Government recognition runs through the Dept of Culture ,Media & Sport and down through SE. These bodies have over the last couple of years become aware of the massive expansion of our sport; and how little the BMC has played  in it. They are interested in getting people into healthy activity. Put aside matters of cash; part of the fall out of this affair may be a eroding of the BMC standing as the National Body. I doubt that any of the partner organisations would actively wish to set up an alternative National Body; but what the BMC will lose is the automatic acceptance that they speak for the sport as a whole. Why speak to a body who represents about 30k members who put climbing as their primary activity; when they can speak to another body whose members represent possibly a million climbers.

You really think this wasn't tried before?  The only acceptable solution to Bob and co amounts to dumping Sport England funding, hence likely destroying the umbrella organisation of the BMC with its partners; raising subs by 10% at least (I think a good bit more as those partners bring in BMC membership and others will leave with significant above inflation sub rises). We will be effectively divorcing ourselves from the government funding source, being the only organisation to do this and so clearly insulting a government we need to influence, and doing this based on governance niceties and something Sport England might do at some time in the future, in a way that will perplex nearly all of our membership. I think we should assume the best from Sport England and the new democratically formulated National Council proposals and if something bad happens in the future we can rightly use the new articles to ask the BMC to take action against real wrongs in a way the membership can easily understand and support. 

The alternative motion enables this process of removal of Sport England funding. It is direct opposition to the democratic NC motion and only AGM democracy can determine the outcome.

11 if my quick check is correct - it's easy enough to find out, the original MoNC text can still be found at -

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/bmc-agm-agenda--motion

So quite a few of the original 30 have dropped out this time, and I'm pleased to see that some folk who I had a lot of time for prior to the MoNC have steered clear of this one.  There are 41 names this time around, so a lot of new ones, some of them no surprise at all, one or two surprising omissions in the light of some recent communications, and, of course, 2 current members of the BMC National Council (one of them also a member of the Implementation Group which came up with the BMC proposal to go before the AGM) signing up to the alternative motion  which is directly seeking to bring down the BMC motion agreed by the Council they are members of.  Seems a bit incompatible to me.

Cheers, Andy

I can understand your frustration. This is technocratic stuff and the required governance reforms should have been sorted out years ago. 

Tier 1 is a lower level of (good) governance that limits the level of government (ieSport England) funding an organisation can apply for. Tier 3 is the highest level of (good) governance and means the BMC can apply not only for more money but also work in concert with allied organisations like Mountain Training for funding. Tier 3 is also shows we operate best practice governance in our dealings with other National organisations.

The rub is that final decision making on policy will stop firmly with the Exec board whereas currently National Council has responsibility for policy. 

National Council is actually recommending this change even though they are the body with most to lose. On this basis alone I think NC should be supported and it is testimony that they can see the bigger picture at the expense of their own power which should be recognised and applauded.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Currently first document on link. Click on it. Scroll to bottom of page 3

Tier 1 and Tier 3 are defined in this document:

https://www.sportengland.org/media/11193/a_code_for_sports_governance.pdf

The BMC is required to be Tier 3 compliant if it wants to retain funding from SE.

Cheeky! I originally withdrew as I could see that the direction of travel was one I was unhappy with. I was persuaded to get back on board. The Implementation Group had a job to do and, as a result of an inordinate amount of work by Andy Syme, produced a set of Articles that met the 'job spec.'

But that doesnt affect my concern about the relevance of the proposed governance to a representative body like the BMC. When I am presented with an alternative that sits better with me as a model for the BMC and that STILL ensures Sport England recognition I'm afraid my support goes there.

So, to confirm, you are still on the Implementation Group?

So people can see on the thread directly, the signatories are:

Jonathan White, Richard Nadin, John Booth, Rod Gallager, Colin Knowles, John Porter, Bob Park, Steve Venables, Barbara Segal, Jen Booth nee Iggulden, Sherry Macliver, Ian Lonsdale, Caradoc Jones, Brian Molyneux, Lyndon Gill, Harry Wilson, Jennifer Brown, Rodger Lanchbury, Andy Say, Robert Pettigrew MBE, Colin Stuthers, Dennis Gray, Joe Brown CBE, John Allen, Julian Attwood, David Prior, Ian Jones, Edward Birch, David Symonds, Leo Dickinson, Stephen Reid, Julian James, Phill Bartlett, Victor Saunders, Tony Westcott, Julian King, Carl Spencer, Judith Brown, Deirdre Sanderson nee Collier, Pete Wtson, Paul Dewhurst.

Funnily enough at the last National Council meeting I proposed that the BMC move to purchase a major crag that has had access withdrawn for the last 30 years. (I'm being cryptic as negotiation is ongoing). That was seconded and adopted with only one voice raising a concern. 

I wasn't the only one at the meeting to realise that that could be the very last such decision that the National Council, composed mainly of Area Representatives, makes .

Well put. 

The tier one proposal waters down everything, and gives us the nearest to the status quo as possible. I have a major problem with this, as the whole idea behind the organisational review when started off some 18 months ago was to make the organisation relevant for the next 10 to 15 years, not just address the possible loss of SE funding, or take some power away from the members representative body. 

For me, the NC proposal (also referred to as the tier 3 proposal) doesn't go far enough in addressing the future scope and changes required by the representative body of our chosen sport / pastime  in that timeframe; it is for me the minimum we should go for. The tier one proposal just kicks the can a bit further down the road.

Yes, it will be painful for some, and others with traditionally lots of influence (clubs for eg) will have less say in the future, but the world moves on, not always in the way we would personally like.  

Finally (for now at least), for those who want NC or Members assembly or whatever to retain absolute primacy over exec, just remember the last time a major decision was taken by NC ("the members") ? Yup, the rebrand.

Good question!

I guess at this stage I really SHOULD withdraw!

I'm also supposedly on the Nominations Committee but haven't seen hide nor hair of recent nominations for Directors or Presidents......

How much extra effort do you think they would have had to put in to actually spell their supporters names correctly?

Cheers,Andy

To be fair, Ian, wasn't that a 'major acquiescence' to a decision by the Exec under pressure from Sport England?

Who cares about such a realisation as long as the replacement bodies do the same sort of thing?  The NC also voted (with no votes against) for Climb Britain. This democratic body composed mainly of voting members who were nearly all elected unopposed, being the only ones prepared to do the work, do tremendous amounts of hard graft with nearly always honourable intent but they can still make mistakes. I see no likely change in that under the new proposals despite this obsession with primacy, and I will be at the front of the queue to act if the new board attempt to abuse their power.

Andy, what do you mean by the bit in bold? The "counter proposal" doesn't offer comparative recognition by Sport England. This seem as bit disingenuous?

On the subject of disingenuous statements:

They would, however, as Jon Garside pointed out at the NW meeting, they don't want to, they want to stay under the BMC umbrella working as one unit, they don't currently have the resources or expertise and the funding isn't guaranteed if they go it alone.

You and Carl were very even in the presentation at the NW meeting and both raised valid concerns about the changes but, in the manner in which it is written, I don't think this proposal does justice to those concerns and undermines your position. It also doesn't take into account the desire from the current member elected NC to move the balance of power to the board.

Also, could you, or Andy S, clarify this:

Wont this be the case in the new world order too? NC/MA/Whatever will still be predominantly member elected and the board will still be predominantly member elected with those chosen from the NC/MA and those independent directors elected/voted on at the AGM.

To be clear and accurate, Harrison's Rocks are in (East) Sussex. The BMC 'paid' £1 (Six climbers having originally purchased the crag in the 60s and passed it on to the CCPR and it's subsequent incarnations The Sports Council and Sport England). A bargain...

What specific things has sport England been used to fund up to now and which of these funds would the BMC not be able to apply for as a Tier 1 organisation?

Agreed,  Statements to the effect that funded partners have 'lost' their funding are incorrect.

It also needs to be recognised that currently the BMC has not had a bid accepted by Sport England for the next funding period.

Sport England have stated that should funding be withdrawn from the BMC they would consider bids from the 'funded partners'.

Is that YOUR declaration of interest John?  'I want the BMC to accept Sport England requirements as otherwise ABCTT will lose funding.?

No Andy, that was absolutely not what happened at all.

There was no SE pressure.

There was no decision made by exec.

There was no acquiescence.

Apart from those minor corrections, you are spot on. What happened was:-

SE paid consultancy work done, MANY documents produced. Exec (DT, anyway) presented the findings and recommendations to NC in a very matter of fact and opinion free way, and opened the debate. Much shorter than expected discussion took place, vote taken, virtually unanimously approved. Only then revealed that Rehan was not generally in favour, Dave and Nick C were at best ambivalent (the 3 main players, I suppose, no idea what the rest of exec thought). Then generally announced, mayhem ensued.

Well done, Andy. In your response you have perfectly encapsulated the reason that I disagree so strongly with you. You say that the funding loss will not be detrimental to YOUR activities. Indoor climbers and competition climbers be damned!

Personally, I don't care much for alpine climbing or ice climbing or competition climbing, and I certainly don't partake of indoor climbing as anything other than training for outdoor climbing. However, unlike you and the rest of your signatories it would seem, I am not so selfish as to try and hinder the BMC in also working for the people who do partake of the things that I don't. If the BMC's funding is seriously curtailed, they will not be able to have such a broad scope - I think this would be a great shame. I firmly believe that the BMC can still function very well as our representative body as a tier 3 entity. I don't believe the tin-foil-hat conspiracies that suggest that the new structure proposed by the ORG would welcome in the forces of darkness to the organisation.

To be honest, I'd be more inclined to take your arguments seriously if you had declined Bob et al's signatures (maybe it was Bob collecting the signatures, I don't know). The man has behaved in such a demonstrably appalling way that I can't see how he has any friends left in the organisation. He's perfectly entitled to his views, but to be so underhand and dishonest in their promotion is beyond the pale.

SE money has been used to fund many programmes and the staff that run them. Off the top of my head this includes website development, consultancy, supporting youth, equality, clubs development, talent development, competitions (including paras) and National GB teams.

It was hoped that SE would fund a comprehensive hill walking development strategy and I gather they were initially keen to do so but unfortunately that fell by the proverbial wayside some time ago.

I think I'll have to deal with your post in two bits if you don't mind.

To 'be' an NGB (and that concept has always sat uneasily with many BMC members!) all that is required  is that the participants in the 'Sport' recognise the 'authority' of the body.

To be a 'Sport England recognised NGB'  you need to comply with their Code of Governance.  They then recognise 3 levels of ''compliance' and tie those levels to amount of funding you can receive.

Both current proposals will result in 'Sport England recognised NGB status.'  

Thanks Andy, and Andy R - a little further up the thread, for two posts that are illuminating.  I get it. 

Yes, I want the BMC to be the coherent representative body for the sport, and I usethat in the broad sense including wall and comp climbing (show me someone who doesn't climb indoors in some form, i'd guess they are now firmly in the minority). 

And if they need to make some changes , however asinine, to maximise the funding received from sport's national council... i'm OK with that.

ouch! But I wasn't there.

No, it wasn't.

Were you there (sorry, I can't remember)? I was, as an observer, and to me it looked like a group of people being genuinely carried by a presentation of suggestions they felt would make sections of the membership feel more included. 

That they turned out to be largely wrong (not completely wrong - note that in the ensuing discussion there were also members who liked the "new" name) is a reflection on how difficult it is for any subset of a larger group to precisely predict or satisfy the desires of the whole of that larger group. Especially since the large group is likely to hold contradictory wishes within itself.

This is a factor that is always going to affect an organisation, whatever governance structure is used.

You know what? I DO take exception to that assumption. I get indoors sometimes; I regularly attend Comps. I have absolutely no wish to restrict the forward movement of climbing or the BMCs involvement in the whole 'broad church'. I feel you are mistaking me for some sort of tweed covered fossil.... 

I actually agree with that. It opens the door to all sorts of irrelevant slagging.

These facts of what happened didn't stop dishonest conspiracy stories and a clearly ambivalent exec getting most of the blame for supposedly pressuring the NC. It was particularly galling to see the insults and accusations Rehan had to face since he opposed the idea. Still no apology has been made by those involved. On the subject of nasty letters I forgot Jules King's letter (he being another signatory of this new motion), which has been widely leaked, with its abusive language towards the current President. Such nasty behaviour would result in action against the member concerned in most organisations under governance rules..

Indeed. And you have been fed a line that is completely false, which you repeated. You of all people shouldn't fall into this trap after all the work you have done for the BMC on this and other topics!! Now go back to whichever conspiracy theorist spouted that crap to you and slap them. Several times. And enjoy doing so!

Then after that short recreational break, get back to the tier 3 proposal you put so much effort into.....or which thanks muchly, by the way...

Ian

Okay. How does that square with this:

I think if I have misunderstood you it is only because you have misled me with what you've written.

I understand all that but it isn't comparative recognition is it, otherwise their would be no requirement for the tiers.

Despite the "heat" in the room at the NW meeting, the debate seemed to contain less sniping and be less personal than it comes across here and seemed more constructive debate and attempts to clarify the situation than point scoring.

I also agree that the addition of the BMC 30 names on the counter proposal probably means most people give it short shrift.

Will, do you believe that 'mountaineering' * will be 'worse' if Sport England decides not to accept a funding bid (when it actually does get submitted')?

Me pottering up obscure routes; you cranking on plastic, Jane Smith sorting her 7b project, and John Brown striding across the Pennines. All of us.

If you think that Tier 3 compliance is the way to go, well you will have a proposal to vote for!  If you decide that actually it's not that important then you have a proposal to vote for! What's not to like about actually being presented with a choice

* That's 'mountaineering' as in cragging, bouldering, ice, walking, comps, alpine, indoor, sport, ski, mountain routes, sea cliffs. I've done them all. Except competition 'cos I'm rubbish.

The 'Tiers' are only really important when it comes to level of funding. All of them comply with the SE Code as well as the SRA Principles of Good Governance

UKC can be like that

Guess we're all keyboard warriors to some extent! But YES - we need to avoid personality and focus on issues.

Ian, I think I love you and the way you express yourself

Andy

I think if the BMC's scope is reduced then mountaineering would be poorer for it. I don't expect thunderclouds to install themselves permanently over Langdale, but little things might change. An eroded footpath here, a crag clean-up missed there, a disappointing comp result for some young wad, perhaps?

There is a huge difference in funding available for tier 1 & tier 3 bodies. Roughly <£250k for Tier 1s to £1m+ for Tier 3s I think? I think the loss of this money would have a detrimental effect on the BMCs activities.

I've not yet seen a compelling argument against the ORG's proposals. In fact, I haven't seen any argument that doesn't assume that the exec will be taken over by evil megalomaniacs. Given that Bob has now advertised his backwards views and status as a first class See You Next Tuesday for all to see, I think you've seriously reduced your credibility by associating yourself with him. Did his signature (and Leo's etc) really matter that much? Why not get a few different signatories to distance yourself from his bullshit? His motivations are very clear in my view - he hates the progression of climbing and the broadening of the church.

Simon, thanks for your initial sentiment. 

Can I just make it completely clear that I saw an early statement from 'them who shall not be named' and there was no way I could have supported it. 

That proposal was effectively to have a couple of General Meetings a year when attendees told Directors what to do; thereby cutting ongoing member representation by NC. That's daft!

What has now been proposed gives folks a fairly clear choice. Accept a major 'power shift' from NC to the Directors and stand a chance of SE funding for the next three years or try to retain that Member-Area-NC strength whilst still being a SE recognised body.

Average age?

Quite frankly, pretty much everyone I know who's younger than me is heartily fed up of the collective democratic intervention of the older generations within the UK.

As a general philosophical point we really need to ask why so many older individuals in British society are so unwillingly to allow future generations make their own decisions (and undoubtedly their own mistakes!).

I imagine most people have the best of intentions even when they are among the least effected by decisions they seek to influence, but that doesn't make their actions any less selfish when looked at from any perspective other than their own.

Hi All.

As one of the drivers of the Tier 1 Motion, I'll try to answer questions and correct mis-assumptions, but most of that will have to be next week when I return from a family holiday. This morning's priority was being with my 2.5 year old on his first ascent of a climbing wall. It wasn't big or hard by usual standards, but I'm still a proud dad. If this posting goes off half-complete, it's because he's sitting next to me...

A few quick comments:

- The last two weeks has seen some significant progress with the IG's Tier 3 proposal. I and others have been in direct dialogue with Andy Syme and others, and some of the more extreme 'requirements' of SE have now been re-interpreted more in the BMC's favour. Whatever happens, this is good news for those that would like more of a member-led organisation. Email chains have included Dave Turnbull, Martin Wragg, and even on occasions Nick Kurth. On the day that we decided to draft something, I spoke to DT and made him aware that there might be a proposal. There is nothing underhand here - quite the contrary.

- Because of pressures of time, the IG has only been able to put forward one SE-compliant proposal to the Area meetings (and that differed between meetings), and thus to NC. Given that the status quo is not a viable way forward, there has been no genuine choice for anyone at any stage, so NC could do nothing other than accept itas the only viable proposal. At the L&SE Area Meeting that I attended, the different Tiers were not mentioned, and certanly there was no discussion on relative merit. No claim can be made that Tier 3 is preferred via the democratic process, only that a wish that SE compliance was agreed (driven from what I heard by desire for political influence). What we've also been unclear of at the Areas was what of the changes were driven by clarifying Companies Act compliance, and what were driven by SE.

- The ORG has done some excellent work, and I'm hopeful that most of it will be adopted (please see the paper I published on Crag's site ages ago if you've any interest in my views on that). The IG and NC have noted that there is much detail to be worked through, and the 'phase 2' that some of you will have heard about at Area Meetings will work through this next year in multiple workstreams. I've offered to help with that, as have many others. It is only the governance structure that we need to decide on now.

- To give the membership a genuine choice, we've worked with key BMC people to set up an Open Forum so that genuine options can be discussed. John Porter and Dave Turnbull have put a lot in to make this happen. Time however was against us, and it wasn't possible to get the Forum in prior to the 45 day deadline for submission, though it is in a few days before the 28 day deadline for circulation. To make this as meaningful as possible, if people burned the midnight oil after the Forum and the BMC office could turn the papers around quickly, the circulation deadline to members could still be met. National Council, Dave Turnbull and Martin Wragg agreed to this, so the debate (and negotiations with SE) can continue for another couple of weeks at least, and shape a meaningful AGM discussion.

- Agreement to the delayed deadline by NC should be enough, but there remains the prospect of a 'technical challenge' which could invalidate any proposals submitted after the 45 day deadline - including the output from the Open Forum. That would inhibit finalisation of the NC proposal as much as any. So, much as the general preference was to wait and see a) what else Andy Syme can agree with SE and b) to respond to whatever proposal NC finalise and publish (not out yet), to keep the debate alive the drafters of the Tier 1 proposal submitted the motion earlier this week in order to avoid technical challenges, and to give a starting alternative for discussion at the Open Forum.

- The Tier 1 proposers are an ad hoc bunch with no particular prior affiliation - you'll see from the list of names above (plus a few more just in) that there is a wide and extensive BMC involvement at all levels, from historicl through recent to current. One of the few things we have in common is a view that the diminishing levels of funding potentially available from SE are no longer worth the effort. Many of us commenced dialogue either via email following various postings on Crag's site, or via UKC.

- Please don't give Bob Pettigrew & Dennis Gray the blame/credit for this proposal - they've been silent for many weeks (due to a major operations, I'm told). John Booth (individual member) collected signatures. There were already c. 30 supporters of this proposal before the BMC30 got wind and a group decided to also support it (we can't choose who supports us any more than NC or John Roberts can choose their supporters). Rod Gallagher has worked hard with Julian James (lawyer and CC) to work out how the Womble Bond Dickinson recommendations for Companies Act compliance could fit into the existing Articles. These were offered after the draft proposal had been put out for comment, and fitted together nicely.

The Tier 1 proposal and the Articles give us something to discuss. When we see the NC proposal we can discuss that too. If John Roberts is putting in an ORG-based proposal, then let's discuss the three alongside each other. If we all go into this with open minds then we're likely to find that we have a great deal of common ground. If at all possible, the BMC should operate via informed consensus, especially where major changes are proposed (even the Tier 1 proposes one major change following WBD advice - nobody is arguing to keep what we have). Let's have that grown-up discussion.

Right - must stop for now. Child needs attention!!!!

Bloody hell, Jonathan. Concentrate on belaying!!!!!

Ewwww!  :|

This resolution was submitted before the deadline via email  with 549 signatories!

Thanks to everyone that signed.  A huge range of the great and the good of British Climbing, Hillwalking and Mountaineering in there!

It's now at 597 - if you support it, let's keep them coming!

https://www.change.org/p/british-mountaineering-council-submission-of-ordin...

So at what point would you suggest old gits have their vote removed? 

An old git.

No, indeed, I was (voluntarily) working on the ABCTT part of the re-submission last night at midnight.

As I said, I think you have a duty to let the funded partners know what this proposal is.

We will lose the ability to apply through the whole sport bid and we will lose the funding that would have come through that combined bid.  It is not really 4 separate organisational bids, it is a collaborated whole sport bid which is currently being applied for, and for which SE are awaiting the BMC's re-submission, and tier 3 compliance. 

Consideration of an alternative is not that same as a confirmation.  And I can guarantee that the BMC not achieving tier 3, and/or the bid being un-successful, will be detrimental to the day to day running of the organisations involved.  The holding award work has taken up an inordinate amount of paid and volunteer time.

As you well know, I have declared my role in ABCTT numerous times, and it is a matter of public record.  But for the purposes of those on this thread :

• 27th October 2016: Appointed as a Trustee to ABCTT
• May 2017: Appointed to Independent ORG and all made aware of my volunteer role at ABCTT
• October 2017: Appointed as chair of ABCTT

My role at ABCTT has been discussed/mentioned at/in/on:

• Companies House
• Charities Commission
• ORG meetings
• Local Area Meetings
• Bio of my report in the ORG report (Nov '17)
• Patrons ORG meeting in December '17
• BMC30 meeting in January '18 (in this meeting I was bizarrely accused of having been paid £150,000 for my volunteer work on the ORG!)
• On the phone, or in emails to co-signatories of your proposal
• Multiple UKC threads
• My website
• LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram
• National Education Press

Had I thought that the BMC not being the umbrella body, and a better option available, I would have been happy to put it forward to members.

I totally, and respectfully appreciate that you are passionate about the BMC, and you think differently about the proposals.  And I also respect the views and past efforts of those counter signatories.  I have enjoyed debating some of the technical points with Rodney and others, and we have agreed on a lot of things.  However, I think you're wrong in your approach and overall I don't think what you have put forward is right for the BMC.

It's quite clear from the current 597 signatories that members may well feel differently to you and your fellow signatories too. 

Nonetheless, I think that the behaviour of some of the individuals involved in your counter proposal has been vexatious, fundamentally subversive, borderline abusive, and often inconsistent with the behaviour expected of the position that they have been appointed or elected to.  With power, comes responsibility.

Do you have any conflicting interests, past or present, that you wish to declare?

Nope, just an ordinary resolution, already submitted, in support of the direction of travel defined by the ORG, including support for tier 3 compliance and implementation in the spirit (not the exact detail of) the ORG/IG recommendations/work. 

The articles Andy Syme has worked on currently are in the spirit of the ORG recommendations, and comply with tier 3. 

I have no plans to launch a third set of articles.

And none of those things depend on SE funding

And it is worth pointing out that all the BMC Areas that were asked said they were happy to accept a 10% subs raise to cover some of the shortfall if we lost SE funding!

Now, to be clear, there is a lot in the ORG report that can only be seen as good: John Roberts helped write it after all! The BMC should have a staff training policy? Oh go in then...

The unfortunate thing is that the completely uncontentious stuff has been shoved into 2019 or after and the serious stuff that REALLY needs time has been forced into the next AGM by a SE imposed deadline.

It would be a total downer if SE turned that second bid down as well! I do know about 'whole sport plans' as I helped write the last two.

Ex-MTE employee. Holder of MIC (bloody instructors!). Pensioner. No commercial interest. No club membership.

(What's the difference between 'present' and 'current'?)

I don't want a governing body, I don't partake in a sport, I want an organisation that supports and lobbies for its members interests. The more I read about this whole "governance crisis" the more I am persuaded that it is more about greed for money and power by those in charge and with vested interests than the interests of ordinary members. The whole fiasco disgusts me.

This is exactly what I want too. My and many other people's view is that if we loose SE recognition, the BMC will loose influence which it needs when lobbying for its members. I don't think this has anything to do with greed at all. (Declaration of interest, BMC SW area secretary, CC member.)

Thats really sad. I don't know if you've ever met, or been told about the people you are implicitly accusing of being motivated by greed and power, but I suspect not. And frankly, I think that says it all. I would urge you to reconsider your view. I firmly believe those 'in charge' of the BMC have the sports and our best interest at heart. (Climbing is a sport whether you acknowledge it or not).

For me the crucial question is this:

'If Sport England didn't exist; and there was no funding issue (and both may be gone in a few years anyway!) is what is being proposed my idea of how the BMC should be 'governed' for years to come?'

Yes, we can change the BMC's governance to chase short term funding. But is the resulting 'system' the best fit for an organisation that is essentially a representative body and only tangentially a 'Governing Body' of a 'sport'?

Jon. Don't walk away! I would completely agree with your first sentence!

It ISN'T about 'greed'. Any funding will go to agreed projects.

Yes - it is about 'power' and whether that resides with the Members or the Directors.  Bear in mind I'm biased

How do you square that view with your proposal for the BMC to be tier 1 only, and therefore not able to apply for the level of funding applied for as part of that whole sport bid?

Or do you dispute this statement from SE which formed part of your IG documents to Local Areas?

Climbing is just what it is in all its different forms, but labelling it a "sport" has somewhat different connotations to calling it, say, an "activity" or "lifestyle" (whether you acknowledge it or not!)

Which is for me where the argument and the process has disappeared up its own backside. The Org Review was supposed to recommend / implement a management structure in the BMC that allowed for best practice governance (which for Jon Greengrass has nothing to do with being a governing body, but how an organisation conducts itself), rather than a form that fits into any other person, group or organisations requirements. If we had "best in class" management / organisation, we would be better placed for any challenges in the future, whether from SE, the BMC 30, environment, access, the olympics etc etc. This objective has been lost in everyones race to get their pet requirements to the fore, and so we are left with a proposal or proposals that have had as much time and effort spent on trying to displease the least number of people as to making the BMC better placed for the future. 

This isn't meant as a criticism of JR, Andy Say, or anyone else who has put major time into preparing them, but of those others who would seek to undermine their intentions and work without first allowing it to be at least complete.

Why do you think that?

The arguments made so far regarding SE recognition seem entirely to be about the money.

True! I think its all of the above to be honest!

It's about good governance (and that's governance in how decisions are made by and for members, not governance of the "sport" in terms of "rules").  As you can see the BMC is having a very tricky time making those decisions at the moment, because it's not entirely clear in the current constitution who decides what.

With good governance, comes better decision making, the possibility of funding, and increased influence.

It doesn't come at the detriment of the members, or to the detriment member involvement, in fact, properly implemented, in line with the spirit of the recommendations, it will be beneficial and empowering to members.

AGM COMMENT

There is a lot of growing noise about how the recent submission of an option to the Organisational Review Implementation Group single option proposal.

Please consider a few points about the proposal presented that gives an option for Tier 1 Sport England compliance.

It gives the membership a choice. Something that was not going to be given.

It is drafted such that The BMC remains a membership controlled organisation while also enhancing the Board’s strength to run the BMC on a daily basis.

It is fully in line with the BMC’s own solicitors recommendations with respect to compliance with the Companies Act 2006.

It allows members who are interested to remain active in & having a real influence in the daily running of the BMC, just like now.

It is drafted in accordance with the Code for Sport Governance so that the BMC can be seen as the NBG for all forms of climbing in the UK in the future.

It is in accordance with Sport England’s Tier 1 so the BMC will be able to continue to apply for & receive funding.

It is not about stopping or marginalising completion or indoor climbing in any way, shape or form. In fact the group can demonstrate that this option will ensure members have an opportunity to be involved in development of those activities, rather than courting the risk in the future of being told how they will be developed.

It has been written in consultation with a large number of people, by a group of long standing BMC members who have been and are active in the BMC at all levels and who are not the BMC30. One or two members of that group have supported this option for the membership but they have not been involved in writing it.

This group has in excess of 300+ years of combined experience in supporting the BMC. None have any vested interest whatsoever. They practise all forms of climbing, outdoor & indoor activity, including competitions

It is supported by at least 3 of the 6 BMC Patrons.

It has been discussed with key people within the BMC including the CEO and members of the formal Implementation Group, all of who had knowledge of the document & its aim before the last National Council.

Some of the group have also actively & positively contributed to the formal BMC Implementation Group document that is soon to be published.

It has had consideration by National Council and whilst some councillors did not agree with its aim, which is consistent with the terms of reference of the Organisational Review and the Report, it is a base option, no enhancements, no loss of member control and no loss of BMC status;  there was a majority view that it was appropriate to give the membership choice.

In due course a facility to answer specific member queries will be put in place, to listen to concerns and hopefully waylay those.

This option is a positive option for the membership to consider.

I thank you for your consideration of the above points.

This is in the ORG output, the IG output and has been discussed endlessly on these threads and at area meetings. The most important areas are consistently stated to be not the SE money but the damage to the umbrella arrangement with our partners and to our influence on our partners and government. In rejecting Tier 3 we are assuming SE or our Exec will do bad things based on unprovable technical governance points that are almost unexplainable to ordinary members and thats unfair and dumb (a divorce based on predicted but widely contested bad behaviour); if we complain if SE propose bad things at some future point, that would be fair and sensible and would likely be easily understood and fully supported by the membership. If the Exec behave badly in the Tier 3 proposals we have one of the most generous arrangements of redress I've ever seen in an organisation. 

Firstly, if we do not have tier 3 recognition then the MLTB etc. will have to separate from the BMC in order to access SE funding. If this happens, the BMC will inevitably loose influence with the MLTB, climbing walls etc.

Secondly, if our governance is not good enough for SE, then it is likely that politicians will take us much less seriously.

Thirdly, if we end up split int 3 or more bodies, BMC, MLTB, Climbing Walls or whatever, who will politicians talk to. As things stand, the BMC is recognised as representing all climbers as far as the government, RSPB the National Trust, National Parks etc. are concerned. I do not want us t risk loosing that influence - this is far more important than some short term funding from SE.

Your innocent explanation smacks of dirty organisational politics. Firstly, signatures on such a motion signal, they help collect votes. You should and could have chosen to reject those involved with dishonest and/or abusive behaviour (and as I said above, thats not just the leading players in the 30, as it now includes Jules). This has never been about their opinions it is totally about how they went about handling the MoNC, dishonestly and secretly and the letters they wrote to the likes of Rehan that were nasty and dishonest.   When we talked in the 'troll hugging call' we even agreed on most things but not on the importance of primacy. To achieve your aims you seem to want your cake and eat it with these extra names: if you think, as you said, that such behaviour was unacceptable you shouldn't let them sign (no one stops them voting of course, nor campaigning on your behalf honestly). Secondly, you were never going to accept primacy with the exec, which SE always required, so the decision to do something like this seems almost inevitable to me not an action of last resort. 

The members of the BMC include those in formal training courses, and those taking place in competitions under a governing body remit ( or aiming to do so at some point). The biggest activity numbers in the BMC membership are in hillwalking. We cant define an organisation for subsets containing particular types of climbers or mountaineers.

Surely I'm not the only one to have noticed a disturbingly close analogy with Brexit.

The choice appears to be largely down to making relatively small compromises in governance so as to be compatible with SE/EU, or retaining 'control' of structure and decision-making at the likely expense of a very significant economic hit, likely also leading to a breakup of the BMC/UK.

And it's all the old people that seem to want us to take the hit (on some point of principle or dogma) rather than work cooperatively with others!

Edit: Should we be calling it SExit?

Jeez. Given that you are diplomatic and wouldn’t have written that lightly I suspect we can apply a multiplier if imagining the actual level of unpleasantness and contrariness you and other volunteers on the ORG were subject to. 

I hope it all proves worth it in the end.

As a matter of fact, Bob Peddigrew has not been involved in the development of the detail of these alternative proposals. I am able to demonstrate this if anyone wants to visit me and examine my emails.

The Tier 1 option proposal submitted to the BMC provides an alternative structure to a specific group of proposals, about 10, that are put forward within the Organisarional Review Report.  The remaining 41 (excuse if I have the numbers slightly wrong) have not been challenged, and it is a fact that the group who developed the alternative option (not counter option) applaud the vast amount of work done by the Organisational Review Group.  John Roberts, your work & effort is in many ways applauded.

The alternative approach to BMC association with Sport England presented by the Tier 1 proposal provides for:

a) the BMC remaining the NGB for all forms of climbing and associated activity, indoors and out, in competition or at leisure.

b) allowing the BMC to continue to apply for funding from Sport England.

c) puts forward an alternative balance of control of the BMC by the members.  Rather than complete control by the Board as demanded by Sport England in the early versions on the Implimentaion Group draft Articles, now also reduced in th version of that soon to be published, it retains membership say in matters of importance - as set out in the ORG report (reserved matters) while giving improved daily operational control to the Board.

d) another option for people to consider and vote on, democracy.

And it is worth pointing out that all the BMC Areas that were asked said they were happy to accept a 10% subs raise to cover some of the shortfall if we lost SE funding!

Oh did we? I don’t recall us voting on that at the SW meeting. You were there too! Shall we just keep to the facts?

James Mann

A decent number of votes would be marvellous and to be applauded if stimulated by any new method of governance.

The Implimentation Group current 'Tier 3' options give improved membership say over earlier versions in which Sport England influence in the negotiations had all membership control taken away and given to the Board.

The revised Tier 3 document, expected soon, improves on that thanks to the work of people like Andy Syme.

The alternative Tier 1 option gives membership more say again, retains the way in which ordinarily people can really get invoover, much as we have now, while still retaining the opportunity for the BMC to seek funding for specific projects and importantly for many the status of NGB, which was never a time risk.

I am awaiting a response from Sport England to a private letter to confirm the latter, which I will share here on received.

One of the wonders of the BMC is that all this work has been done by people who don't get paid. Both options.

I see that you have grown as a person in recent times and have managed to write without resorting to personal insults. Well done! 

James Mann

An excellent summary.  The current Artcles are out of date. This is indeed all about access to funding.

The important distinction between the 2 options put forward is to what funds the BMC can have access to, and to a lesser degree the value.  It is not true that the alternative Tier 1 option cuts off access to funding. In a nutshell teir 1 have to be project specific whereas tier 3 don't as much. In gaining access to Tier 3 an organisation must be fully Executive board controlled. Ther is a demonstrable concerm that may impact way the BMC works at ground level.

Bob Peddigrew has not been involved in the development and drafting of the alternative option for members to vote on. Your are welcome to visit me and examine my emails to see this is the case.  He has put his name to it, as have a number of other members, including 3 of the 6 BMC patrons. We are democratic in our approch. 

I assume you are aware that Bob was physically assaulted at the AGM last year by an objector? Everyone is entitled to a view and to voice that view. That's what makes this country what it is and indeed what the BMC is. Tier 3 proposals take A lot of that right away. Tier 1 proposal do not.

So you got concessions out of the IG on their proposal and put out an alternative proposal anyway. Nice touch.

As things stood the membership had a choice between accepting or rejecting the National Council recommended constitutional changes based in turn on the ORG recommendations.

With a third proposal you have engineered a situation where the prospect of a 75% majority is thrown into considerable doubt for any of the options thereby dragging out this sorry state of affairs. 

James, read what I actually said, please!  You weren't asked; you didn't vote. Fine.

Areas that WERE asked supported the subs increase.

I'm afraid I find these kind of threads deflating.  Am I alone?!

The sector - which we all love and cherish - is going through such a massive period of growth (predominantly through indoor climbing and hillwalking), that the BMC simply has to modernise and get with the times, or risk irrelevance.  The ORG proposals are, for the most part, a really sensible, pragmatic set of responses to the challenges faced by the BMC.  As such, I really hope they get voted through at the AGM. 

Continued introspection of the type we've seen over the past 12-24months helps almost no-one. There are no winners, just the average punter losing out through lack of investment in everything from competitions to access work. 

As CEO of the Association of British Climbing Walls, I know that many of our members just want these governance issues resolved so everyone can focus effort on supporting one of the most exciting and fastest growing sports in the UK.  And we want to do that in collaboration with the BMC and other partners.

I'll have everything crossed on 16th June...

Graham (also a BMC member)

As a younger member of the climbing community, and a member of the BMC. You lot need to spend less time arguing for points, and go out and enjoy some climbing. Could you make climbing any more boring? It's just pathetic. It's reminiscent of a bunch of old bumblies waving the willies around claim one is a millimeter longer than the other, when we all know non of you can get it up.

ps: Whatever gets the BMC more funding to do the excellent work like that at Horseshoe last year and can send our athletes to the Olympics needs support. This is 2018, not 1976. 

Bob was not assaulted it was 'handbags'. As far as the person was concerned Bob insulted their position and added other nasty pointed insults and got the dregs of a shandy in reply and immediately threw his wine back. There are many independant witnesses to this other than the so called accurate evidence of Bob's mates. The matter was dealt with by the police (a waste of their time in my view) and resolved with no charge nor caution. The stories circulating are all bullshit and some are libelous

In contrast your behaviour in your abusive letter are evidenced widely thanks to Bob.  People in glashouses need to be careful with stones.

Working for you Jack, have a read.  Maybe see you at the crag, enjoying some climbing soon...

John, aged 33, hopefully still a "younger member of the climbing community"!

First of all let’s look at the reality, the issues at stake here, rather than being diverted into poisonous attacks on anyone. To that end I would urge people to actually read the proposal (see link at end) rather than be misinformed by hysterical misinformation and smear campaigns:

The tier 1 proposal does NOT reject the majority of the ORG recommendations, it endorses most of them with a few crucial differences to the benefit of all BMC members; namely:

1) it allows the members to remain in control of its representative body and the policies it develops rather than giving that up to a largely self-appointed ‘board of directors’ as required by the alternative ‘Tier 3’ proposal, who would then be able to impose whatever ‘vision’ they happen to have on a membership that has a severely reduced recourse for complaint or alteration.

2) it gives the membership a genuine opportunity to also understand the remainder of the ORG recommendations, and accept, alter, add to or reject any of them as they see fit; rather than rail-road through a poorly defined, continuously changing implementation with very poor consultation, which will forever reduce the control we have over the future of our activities.

• The Tier1 proposal embraces the ORG recommendations and Womble Bond & Dickinson's legal feedback as set out in the ORG Report, with the aim to remove ambiguity from the Articles such that company law is accommodated. 

• The BMC will remain the NGB for all climbers, hill walkers, and mountaineers regardless of Tier 1, Tier 3, or other categorisation by Sport England. 

• Sport England funding represents approx. 10% of BMC finances, and SE themselves have indicated that all NGBs should get ready for funding to reduce or vanish over the next few years. 

• The ORG Report itself highlights a need to become self funding (ORG Rec. #10). 

We have tried to gain compromise and consensus to be incorporated into the Tier 3 proposal but to date the flawed implementation process and ridiculously short timescale would not cater for this so an alternative has been presented. In the end it is not about what is decided but the mechanism of future decision making that is at stake. That is the crucial distinction and something worth fighting for. In the process we have already won a number of concessions from Sport England to the benefit of member representation (and even the Tier 3 proposal!), even though we were originally told these would be impossible. We have also created the forthcoming Manchester Forum and with that, finally, an opportunity for members to actually have a direct say rather than answer dodgy leading questions with limited options. This is something that should have happened at the very beginning of the organisational review, not at the very end. There is then precisely one day before the new deadline to enact any proposals that arise! In the meantime we are open to any constructive discussions and compromise in order to try and reach a consensus. Please see Jonathan White’s post on this above.

If Sport England were willing to curb the demands we are told they are making to severely limit members director appointments and members say on how the organisation is run then the remainder of their ‘Tier 3’ demands are palatable and mostly met already which would then enable the higher funding, for as long as it is available. If only Sport England could acknowledge that our very broad range of activities require a bit more latitude in how they are ‘governed’ as compared to conventional sports then much of the problem would be solved.

Please see the one page ‘Tier 1’proposal itself and the accompanying Articles of Association at:

https://sites.google.com/view/bmc-rr/source-documents

Nah, you're middle-aged aren't you now John?

Well hello there everyone, yes I am one of the 30 supporters of the alternative proposal re governance which will be put to the AGM (boo, hiss it seems).

And for those who are having difficulty with the detail of this debate perhaps my very simple reasons for supporting this proposal will help others to see what we feel is at stake here.

I am voting for the alternative resolution because it maintains the principle that the final say within the BMC should always rest with the ordinary members of the BMC whereas the recommendations of the Organisational Review seek to dilute this principle by giving greater influence to paid officers, external stakeholders and those with a commercial interest in climbing.

And insofar as the BMC has been a member led organisation since its inception I guess that does represent the 'status quo' (boo, hiss again?)

Apparently my support for democracy within the BMC makes me a reactionary, part of a rump, dishonourable and probably a whole heap of other unpleasant things by the time we get to the end of this thread.

But I can perhaps see where the confusion arises - its because some of the signatories were also people who previously proposed a vote of no confidence in the Executive over the Climb Britain issue. So for the record, I did not agree with the motion of no confidence, I thought it was both disproportionate and spiteful and I for that reason I was initially reluctant to get involved with some of the voices being  raised in challenge to the Organisational Review. 

However, it seems increasingly obvious to me that the process of 'outing' us stick- in-the-mud reactionaries (which I am definitely not), of trying to tar everyone with the same brush, is a rather feeble device for avoiding the issue of member democracy within the BMC, which is actually what this is all about. A few of the people posting on this thread might do well to address that issue - instead of just indulging in name calling.

Unfortunately for you, a key pillar of democracy is 'trust' - you have to trust that people involved and for many onlookers, the MoNC episode eroded trust in the BMC30 and in anyone who chooses to be associated with them. You say the BMC30 had no part in the development of your proposal but you chose to allow them to be signatories on it and therefore you will be 'tarred with the same brush'. My initial reaction to the proposal was that it may have had some merit, but when I saw who the signatories were my reaction was "Oh, looks like I can't believe anything they say." Who sent what emails and who drafted which words is irrelevant. The proposal is poisoned.

Oh FFS!!! Just print the effing document as a single PDF. Why do the people behind this make it so f***king hard to read stuff and understand what's going on??

Frankly I'm sick of this whole fiasco and farrago of fulsome organisational detailed crap. Ever since the MNOC the BMC organisation has been beset by passionate a-holes arguing about what angels do on pinheads.

I  think the BMC access stuff is great. The rest of it can go away and wouldn't be missed. Let's just junk the poor sickly beast and start again.

And a pox on government money. Sport England can go whistle. Yes, I'm frustrated and venting/ranting and no, I don't care to change my mind and be wise and rational, etc. Enough already. The BMC stands for Bleeding Moribund Crap. It's got organisational Alzheimers and needs mercy killing.

Come on climbing clubs. Disassociate from the BMC, and start the BMC demolition derby.

Hi Graham. I would like to get in contact with you and have a chat about my views on how the alternative teir 1 proposal will not diminish the BMC's NGB stautus or impact on sport & competition climbing in the future.  You can get my number or email through Dave T.

cheers, hope to hear from you soon.

Will you be adding JR’s ordinary resolution to your site?

Dear Offwidth

Given your very close knowledge of the internal machinations of the BMC, I think that your first paragraph is quite an excellent summary of the purpose of the Articles.  Nicely written.

pee your second paragraph, I am afraid you are factually wrong about any association with the BMC 30 in terms of active development of the alternative Tier 1 proposals. The work has been done away form that group by long standing, passionate members of the BMC (like yourself and your wife), who believe that there is an alternative to the BMC Organisational Review Implimentaion Group proposals and who believe that it is entirely reasonable that a well founded choice be offered to the membership to vote on. Until this proposal was submitted no choice was going to be be given.  In both cases Sport England NGB staus is mainitained as is access to funding, all be it that the process for and amount of will change".  Yes, 2 or 3 members have put their names to the Tier 1 proposal, and this is a democratic society and they are memebers of the BMC.

The communications of the group who prepared the Teir 1 document have been no more secrete than those of the group who are preparing the Tier 3 proposal.

There have been quite a number of people who have been or who are active in the BMC at various levels contributing in one way or another to the Tier 1 alternative proposal - so the members can have a voting choice.

3 of the 6 BMC Patrons have also put their name to it as a valid proposition for considering by the membership.

Yes Andy they did, but worth mentioning the context of this, for example Yorkshire were quite clear that IF SE funding was lost there was no other option BUT they thought subs rises were unnecessary as we should go for SE funding.  I think Yorkshire weren't alone in this position.

JR

Can you confirm when the ABCTT became a funded partner under the BMC umbrella please?

It is interesting this raised status of the 'Partners'. For at the end of the day I believe they are all independent businesses?  This raised status is a proposition the Organisational Review Report,  yet to be adopted.  At the moment it is a mutually beneficial arrangement not a bound agreement.

I believe you were a member of the Organisational Review Group at the time of taking the role as Chair of ABCTT?

Can you confirm this and give me your view on any potential conflict of interest between the role of Chair of the ABCTT and contributing to a report that, if accepted, elevates the status of the ABCTT within the BMC to one with a voting interest.

Everything I've said is backed up by evidence, all of which I have and most of which I can provide if given permissions (understandably people are reluctant to see libelous information circulated about them and Rehan won't release the letters he received but he stands by what he said to several of us).

The common ground of Tier 1 and Tier 3 was never the issue. Either we are Tier 3 compliant or the SE arrangements have gone and we need 10% subscription increases immediately. It's very generous of the areas who voted that in... wider membership agreement may be a tad more difficult. 

On your point 1) The democratic elected members in charge of the current membership primacy in NC voted to support the proposed changes for the reasons laid out in the recommendations. So this is a rather ironic political disagreement. They clearly don't feel that membership will be forced to accept any serious risk of imposed vision, so maybe that is a smear. Using the term 'a largely self appointed Board of Directors' is also possibly a smear. They are broadly the same mechanisms in appointment except the number balance moves to independant directors and the chair is now a seperate role. Most still require at least ratification at the AGM. In return for slightly more onerous requirements in some respects  ('severely reduced' being another exaggeration and  possible smear) there are also some new checks and balances. The wider membership in this get more direct input, such that the Climb Britain fiasco voted in by members' NC reps with primacy almost certainly wouldn't have happened in the first place. A vote where the exec were ambivalent at best and the President was against it... so they also might have stopped it in the new structure.

On your point 2 This is a series of cascaded negative assumptions,  again expecting the worst of the new organisation and the vigilance of the wider membership. Another possible smear.

In the next bullet points the SE money wasn't the key issue and removing it all together is a serious political issue where all affected  sports will be mobalising their membership to change the mind of government, in a key area that can improve the failing health of the nation.  Phew, no obvious smears, just doom and gloom.

I see little attempt to compromise from your group.. just the same sort of arguments again and again. There was no way SE would have backed down completely and no one I'm aware of said that any change slightly in our direction was impossible. Andy Syme said just the opposite to the Peak Area meeting. So another possible smear?

I remain greatful for your website and pressure on the debate. It might well have won us greater concessions than we might have got if overly compliant. I am certainly no fan of SE. However,  maybe the the number of potential smears in your post verge on the hysterical and you should stick to facts and at least acknowledge the other possible outcomes you think are less possible than I do, and please cut back on the exaggerated superlatives.

It’s more like an episode of Last of the Summer Whine, where the participants argue to the point of ad nauseum whether they should watch Super Market Sweep, Jeremy Kyle, and if Love Joy made any money selling antiques.  

My thoughts echoed!

You say that and I think its probably true but where is the evidence from the 3 patrons so we know who the other 2 are and why they supported this and so can be questioned in this publicly. Most of what I heard from some 'names'who were approached is a yarn based on tradition, claiming a unifying spirit (yeah right) and with misinformation, like the BMC plan to remove the risk Participation Statement and to encourage inappropriate promotion of outdoor trad. The 3rd patron is clearly Doug, who some have argued should be stripped of his patronage due to his behaviour in the MoNC (I disagree but I do think he should have been subject to a better code of conduct). Those supporting the NC line have some equally impressive CV's, a longer cumulative service and usually more recent significant contributions.  Read the 500+ names who signed JR's petition in the last 24 hours all in plain public view.

So Articles now all agreed and ready to go (will be issued through the BMC website but not sure exactly when as outside my control; don't ask me to share before formal publication please because I will have to say no).  I have valued the constructive & polite feedback from various parties (the insults less so but I did put my head above the parapet so what did I expect )

It was unfortunate that I had to provide articles part way through negotiations with SE; so areas could discuss something in April; as it set many more hares running than I would have liked but maybe we can shortly start talking about the actual NC Recommended proposal not rumours or fears.

I look forward to some informed and fact based debates going forwards, name calling (even where people feel justified) doesn't change positions or move the debate forwards. 

I think the counter articles would be wrong for the BMC but if after reading the NC Recommended proposals they still think their alternative is a better proposal then fine so be it.  The key thing is as many members as possible being able to make an informed choice and be able to exercise their vote.  Electronic proxy voting I hope will get a better engaged democracy in the BMC even for the boring s~~t like this.  

But if the growth of indoor climbing leads to a growth of outdoor climbing, it's not likely they're head straight up to the mountains. Malham, Kilnsey, Almscliff which are local to me are feeling the strain when it comes to parking and general bad behaviour. Which will always happen, but becomes more noticeable as numbers swell. 

Maybe more money would help, but with the recent destruction of some boulder problems at Whitehouses by an angry local, perhaps we should consider that money won't solve everything and we might pay a high price chasing funding.

Certainly SE don't give a sh!t about such things, they're just spending money to achieve targets.

Maybe if more climbers were BMC members and self policed better, the problems would be alleviated. I think the growth in participation from indoors will happen irrespective of the BMC. I see clear efforts in the BMC to educate but none to encourage inappropriate participation in access hotspots (just the opposite, especially at Area meets).

    The growth has been happening for years. Thousands upon thousands are climbing indoors and the outdoors haven't been 'flooded'. During this time it is outdoor climbers who have caused the strain and the bad behaviour.

   Err..what is the link between funding and a land owner finally losing patience with inconsiderate parking, confrontational climbers and late night 'lantern' climbing.

   Yes; part of their remit is to fund the means to attract people into healthy activity. SE funding has helped over 115,000 youngsters to get into and enjoy climbing within the NICAS/NIBAS schemes.

Being Yorkshire area chair Malham, Kilnsey and Whitehouses are real issues for me too.  Getting people educated is only way to stop stupid behaviour pissing off the land owners.  and don't get me started about Almscliff and wall walking!!!!

Getting people from walls into BMC won't stop stupidity, but might help with education.  Having SE funding for youth officers etc helps.  It also helps people like Rob by adding resources and hence freeing them up from other things so they can do more access work. 

We have to use SE funding as per it's intent but how is it better to lose (for example) Caff because we can't access funds SE want to give us.

A lot of things could happen to improve the situation, or make it worse. How should we improve self-policing?

It's not a choice of 2 options, grow or not grow, is it? SE think they can spend money and grow the sport more quickly, and the BMC agrees and takes the money.

Well obviously.

It's whether the balance comes out positive or negative overall. At the moment things appear to be getting worse. Let's hope it gets better. A large swell in numbers at these venues would be unfortunate.

I just explained some venues are getting 'flooded'. In the sense that parking in particular is problematic.

Well, yeah, I am talking about crags. Which are outdoors.

Maybe read what I said again.

Great for SE, great for wall owners, great for the IoC. Not sure it's great for continued access to our local crags.

I've suggested having volunteers in a rota to talk to those parking badly at Kilnsey on good weather weekends. This could work in other sensitive busy areas. Ideal for someone injured alongside a good climbing biography.

Growth in sport and bouldering outdoors is not a choice, its happening anyhow. My point is the BMC are simply not encouraging irresponsible growth, and they actively discourage growth at sensitive access areas and certainty never not under the risk Participation Statement. I'm pretty sure. BMC members behaving badly at Kilnsey will be in a minority, ditto for the Almscliffe wall walking. From climbers I know I suspect the BMC has less than a quarter of active outdoor climbers in its membership.

Thanks, but the very fact that Bob's name is attached to this removes any shred of credibility it might deserve. You should have seen him coming.

I am aware that Bob made insulting, sexist and provocative comments to a female objector. I am aware that he also made racist comments regading someone else. I am aware that he told what someone in the know described as "massive sodding lies" in the run up to the AGM. I am aware that he refused to attend the BMC's Peak Area Meeting to present his case and answer questions. And yes...I am aware that after being "physically assaulted" (i.e. he had some drink thrown at him, which shouldn't frighten someone who's been up K9 or whatever), he then physically assaulted the female objector.

Reminding me of that went rather well, I thought.

I missed your earlier reply to me.  My knowledge of internal BMC workings isnt so great as its largely confidential. My knowledge of the public bits and surrounding gossip is very good and kind climbers have leaked information to me on bad behaviour of others, mainly through UKC and area meetings (like a good journalist, I don't say anything until I have several independant sources). I wasn't claiming the rump of the 30 wrote these alternate articles: I see them as jumping on your bandwagon and your group being cynical enough in your desire to win to accept that. I don't deny the passion but regard abusive and/or dishonest actions, like your letter, as a real problem in a democratic organisation. I think fake news and racism caused Brexit  and Trump and some election results in Europe and the winning campaingners too often encouaged that with subtle dog whistle lines of argument and not calling out dishonest support from secret dishonest mailings. I don't wish to see politics like this in the BMC. There may well be pro- tier 3 people behaving very badly (I don't see much evidence, so I don't agree on your last point) but I won't support their behaviour either... send me posts and I will criticise them on the same evidential verified grounds . I have never had problems with different  opinions to the official BMC line, and that has at times been me, from in the past opposing the BMC establishment on the issues of Club block votes, to more mundane stuff on recent Peak area guidebooks. My  problem is with abusive behaviour and dishonest secret mailing, not ideas and opinions..

Then you should have had the good sense to tell him that his signature was not required and sought alternatives.

   Which is a problem created by current users who want to park as close as possible and sod anyone else. Perhaps the next generation will find it more acceptable (responsible) to park further away and walk a bit more.

   Re-read it; and I still don't see the link between funding and a land owner being pi**ed off by an inconsiderate few. The funding didn't create the problem; it was the attitude.

    It's not numbers ,it's attitude. There is a long history of lost access to crags because of behaviour and attitude. It is equally as possible that the new generation of climbers will bring a much better attitude with them.

This is interesting - can you provide yours and Bob's contact details so that I can speak to the police enforcement involved given my understanding  of what happened. I've seen these comments on this thread to add to my own observation -

I love the way that those with a commercial interest are held up being a bit dodgy. Unless they have shops in North Wales, or make money from lecture tours etc etc etc

Did you actually follow the MoNC stuff Colin, do you genuinely believe it was about the re-brand ?

Jules, sorry I am working in China until 16th May.

These new climbers, they come into our sport (sorry, our recreational activity), take our parking places and have no respect for Ron Hills or other British traditions as many of them just boulder and refuse to climb trad properly. We need the power to decide who should be allowed into our sport, and if they aren't here to do it properly we should kick them back to ping pong or whatever godforsaken game they came from. Our crags are overcrowded already and they keep flooding in.

I started climbing in Almscliff in the very late 70s, and it was lovely and quiet most days and a crowded day was what was now a quiet day.  There are many great crags in Yorkshire which receive little traffic so maybe people need to be encouraged to look wider than the 'classics'.

I think it's great more people climb and if we can get funding to help bring people in and educate them about the attitudes and responsibilities about climbing outdoors that has to be a win.

We can't, and wouldn't want to, discourage people climbing or walking outside, but we need to build that collective 'attitude' that stops people doing stupid things.  I understand wall walking at Almscliff is improving as anyone seen doing it gets a wall of calls to get down from the cliff.  That sort of peer pressure (assuming it doesn't become agressive) is the best way.       

"> Edit: Should we be calling it SExit?

It’s more like an episode of Last of the Summer Whine, where the participants argue to the point of ad nauseum whether they should watch Super Market Sweep, Jeremy Kyle, and if Love Joy made any money selling antiques. "

I called SExit days ago and one of the unfortunate aspects of this mess is the ageism. I climb and meet with numerous pensioners who have a very youthful outlook in life, work very hard for the BMC (rather than moan from the wings) and know full well what is honorable in life and are not sexist or racist (as Bob was in his AGM speech).  Don't tar a generation for a few bad eggs. Even those supporting the MoNC and the 30's version of SExit are to be forgiven if they were duped by lies from friends (I still strongly suspect that happened to some of the 30....for example why would Bob have made up that otherwise tin hat sounding stuff about the BMC conspiring with JAC and now all this crap about beergate). I'd add that I loved watching Last of the Summer Wine when I was still at school. Finally, there must be more pensioners on JR's petition than on the alternate motion.

Where can you see the list?. I couldn’t see it on the change.org website

I don't think you can see the full list (online at any rate - it will be sitting in the BMC office), as a lot of people would just have signed it without commenting, including me, so pensioner No1 for you!  However, a lot of people have commented that they signed it, on several Facebook threads, and from those, I think it's a pretty safe bet that Offwidth is right - let's face it, there only need to be more than 41, and John's proposal now has well over 700 signatures!!

I'd also say, just from the names you can see, that there are more climbers who are well known in the climbing community, and deserving far more respect, than on the alternate motion.

Cheers, Andy

John. Sort of funny but a travesty of the truth I'm afraid....

700 in such a short space of time is massively encouraging. If online proxy voting can be made as straightforward with links via Facebook etc then perhaps a 75% majority is possible for the National Council recommended constitution.

Who knows, maybe some of the 41 might want to reflect on the reaction and numbers (they purport to be keen on democracy) and look to remove their divisive alternative constitution.

Possibly more accurate to say 'a group of BMC members have submitted a special resolution to go to the AGM proposing that the BMC, whilst updating its Articles and incorporating legal advice AND complying with Sport England's code of Good Governance should try to retain, as far as possible, it's current 'member-led' structure. It seeks to do this by getting Tier 1 recognition rather than the more onerous, and 'Board-led' Tier 3 route. This will mean a loss of funding for the BMC (though it's recent bid was rejected and a new, reduced, bid has not yet been accepted), and it's partners: funding that is due to taper off anyway. Members have indicated that should this be the case they will accept a 10% subs increase.

Well I'm assuming that we are all hoping to send clear messages. But in this case, John, you are defining the direction of travel that YOU want. Not all will agree with that direction and it will be up to the members to decide what THEY want in about 6 weeks' time.

Andy

There's such a huge range of names in there. 

Himalayan adventurers, wainwright walkers, weekend warriors, fell runners, 9a red-pointers, 6a bolt clippers, E8 onsighters, trad tickers, boulderers, bigwallers, drytoolers, ice-climbers, scramblers, film-makers, mountain guides, MLs, MICs, MIAs, and SPAs, prolific first ascentionists, British team members, champions, coaches, climbing wall owners, instructors, NC reps, LA Chairs, club volunteers, comp-volunteers, club members, club presidents, BMC patrons, ex-presidents, veterans and beginners.

1000s of years of experience both in the BMC and in climbing.

1% of the membership would be a good figure... 850

Apologies for the recent posts of mine, which you may have seen before I deleted them!  I was trying to post a long document, but it was too long for UKC to accept and I was getting in a horrible tangle trying to split it over multiple posts.  I'll try again

Cheers, Andy

Now let's get back to 'clear' messages.  Your resolution says that the BMC 'should ensure it is the representative body for and retains its status as the NGB for climbing, hillwalking and mountaineering.'

All of your signitories have had it made clear that the proposals which I happen to support do exactly the same?  Implementing change in line with the ORG?  There's a lot that is good in those recommendations and I would support: the insistence on following those recommendations to the letter I'm less comfortable with.  'Good governance practices'?  The 'alternative'proposal' complies with both Sport England and Sport and Recreation Alliance Codes and Principles.  You HAVE made that clear?

'Why would any government department continue to listen to a representative or governing body that does not comply with the code of governance it requires'?  Well I can think of a few reasons but that is an irrelavence as compliance with the Code is built in to both proposals to go to AGM.

You HAVE made all of those things clear, haven't you, John?

I'm tickled by your suggestion of a legal challenge against any resolution submitted after the 45 clear days deadline as there is, apparently, only one resolution which has missed it.

You might be apologising to the wrong person

T'other Andy

I'm not arguing pro or con here but your tone - as somebody officially working for the BMC - bothers me.

Why use the word 'divisive'? Why is this not a genuine difference of opinion? And - since you introduce the word democracy - why not just let the voting membership decide which proposal, if any, they prefer?

I seem to recall reading in one of the posts of the suggestion to drop the Participation Statement. Can someone expand on this.....or is it just more 'tin hat bo**ocks'.

Possibly someone deliberately muddying the waters with the ABC version?

A bit like the JMA nonsense. Yes the JMA did change it's name to  JMSCA but no BMC collusion.

Another clear message.  In essence this is about power and money.  (If I could build in some sex I'd have a bestseller!)

Currently the BMC is supposed to have policy set by 'the members' through the Area  / National Council route.  The Executive Committee then implement that policy.  Now I will be the first to admit that Area attendance isn't that representative and the way we need to  involve the wider membership has to evolve.  I would also say that National Council probably need a collective kick up the backside to ensure that Areas ARE actually engaged and that real scrutiny / muscle flexing  by NC is increased.  (Bear in mind I do sit on NC!)

Sport England don't like that system.  They are clear that they want power shifted away from 'traditional member councils' and given to 'Boards'.  So the first major difference is that the ORG/IG proposals accede to the more 'hardline' demands made by SE (though some creativity has been shown by the IG group, notably Andy Syme).  The opposing proposal seeks to retain as much of the 'member-led' structure as possible whilst STILL accepting the SE Code of good governance (thus retaining its status as 'recognised NGB').

Money?  If the BMC accedes to SE Tier 3 requirements it may receive ongoing funding for the next three years; that funding would make up  c.8-10% of BMC funding.  Funding  would also  flow through the BMC's account to Mountain Training, ABC and the ABCTT (of which JR is Chair).  If the BMC 'only' meets Tier 1 then it will only be able to apply for specific, 'one-off', project  funding.  The Partner organisations would have to make their own collective funding bid to SE.  SE have said they would consider that.   And the members have indicated that they would cough up a subs increase should SE withdraw funding

I've made the point before but, at the risk of being boring, I will reiterate that if you strip away Sport England and strip away the funding you are left with a simple question.  'Is this how I want the BMC to be run in the future?'              

Fair points. 

Firstly, as stated on my profile, the opinions (and hence tone) are my own. I am not a BMC spokesperson. I am an involved BMC member and BMC local area volunteer (including a stint as an NC rep).

Whilst I act in an official capacity on some commercial matters for the BMC I am employed as a contractor (as stated on the staff profile list). Also I have been a prolific poster on UKC pre-dating my involvement with the BMC and also own UKB. Therefore I wear a number of hats which I am open about - hence the changed my user name some time ago from "shark" to "BMC and UKB Shark" to make my dual capacity clear. 

The opposing constitution is divisive both in the sense that it mathematically divides the vote and is a poison pill to the straightforward yes/no vote on the National Council recommended vote. It is also divisive in the sense that it opposes the National Council recommended constitution.

At the heart of the opposing constitution is the maintenance of policy making authority with National Council even though National Council itself is democratically recommending that the legal mandate is transferred to the Exec. They are both backing National Council and opposing it. Divisive seems apposite.  

I repeat from upthread look at what happened last time the members reps on NC imposed a policy on a reluctant exec. Climb Britain.

What the tier one proponents should be looking at is not how the power is split between Exec and NC, but how members wishes are best represented, if members are to have primacy. Clearly in the Rebrand episode, the area reps had no clue what the members wishes were. Exec had a much better idea of the likely reaction, and in that case at least proved by default that they are much better placed to take those decisions on behalf of the organisation.

I did say we need a kick up the backside, Ian

YES! It appeared to be a practical way for a representative executive to actually excecute decisions or actions whilst giving a right of redress to the membership.

Your proposal might or might not also offer that but it has been poisened by association.

It is clear that Pettigrew et al desire a system in which democratic function in the BMC is not representative but direct, with anything and everything put to vote at AGM. They see this as representative because it does wonderfully represent their tiny majority which could or would regularly attend an AGM. It also represents an outdated, unrepresentative, self-selecting and clearly inneffective form of governance.

I really should read the whole document but, I am extremely busy right now and I have to weigh up the time spent against the very real possibility that, having read everything, I will find it still harks back in some way to a vote by an unrepresentative AGM attendance. Bob Pettigrew's and other's signatures on your motion means that, at least for this week, the balance is against you and I simply cannot justify what seems likely to be a waste of my time.

Can you assure me that your proposal absolutely and categorically rejects the use of an outdated, unrepresentative physical AGM vote? If so I will shift my priorities slightly and make some time to read it all in full.

You might want to hold off doing so. Following email was sent out to BMC members: 

The content of the pre-AGM Summit magazine has gone to the printers today. Normally this issue would include the AGM agenda and associated papers as appropriate. 
 
However there has been a considerable amount of dialogue over the past few months since the publication of the final Organisational Review Group (ORG) Report. National Council has resolved on an early implementation of those ORG recommendations relating to governance, and to defer the remainder into a second phase to enable further consultation with members. Implementing the governance changes required for this initial phase has involved drafting a brand new set of Articles of Association for consideration at the June AGM.
 
These Articles have gone through several iterations over a short period of time, in response to member feedback both directly and through the Area meetings. The final changes were agreed and approved by National Council on 28 April, and importantly contain significant differences, and National Council believes improvements, from the version that was available to the Area meetings in April.
 
Whilst the proposed new Articles themselves will be released within the next few days, in order to ensure that members have sufficient time to view and consider this latest version it has been decided to extend the deadline for the submission of resolutions until 5pm on 16 May 2018. As a result the AGM agenda will not be finalised and circulated until 18 May 2018. The deadline for nominations for election of officer posts remains unchanged.
 
This extra time will provide additional opportunity for debate and discussion, and to further this we are hosting an Open Forum in Manchester on 15 May (see here for details). This will be live-streamed for those that can’t attend in person, and we hope that as many members as possible will participate.
 
Further information about the AGM will be available in Summit magazine, as well as on the BMC website.

Also I found it interesting to listen to assertions at the last NC meeting that we were 'delegates' who didn't necessarily have to follow members' wishes....

Can I just say how much I'm looking forward to having to read and come to a view on all this?  So far I can see both sides of the argument, and that will never do.  There's also a real danger that, as VP of a 'senior club' I'm going to be asked to explain it to the committee...

No. As such a proposal would be illegal. Under the Companies Act an AGM at which members can vote is a legal requirement. Was it a trick question

Both proposals will include a physical AGM vote. However the BMC will be using electronic proxy voting this time round and there is a commitment to introduce proper, real-time on-line voting for future AGM's. I'm guessing that is what you are after? All the Area meetings I attended voted overwhelmingly for that.

And don't feel bad about not reading it all Iain, I doubt if many have!

I have not posted John Roberts petition link on the website for two reasons:

1) He has been very economical with the truth in its stated aims, seeking to misinform and mislead BMC members.

2) He should not in the first place be conducting such a political campaign in favour of a particular outcome to something he was meant to be an independent consultant about.

Finally as I have stated before I find it extraordinary that you as a BMC officer  (Commercial Partnerships Manager) are also engaging in the political debate. You can’t have it both ways. Either resign and campaign or say nothing. You are also the owner of UKBouldering, a website which though your own postings on its forums has also actively campaigned for your own favoured outcome. An outcome that as with John Roberts’ petition may well be to the benefit of the respective organisations you both head, and  if not to your personal enrichment as well, certainly to others, via monetization of the entire sector. Thus you both have an undeniable conflict of interest that has not been resolved.

The misrepresented Sport England implications are incidental and being used as cover for the fact you both want an over-empowered board that is less accountable to its membership so it can dictate the future direction.  I think that’s a bad plan that no amount of waffle is going to make good. 

I don't believe that the BMC should be receiving any kind of government funding because it creates a conflict of interest when it may have to campaign against government policy on behalf of its members.  Perhaps greed was not quite the right word, is corruption any better?

All influence or just influence on things that Sport England is interested in for example, like competition and indoor climbing?

Well Crag, you've really nailed your flag to the mast now. So much for your website being independnt. You seem to be ignoring various facts:

700 or so BMC members (including myself) agree with John to the extent of signing his motion.

Almost every area meeting supported the IG's proposals (the only exception as far as I know was NW which rejected them by a very slim majority).

Our democratically elected National Council support the IG's recommendations.

My feeling is that our influence would be reduced in all areas. (I hope the IG's recommendations are accepted so that this does not happen, but if they are rejected, I hope I'm wrong...)

No it doesn't.

The BMC applies for funding for certain, specific projects. Sport England either grant the funding or don't. Assuming they do, the BMC performs the specific task / project, and reports back to SE with the outcomes to show whether the expected outcomes were observed or not. Meanwhile lobbying goes on undisturbed.

Neither greed nor corruption are appropriate terms.

Hi Andy

If I'm reading this correctly you are taking the view that you disagreed, and felt that as NC Reps you SHOULD follow your members wishes?

I recall from the last North West area meeting that the vote from your members on the floor regarding the Implementation Groups proposal for the new Articles was 8 to 7 in favour of ACCEPTING them.  Did you take that forward on their behalf in NC?

Cheers

Andy

I'm surprised that you haven't post JR's resolution on your site. As a signatory of the resolution opposing the National Council resolution and someone who has claimed online to be transparent and running an independent website I thought you would be at pains to publish such a significant document endorsed by 700+ BMC members. 

There is no current obligation for me to hold back on my opinions and my stated interests are out there. Some might take the view they are 'potential' conflicts of interest in assessing anything I state. Whether they are actual is a matter of opinion. Depending on your view point they could also be considered confluences of interest. I sense that BMC staff are viewed in some quarters as servants who should not hold, never mind express, opinions on BMC policy despite their knowledge.      

If I have over stepped some line then no doubt I will be informed on that in due course. As for JR, given that the ORG is disbanded, he is a now an entirely  free agent. 

Hi Mark,

The close vote at NW Area was about the modernisation/governance proposals. The area would not vote on the additional SE requirements as they felt they were unclear. Probably prescient as they are still being worked on . NE and Lakes Areas also voted 'against'.

Thanks for clarifying Andy.

Hi Andy. See post above - the two relevant votes were about updating/legal compliance and governance codes. That was the 8/7 vote. The '1d' proposal was about accepting the additional SE requirements. (I haven't got the text in front of me so might be inexact).

I did wonder how the two NC reps were going to reflect that but, in fact, we weren't initially asked. There was a vote on whether the proposed articles met the ToR if the IG and that was a unanimous 'yes'.

A later vote was along the lines of NC believes these Articles should be put to the AGM. There was a majority 'for' with 6 abstentions. I abstained. I've no problems with them being offered to the members but given the view at the Area I felt it would not be proper to 'endorse' them. I thought that was the right thing to do irrespective of my personal views.

You've got me worried now, Crag.  As a BMC Member who signed John's motion and helped to get it on the AGM agenda, I'm now really concerned that I may have misread the deceptively simple wording he put up, and have done the wrong thing, through having been misinformed and misled!

You would be doing us all a service, if you could dissect John's proposal and show us all just how devious he's been.

Cheers

Andy

Andy,

I certainly was told that within the ORG there were some who didn't like the participation statement as it hindered 'promotion of the sport'.

But this is hearsay and I've certainly never seen anything in writing to support that contention.

T'other Andy

My posts of 9.39 and 10.38 do address this to a certain extent.

Your posts do contain your own interpretations and views, which is absolutely fine, and as a signatory to the Alternative proposal, we'd expect them to differ from John Roberts's.

However, Crag is basically accusing John of misleading and misinforming us which is a bit different and I'd like a bit more detail of how he sees that.

In one of your earlier posts you say "But in this case, John, you are defining the direction of travel that YOU want. Not all will agree with that direction and it will be up to the members to decide what THEY want", and you're right - everybody posting is doing is doing so to point in the direction they want - be a bit silly to do otherwise, wouldn't it?  However, we are at least getting an indication that a substantial number of members (well over 700 and still going), DO agree with John's direction.  I do hope we haven't ALL been misled.

Cheers, Andy

So, you acknowledge that both the ORG in its review of governance and yourself as a BMC officer have a particular political agenda. I don't think that is healthy in what is supposed to be a members representative organisation. What ends up happening as we have seen, is the facts get misrepresented to those members. See Andy Say's posts on John Roberts' petition above. Whilst you have responded to some of my points, what about:

The misrepresented Sport England implications are incidental and being used as cover for the fact you both want an over-empowered board that is less accountable to its membership so it can dictate the future direction.  I think that’s a bad plan that no amount of waffle is going to make good. 

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/crag_access/resolution_to_be_put_to_bmc_a...

Still, pressure from us has already increased member control on the board and prevented it from paying itself in contracts. If only Sport England would allow the membership to have effective overview of the organisations future direction within the Tier 3 proposals then there would be scope for compromise.

Andy, You've seen the new articles and the SE line on membership representation on the Board and so your statement is rather disingenuous.

SE have a limit on the number of Council members on Board, but are very flexible on Member representatives.  The new proposal includes a specific stipulation that a MAJORITY of volunteer Board members being BMC members of at least 12 months standing.  And as you well know the absolute worst case is 7 BMC Members excluding the CEO!

Again the statement from SE is clear all NGB's are Tier 3 regardless of the monetary value.  Applying as Tier 1 is not likely to receive any funding  

Again SE have clearly stated that Funded Partner funding "is at risk" without a Tier 3 organisation.

And finally a general point about funding.  Yes there is less money available to NGBs than last year but currently there is a £250M pot for sharing with the 50 odd Tier 3 NGBs, that is likely to remain for a few years at least if people keep buying lottery tickets.  The Whole Sport Bid is currently about £1M but just because that is less than before doesn't mean the trend will continue down.  If we put the right bid in there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to access a larger share of the pot, and even if the pot dropped by 20% £200M between 50 still looks like a good bet for getting funding.  That's certainly not achievable as Tier 1.

Perhaps this is helpful, originally posted here: http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,28816.msg565982.html#msg56598...

Message 1 of 2 (continued below)

I know this subject is terribly dull, and complex, so here goes.

At the AGM (currently) there will be:

1) An "official" set of articles put forward from National Council based on the ORG recommendations (not strictly in line with, but in the spirit of), and tier 3 SE governance compliance.

2) A "counter" set of articles put forward by another group based around tier 1 SE compliance and implementing some of the ORG's recommendations.

To change the BMC's articles requires a special resolution, which needs a 75% vote to be passed.This is a high bar, and if neither pass, there is "no change" to the articles and stalemate.  

3) I have proposed an ordinary resolution (with support of over 700 signatories) which will need a 50% vote to be passed.  It doesn't change the articles, but defines the direction of travel as: seeking to achieve tier 3 SE governance compliance, and implementing change in line with the spirit of the ORG recommendations.

If there is stalemate for whatever reason, (3) commits the BMC to seeking to achieve (1) in future, and signals to dismiss (2).

In the case of (1) not passing, and regardless of whether (3) passes, or indeed, if (2) is successful, the BMC's funding from SE will be restricted, and the current whole sport bid application (which includes the partners like Mountain Training) will be rejected.

The whole sport bid, which goes via the BMC as the SE recognised NGB, is still being written, and needs to be approved by SE, but even if it was successful in terms of its content, it will be rejected on the basis of the BMC not having achieved the required standard of governance.  

continues....

Message 2 of 2

Tier 1 is a lower standard of governance, and tier 3 is required of SE recognised NGBs, so basing a set of articles on tier 1 is rather a moot point.  See this statement from SE:

The tier decision for an organisation is dependent on a number of factors. These include: amount of funding; length of relationship with the partner; nature of the relationship with the partner and type of organisation. The amount of funding is one factor but certainly not the deciding factor. All of the National Governing Bodies who we’ve previously funded, and who we continue to fund, have been assessed as Tier 3 of the Code, regardless of their size or level of investment.

To put it into context, the charity that I chair (ABCTT), which receives funding through the whole sport bid, is tier 1, moving to tier 2.  It is a tiny organisation (c. 2 FTE staff, and c. 150k revenue).  

The BMC is over 10x the size, and rightly needs to meet higher standards of governance in order to help it make good decisions and use its resources and funding properly (whether public grant money or from membership fees).  It's about good governance (and that's governance in how decisions are made by and for members, not governance of the "sport" in terms of "rules"). 

As you can see the BMC is having a very tricky time making those decisions at the moment, because it's not entirely clear in the current constitution and articles who decides what.

Very few people will read the full set of articles proposed, and I can understand why, they're dull as dishwater, but many volunteers (including me on the ORG) have put in the hard yards getting this all to place where it can get put forward to AGM.

Essentially, if you support (3), you should, in my view, support (1).

Ends

Given the use of loaded language ("misrepresented","cover" "over-empowered" "dictate" "bad") I thought it was a rhetorical statement of opinion not requiring a response.

Responding in the form presented would be endorsing your (IMO) false characterisations. 

If you have a genuine question then ask nicely and I'll reply. 

The increase of member control was always what I was trying to achieve and it just happened that I found my lever at a certain point.  "Us" didn't change that but it was nice to hear that you were supporting that work I was doing.

As you have either seen the new AoA or had a report from the NC you will know that the legal advice from Martin and WBD was that the clause (6.2) was more protective of the BMC and should remain, however the NC decided that given the 'noise' on it and the fact that the Directors were unlikely to be dishonest anyway (so the risk to the BMC was small) it was better to remove it.  You will also know about the proposed Board structure and composition and how it does allow oversight as per my post to Andy. 

Happy to oblige. How about John had actually said (as per Andy Say's suggestion) 

 'A group of BMC members have submitted a special resolution to go to the AGM proposing that the BMC, whilst updating its Articles and incorporating legal advice AND complying with Sport England's code of Good Governance should try to retain, as far as possible, it's current 'member-led' structure. It seeks to do this by getting Tier 1 recognition rather than the more onerous, and 'Board-led' Tier 3 route. This will mean a loss of funding for the BMC (though it's recent bid was rejected and a new, reduced, bid has not yet been accepted), and it's partners: funding that is due to taper off anyway. Members have indicated that should this be the case they will accept a 10% subs increase. Please support my petition to reject this'

That would have been much nearer the the truth. Health Warning: I have a much long winded version should you feel able to take the pain!

My bold italics - what are you getting at here?

OK, that response by Andy Say was to John's post here on UKC at the start of this thread, as part of his introduction, and what he actually said was 

"A group of BMC members, including Bob Pettigrew, have launched a counter set of articles of association to the ones that many volunteers of the BMC have been working extremely hard on for the past 12 months, proposing that the BMC should not seek to be the tier 3 Sport England national representative and governing body for climbing, hillwalking and mountaineering. This will have a detrimental effect on the organisation and the sport as a whole."

That wording does NOT appear anywhere in Johns actual proposal, or the online introduction to it when it was launched, so anyone who signed it without seeing the UKC thread couldn't have been misled .....   whew!  that's a relief.  I don't find anything incompatible between the 2 wordings at all - they are simply saying the same thing in different ways, with each person applying their own spin, and I really hope you don't think we're incapable of seeing through that.  It also doesn't seem to me to be factually wrong in any way, and the only material alteration Andy Say seems to suggest is removing Bob Pettigrew's name, and while I can fully understand why you would all want to dissociate yourselves there, I'm afraid you're stuck with it - he DID sign the alternative proposal.  At least John didn't mention the other 10 NoMC signatories as well!

Please believe me, the last thing any of us need here is a longer-winded version!

Cheers, Andy

In reply:

Ok I concede, the LoSW jibe was cheap.

In a nutshell this whole ad nauseum argument that boils over regularly into public forums, dedicated lobbying websites, and Facebook is frankly highly embarrassing.

If a core group of people are lying and running smear campaigns, what is being done about it? How can people accept decisions if it’s so publicly known these people are involved in making them?

What most people see is several forums threads filled with thousands of posts from the same 5-7 people going around in a never ending cycle of vexatious opinion bashing. If there is any information it’s so obfuscated, contradicted, long winded and indigestible.  Governance is never going to be sexy but think of your public image.

What probably goes through most peoples heads is them probably asking is what the money I pay to the BMC gets used for?

The participation statement wasn't something that we spent any time on.  If I remember correctly, it was briefly discussed as someone external to the ORG had apparently proposed getting rid of it, but I can't remember anyone taking any particular view on it as it didn't seem to be grounded in anything concrete, and we had many other things to be getting on with.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1o4qTqGto3Jd1y5jJ-Ty9b_p448bmxwrg0hS...

Crag, I can't view them as I am in China and Google stuff is blocked here. Can you link to the BMC website that shows their accounts.

Ta

Graeme

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/bmc-annual-reports-and-annual-accounts

Crags;

   'and prevented it from paying itself in contracts' This sounds like an important piece of information, Can you enlarge on this please.

Yes, already asked that; wonder if there's anything in it......... 

In reply to Ian W:

It is such an important question, you asked it twice?

(are you in China with dodgy internet so you have to hit post repeatedly?)

He is referring to para 6.2 in the articles issued for area meetings. (https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=1587)

This was added based on the current thinking in the not-for-profit 'world' as per para 7 (and sub paras) in the accompanying plain english guide (https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=1590)

Martin Wraggs advice was:

1. A13.2 Current) states that "The Elected Officers of the BMC whose positions shall be honorary" thereby provides that they cannot be remunerated. Since the 1985 Companies Act there have been many scandals involving directors siphoning off company money for personal gain either by use of fraudulent expenses or awarding contracts to other companies/organisations in which they had an interest. The 2006 Act  therefore set out to close loopholes by introducing provisions, both in the Act and in model articles, which are reflected in A6.1 (new). The headline paragraph is intended to protect members and the subsidiary paragraphs set out exceptions to enable things which are fair and reasonable (and therefore beneficial to members). For example you do not want to discourage unpaid directors from attending meetings or otherwise performing their duties by denying them the ability to reclaim expenses incurred in so doing.
2. In my experience both as honorary solicitor of BMC and as director and/or company secretary of several charities and voluntary organisations the management often considered it advantageous to instruct me to provide services, variously because they might get a discounted fee or because it avoided the time and cost of instructing external lawyers or because they recognised my commitment to the organisation and knew they would get a good service. The important thing was that it did not give rise to a conflict of interest, that I was not involved in the decision to award the contract and that the process was transparent. It is standard accounting practice and a requirement of International Accounting Standards that any contract given to a director or secretary or any company or business in which they or relatives or close friends have an interest is detailed in the annual accounts.
3. The provisions at Articles 6 and 7 of the draft articles have not been drawn specifically for BMC. They are common to many standard precedents and substantially similar to those in model articles annexed to the Companies Act 2006. In summary they are intended to regulate and restrict what payments can be made to directors. In contrast the current articles do not provide any restriction save directors cannot receive a salary. The proposed change is beneficial to and protective of the members.

But last weekend NC decided that given the 'noise' on it and the fact that the Directors were unlikely to be dishonest anyway (so the risk to the BMC was small) it was better to remove it.  

Dunno what you're talking about :/

The delete button is indeed our friend. Especially when t'interweb is rubbish and/or drunk. Or we are are advancing in our years

An interesting read.

I'm surpirsed to see SE funding being allocated towards Summit. Surely it must be one of the highest circualtion Outdoor magazines in the UK these days and as such ought to generate some serious advertising revenue?

 

Not sure you should expect revenue growth here. Currently it is holding up against the general trend towards digital advertising rather than print.

One day Summit may be digital only. There, I said it.  

Thanks for that. As the CEO of a charity (with some knowledge of this) I suspected that's what it was; but I felt it was poorly worded and could be misinterpreted.  Clarity of words is becoming important at the moment.

What delete button? What advancing years?.........

It's more than embarrassing, its damaging. However, something like this is inevitable when there is a big divide on an important issue where significant funding, partnership arrangements, influence and fee increases for membership are all involved.

Fundamentally my view is based on trust. Climbers, mountaineers and hillwalkers are normally a delightful trustworthy bunch and those in involved in the BMC normally hardworking volunteers to boot, doing often hugely important work. Vast amounts of such work gets done by the BMC, probably of the order of a hundred thousand hours annually, and most of that by volunteers with little public knowledge, let alone acclaim.

As groups, I trust the Exec and the Org and the IG and the NC and the areas and the committees and the broad membeship. I'd rather primacy was with the Members Assembly but I'd  trust the alternative given the likely people involved and the back-up is the checks and balances if they breach trust. In my opinion losing the partnership arrangement, influence and money are not worth such governance  niceties. If at some future point it's clearly  not worth it, we can change then, and with little cost... we have all the work done ready to go. 

On individuals I trust until that trust is clearly breached. So lets look at one of the signatories. Bob has signed secret letters on the MoNc leaked to the public that contain proven misinformation and some lies. Letters that led to gridlock in the BMC, the resignation of a good man from the Presidency, probably tens of thousand of hours of lost time, lost SE funding and the associated staff employed in lost posts and even worry in government circles.  He has constantly used underhand techniques out of the public eye to try and sow trouble, up to the last month. He was sexist and racist at the AGM about Marco (and has slandered him repeatedly in the past over this 'job for life' accusation). In 'beergate' he called the police on some 'handbags' resulting from more insults and sexism, and when the police didn't press charges or even apply a caution, mysteriously others began to spin a conspiracy tale, based on lies, that the Exec manufactured this 'assault' and for which he claims (against many witnesess) he didn't retaliate in kind (somehow, in contrast to what most saw, in spilling red wine it covered the assailant from head to toe). He has, in private letters, attacked several of the exec at one time or other, making numerous serious but provably false accusations. He has never apologised once for any of this. He is still an honorary member of the organisation.  No one in a modern organisation with good governance should have anything to do with such a man and accepting such as a signatory on a vital motion shows in my opinion frightening naivety or desperation to win whatever the costs. Another signatoriy wrote a leaked letter containing more misinformation as part of the MoNC (Leo), another has probably libelled the BMC elected area officer involved in beergate, apparently encouraged by Bob another has written an abusive letter, now widely distributed thanks to  Bob... good pal that he is (Jules). Crag is more honorable but states his opinion here as fact in the hypocritical position of what he accuses others of doing (with little evidence of their bad behaviour).

Politics is emotive at times so I'd forgive Crag, Jonathon, Andy and others but those with the bad behaviour displayed should not be on this petition if we had a functional modern code of conduct. If we want a democracy such people should be outed as a priority as they distort votes with their behaviour.  It's why fake news and targetted adverts based on stolen data are more important than the debate, as debate can't properly exist in a background of lies.

The irony is that the big problems that did happen in relatively recent times in the BMC seem to all come back to elected reps making bad decisions that the broad membership were unhappy with. That's the model the alternative articles want to keep. I think wider membership input and more executive influence would have made things better, but thats my opinion ...new problems may have arisen... yet I still trust until proven otherwise and nothing is locked in if it does all go wrong.

And it's worth adding that the much ignored Proposal 2 aims to deal with improving the interaction between members and the 'officers' and much more.  The NC Recommended Articles will clearly set that foundation.

Bob made a poor joke about the fact that Marco Scolaris' middle name is Maria.  I really do struggle to see that as sexist AND racist. Chauvinistic I might accept. You might even push it to homophobic if you tried!

Bear in mind this was an old man facing a hostile audience and nervously trying to lighten the mood. Empathy?

'Beergate'.  I guess throwing a drink at an 80 year old man is funny if you call it that.

Yes, he called the police. And amazingly, given the witness statements that have appeared on this thread they concluded that an 80 year old man HAD been assaulted.

Bob declined to pursue it. 'Handbags' as you say. I think he WAS a bit upset when it became apparent that it wasn't a spur of the moment thing but had been planned.

i wasn't there; I'd gone home after voting against the MoNC but someone I would trust implicitly was actually sitting right next to an old man they didn't even know and has told me what they saw.

Now: if you think that throwing drinks over an old man is justified and even funny then you are far less of a person than I took you for.

And it will happen faster if SE have anything to do with it. That's why they spend the money. There are problems at these crags. That's a fact. Encouraging faster growth before those problems are solved could have consequences. This isn't a fact, but you'd have to be blind or biased not to concede it's a possibility.

Which does concede they might not. And then we have a problem.

I'm not saying there won't. Maybe the future is rosy. So we both seem to agree really.

It does seem at times that mentioning a growth in climbing 'might' have negative consequences isn't the done thing.

It has always been a worry, but never yet materialised.  Maybe it will this time.

I'm not saying you are wrong about Almscliff etc but personally I like the growth and think getting more people outside is a good thing, as long as they all respect the rocks/hills, and the landowners.

SE do not 'spend the money' to promote climbing. This is the misconception pushed by Bob and his supporters to demonise SE. SE is a source of funding. Interested Bodies such as the BMC approach them for funding. SE does not just give money to NGB's. The BMC puts in bids for specific purposes, such as funding a regional development officer. If SE believes the bid has merit then they fund it. It is then the BMC who delivers. If the BMC (or one of the partner bodies) doesn't bid for it then SE doesn't give money to climbing.

I think Beergate is suitable black humour for such daft 'tin hatted' nonsense. Think what you like.

I was there and saw most of it as I noticed the person's pint glass was almost empty (and was looking to buy a refill) when the person went to talk to Bob and I could see the situation was frosty (the person was questioning why Bob didn't come to the area meeting and left Mark Vallance, who had real speech difficulties,  to struggle to put the 30's position). Other witnesses saw a completely different set of circumstances to Bob's witness, including some hearing the verbal sexist attack and the attack on the area officer's position. The witness supporting Bob saw hard liquor thrown when many people there knew full well the drink was the remains of a shandy. Bob's witness said they saw no retailiation in contrast to the others nearby. Many people saw the person was completely covered in red wine afterwards, and some of this was on other nearby witnesses. He said the exec did nothing, when Lynn (who was facing away from the incident and had seen nothing) went to him almost straight away after the noise of the incident to see if he was OK or needed any help  (he said he was OK). Its bullshit Andy and following a long series of past bullshit. A true conspiracy theorist might question if he was goading the person looking for just such a reaction. 

The police don't forgive the unprovoked assault of an old man like that with no caution, they clearly believed the other side of the story to a significant extent. The process took months and involved three forces.. Think on how much police time costs and how austerity bites on their services. The person genuinely regrets their action and apologised and paid for some dry cleaning. Bob made no apology.

This preplanned nonsense presumably comes from chinese whispers from something Dave Brown said (he regrets not accompanying the person, as emotions were high). Ask him if he thinks it was planned let alone some exec conspiracy. Why throw dregs if you seek revenge?

He has slandered Marco from almost the first meeting I saw him talking on the Olympics (I bought his bullshit... he's very convincing when he lies and Graeme can confirm from China he later scolded me for being so gullible) and  he did it time and time again. It was many minutes into his speech when in full  flow  (his CV took several minutes) so it's no nervous icebreaker joke and its got nothing to do with a MoNC on  Climb Britain, the shocked audience reactions clearly indicated a different view to yours. I fail to see how a man with the traditional Italian use of a female middle name is homophobia... maybe you need equality training as well.

SE support specific projects based on BMC bids. The BMC manage those projects according to the organisational principles. I see no risk to Alsmcliffe from such projects and perhaps a small gain from education. Outdoor beginners don't commonly go to Kilnsey this is experienced climbers who should know better. Outdoor beginners don't commonly go to Whitehouses, ditto..

Outdoor centres have been introducing kids to climbing alongside variable ethical and risk education for decades,  I prasie those who do this well but some of it disappointing in those respects; like my first rope use on a crag in South Wales in about 1977, or an SPA instructor group on Castle Naze in the noughties dragging a stretcher up and down the classic Scoop Face (they need to learn from their mistakes in venue said the instructor)  and more recently various groups using Almscliffe Low Man and  Ilkley Quarry area when I was helping with the YMC guides... where I got some class abuse and threats at the latter for politely questioning the ethics.

ABCTT first applied for SE money under the whole sport bid, via the BMC in March 2012 and received money in 13/14/15/16

We received the following payments via the BMC:

29/04/2013 £18,750

29/10/2013 £17,212

12/05/2014 £16,000

12/12/2014 £14,688

11/05/2015 £16,750

01/12/2015 £15,370

22/06/2016 £19,250

18/11/2016 £16,080  Total received over those 4 years: £134,100

ABCTT applied via the BMC's latest whole sport bid 2017-21 application.  This bid is still in application, but once the bid application itself is successful, monies cannot be received until the BMC attains tier 3. 

In the interim (i.e. the last 12 months), we were given a temporary SE holding award of £38k to support our strategic plan whilst it gave the BMC time to resolve its governance issues.  We actually only received this in January 2018.  This took a significant amount of additional volunteer and paid staff work to achieve.  The same is true for the other partners like Mountain Training.

They are all independent organisations (ABCTT is a charity) sharing a whole sport plan.  Although there is some governance overlap.  The BMC (and Mountaineering Scotland and Mountaineering Ireland) have observers on the ABCTT board.

These are all part of the BMC's current objects in the articles of association.

3.3.  To encourage promote and develop the interests of British Mountaineers and their activities and to act as a forum for Members of the Company. 

3.9.  To provide or promote facilities for climbing and training and instruction. 

3.11.  To make financial grants or awards to any person group or organisation in pursuit of the objects of the Company. 

For the BMC to be truly the representative and develop the interests of British Mountaineers, it needs to effectively engage with partners.  The feedback to the ORG showed that sometimes the BMC fell short in its collaboration. 

Correct:

• 27th October 2016: Appointed as a Trustee to ABCTT
• May 2017: Appointed to Independent ORG and all made aware of my volunteer role at ABCTT
• October 2017: Appointed as chair of ABCTT

> Can you confirm this and give me your view on any potential conflict of interest between the role of Chair of the ABCTT and contributing to a report that, if accepted, elevates the status of the ABCTT within the BMC to one with a voting interest.

As laid out above, any interests were clearly stated.  My role on ORG was declared in ABCTT board meetings.

The partner organisations had a focus group during the ORG, which I did not attend or take part in.  I purposefully removed myself from the process of collating the ABCTT feedback to the ORG, this was compiled by Martin Chester (ABCTT CEO) and I only saw it once it was ready to be submitted.

The ORG felt as a whole that integrating the funded partners into the BMC in order to have a joined up, collaborative approach, was a sensible recommendation. 

I'm sure this will be implemented sensibly by IG, with flexibility in the final set of articles so that the BMC is not tied or committed to this so that it can change and adapt its board structure as it needs to in future to meet the needs of the organisation and its members.

It's not expected that the BMC implement every last detail of the ORG report (nor indeed every single recommendation), much of it will be rightly subject to further debate, and the motion I submitted is not intended to force it to. However, it is intended to ask the BMC to work in the spirit of the recommendations the ORG put forward, and the work the IG has done which has shaped some of them further with the agreement of NC, and translated into a set of articles.

Whilst your counter proposal does indeed accept many of the recommendations, it is not, in my view, and the view of the rest of the members who sat on the ORG, in the spirit of the ORG work overall.  Nor in the spirit of the subsequent work the IG did, which has also been agreed at NC.

750+ signatories to that motion have signalled which direction they wish the BMC to go in, and I think it's right that we both listen to them.

I will of course respond to your private email in due course.

Certainly  Andy and I'll try not to make any references to 2nd hand cars this time round. Looks like Graeme is interested as well in between conquering China.  In the interim I see there was a hilariously shady and long reply from Andy. Perhaps I can put it much clearer.

A draft of the proposed articles said that a director or group of directors (providing they were not in a majority) or 'connected persons' could enter into contracts with the BMC. The only conflict of interest provision was that they could not partake in the vote about allocating that contract. Several people objected to that surprising development that had somehow crept in. We surmised removing it would prevent the temptation to pursue a particular option for personal profit rather than the best interests of members. I take it that it has now been removed. Hope that helps. 

Thanks Crags,

I just wanted it clarified before some posters decided it was somehow proof that Directors would writing each other big fat cheques..

Andy

ps: I've got a very nice Holden V8 going spare...low mileage...lovely motor

Long I'll accept, though most of the words were Martin's.  It's important to ensure people get access to all the facts.

Shady??? The facts are all provided (I put links to the documents so all can see but didn't copy the text as I didn't want to be too long winded  and the context was explained in Martin's email anyway).  I fail to see what you think is pushed into the shadows.  

hilarious? well I guess I'm getting to understand your sense of humour now

Thanks for the clarification. Sensible.

Hi John,

How are you going to fit the ABCTT stuff in when you are a BMC Vice-President?  

I'm assuming you made sure about the 45 days stuff!

Andy

How does anyone deal with a difficult and substantive volunteer role Andy? They do their best to move things to free time, they resolve conflicts of interest, they rely on drive energy and enthusiasm, and if things become unworkable they resign. (llike Rehan did with what he faced, due very much to the personal impact on him from the dishonest behavior of some of the 30, who you now sit down with). I'm more concerned about the future conduct of people like Bob and their nasty letters, that would breach conduct requirements in almost any other modern organisation, such that we don't end up with more resignations, than I am with candidates in the public eye failing to resolve the blindingly obvious.

Re. The throwing of a drink at Bob. You seem to be rehearsing arguments that have nothing to do with what I posted. I haven't referred to conspiracies or referred to Lynn. And you are way off the mark when you assume my information came from a 'he'. Implicit gender bias?

And my point about the oh-so-easy to throw allegations of racism and sexism at Bob"s speech when he referenced Scolaris; to mock an Italian male for a name that, in England, is normally associated with a female, is parochial, 'little Englandish' and could be construed as implied homosexuality if you had a particularly wild imagination.  Hence my reference to homophobia. You might struggle to really convince that he was being sexist and racist there.

Anyway. It's off the point.  But Codes of Conduct DO work both ways

Articles now available for all to see.  Enjoy your weekend

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/bmc-constitution-the-way-ahead

Sorry Andy but Bob was well aware, from previous ding dongs, that having a female middle (family) name was common in Italy. I wasn't at the last AGM but from the right ups, including yours, Bob was being totally racist, he knew what he was saying. I have read Alan Blackshaw's President's Report and I was even copied in (deliberately or not I don't know) to various emails prior to the 2006 UIAA General Assembly and I can assure you that Bob was being racist back in 2006 and in 2017.

Hey Big G!

I stand ready to change my stance when I see such documentation. However I was talking exclusively about the 'performance' at the AGM which apparently justified the jape.

What we need now is a separate thread. 'Why I think it's right to chuck drinks at old men because I don't like their attitude' to enable this one to get back on course.

I'm not rehearsing anything I'm reporting what happened from my perspective, being there and watching most of it, being a friend of the person and being thoroughly sick to death of people who keep dragging the lies up here. I'm also reporting what I know where the witness is clearly wrong from other independent witnesess. I teach the psychology behind the unreliabilty of witness evidence in my day job so I don't see Bob's witness as necessarily dishonest, just wrong.

Lynn was exec and was clueless about what happened, not as in she wasn't 'part of the plot' but simply that she didnt see the incident. She was concerned for Bob when she went to speak to him. She knows full well his 'Im OK' means what it normally does in such circumstancec: that he certainly wasn't OK with what happened ...... just to be clear so another tin hat story doesn't  start.

Gender bias? The 'he' was clearly Bob, who said the exec did nothing to see if he was even OK (how would the witness know?)... Lynn was freshly elected so did it slip his aged mind?

I'm aware of codes of conduct working both ways, if they actually existed... so which officers or signatories do you feel breach them on the NC side given over a third  of the signatories of your alternative articles potentially do, at one time or other, for signing knowingly incorrect information on the original MoNC that was leaked, hurling abuse in letter that was leaked or claiming 'tin hat' conspiracies are true. The person who threw shandy probably did breach such rules but so did Bob in the same incident. The person was reelected long after it was all done and dusted. Organisations have timeliness as part of the process. What's scummy isnt any outrage that such incidents occurred (sexist verbal abuse and subsequent exchange of alcoholic fusillades)  as this would be reasonable,. The scummy point is that it has all popped up again recently based on clear misinformation and claiming executive involvement based on goodness knows what and demanding the person is removed from an elected position based on this. As Greame says, Bob has form upon form and I really wonder what he has to do before you start dealing with the real problem here: dirty practice and fake news being used to wind people up, against the exec and others, for political gain. It may have been acceptable when he was heavily involved in the BMC but it isn't in the modern world.

Has he put himself forward? Do you know who else is up for this, Pres and Treasurer roles?

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/throwing_drinks_at_old_people-6...

Here you go.  Stick it on here.

Hey Simon,

I'm only on the Nominations Committee so what would I know

Andy

Graeme,

Interesting post. I too have been given information by a UIAA officer and a UIAA Exec about the alleged pressure put on Alan by three members of the British climbing establishment to write his 2005 Report; which led to his resignation. Perhaps an exchange of notes........

In which case, should you said anything? 

I'm not interested in that spat, but the fact that that thread has now been deleted by the operators of this site shows that this site is not a suitable vehicle for discussions of things like the current arguments over the future articles of the BMC: postings (and threads) can simply be deleted by the owners of UKC.

That's paranoia about UKC. You go and discuss things where you like but the big climbing forums are where most people visit. I can see why such threads get moderated and Andy was stirring at the edges of acceptability: indviduals can usually get away with emailing each other dishonest information all they like (until leaks leave them vulnerable) but the owrners of any forums have to be careful as they have publishing  responsibility for content and public scrutiny is pretty good here and elsewhere so lies get uncovered quickly. If these dishonest letters I'm complaining about were posted on Crag's site he would be just a liable as UKC would be if they were posted here. The authors must know that, hence the secret distribution or private postings to the BMC (who have been too tolerant of such behaviour in the past) . 

It's 'paranoia' about nothing. It's just a demonstration that this is not an independent or open platform for such discussions: it's a privately-run and edited entity.

That's not a criticism of this commercial site; it's just the way it is.

It's got nothing to do with being a commercial site. Any public or not for profit or individual website is subject to the same responsibilities. Go on newspaper sites and count how many comment posts are removed under their standard disclaimers (I like it when they leave the posters name up but delete the post, as they do in The Guardian). You can check my posting history...I've always been vocal about UKC censorship if percieved to be to the commercial  benefit of UKC and through guidebook work was technically a direct competitor of the UKC/Rockfax guidebooks in the BMC and YMC.

Why else do you think all these nasty and/or dishonest letters sit in private email accounts? I'd be delighted to publish them here and exposed these people for what they are, if in doing that they didn't further spread things like potential libel or other information that damages friends or others unfairly and more importantly might risk legal actions.

In practical terms where else do you suggest outside UKC or UKB?

I forgot to add, in actual information terms there was hardly anything in that thread that's not still here in this thread.

I can't see how this could be true.

The remit of SE is to increase participation in sport nationally.

They have a budget to achieve this.

So you're saying they give money to the BMC, but don't expect any increase in growth from that spend. How could that be correct?

This is getting really repetitive, you seem to have a bias. Obviously over time a certain percentage of people progress to the level where they want to go to Kilnsey of Whitehouses. If you increase the number of beginners, you increase the number at these crags eventually. The fact that you won't accept this obvious conclusion is worrying.

Of course they expect growth but under the specific project aims, where the BMC applies its principles. Doing what you suggest would be the opposite of what the BMC stands for and is exactly what some are spreading rumours about, with no evidence whatsoever... it would hardly be difficult to find such evidence when dealing with the public. More fake news being used to undermine trust in the democratic agreed direction of travel.

I do accept that BMC facilitated growth will increase climbing numbers but what I don't accept is that BMC growth will lead to such problems. My impression is walls and outdoor adventure companies encourage way more than the BMC do and more still make the transition on their own,  Of course I'm biased as I've worked closely with those dealing with access in the Peak and Yorkshire through the BMC areas and in the core of the guidebook teams. I think growth in sport and bouldering  is inevitable, so the best way to alleviate problems is education, access resolution and politely challenging bad practice. I'm also pretty certain the problems at Kilnsey were nothing to do with the BMC but that BMC local access workers did their very best to help to resolve issues. The BMC are the leading organisation in educating and working to resolve access issues  and I've consistently been proposing polite challenges of bad practice for decades. I think my suggestion of climbers getting together to ensure a volunteer warden for Kilnsey parking on busy days would work and I think enough people are injured that it needn't affect anyones projects..

I only hope that people see the possibility, and that while the BMC pursues increased (*) growth rate in climbing, it has a strategy to deal with increased people showing up at Kilnsey. Maybe a certain percentage of people will always be selfish regardless of education, but being able to point the finger of blame after access is lost won't be any consolation.

And I do wonder what the end game is. A model of constant growth, like the global market economy that is causing a lot of damaging the environment. Because like it or not, some resources are limited. Or do we have an idea of how many climbers we want in the country, and how to we put the brakes on when we reach this critical mass.

(*) like you say, it's growing anyway, SE want to increase that growth rate, and the BMC is playing ball. Olympic participation is an obvious example where there could be a growth spurt.

I only hope they don't, as it risks damaging the reputation of the main body resolving problems, and helping educate climbers not to create such problems in the first place. Maybe you can point towards a specific BMC project you are concerned about, to help resolve circular arguments (or have you even looked at any?).  You also might like to comment on the simple fact that the vast majority of BMC facilitated growth in outdoor climbing is in affiliated BMC clubs. The BMC have a strategy, they discourage climbing at hotspots on busy days, they discourage problem parking, they have access volunteers constantly involved in problem resolution, and they educate. I'd love to be wrong but I'd be amazed if half Kilnsey regulars are BMC members. Thats their choice but getting together and acting as wardens would probably stop the worst issues and woud be a lot more useful than moaning about the BMC based on no evidenced causality that I have seen.

SE don't just give out money. This is the myth that Bob and his allies have spread to demonise SE. SE are given a budget to, amongst other work increase participation in an active lifestyle. They are not told to give X pounds to football and Y pounds to mountaineering. Each national body goes to SE and puts in a bid for a grant. That bid may contain several parts. One part may be for an program to improve paths. Another may be an access program. Each part has to be set out with duration, targets etc and costed. The BMC then submits these bids to SE. SE considers them and decides which to fund. Once SE has agreed which parts it will fund it agrees the grant. Typically this is over four years. SE releases the funds at staged periods. The BMC does not get all the money in one lump. As part of the bid the BMC will include targets; and SE will measure the BMC by their targets. By releasing the funds periodically, if the BMC is failing to reach its self set targets then SE can cut back the level of funding of that program. This may be a temporary cut and if the BMC reaches their targets in the next period then the grant will be restored. So, if the BMC does not bid for SE money then it will not receive SE money. SE does not seek to control how the BMC delivers it work. All it does is require regular reports measured against the BMC set targets. The control SE does exercise is that it is responsible for the best use of the public funds it grants. So its position is; if you want a grant of public funds then we require you to have good governance. If you misuse the grant we must be able to identify who misused them and (if necessary) be able to pursue identifiable persons to recoup those public funds. If you don't wish to meet our requirements then don't ask us for a grant.

Therefore a SE grant may well not increase participation. It may support access programs, or regional youth development programs. The reason for the grant is set by the BMC.

Haven't got a clue what they said. I'm not demonising anyone. Hard to understand why anything SE do is not linked to increased participation in sport. That is their function. Anything they give to climbing, they believe will achieve this, and by accepting money you will naturally feel obligated. That's human nature. As far as I can see, anything else is just noise.

No specific project. Just the common view that we must grow. A little bit more growth and money, and the future will be rosy. But you can always say that. Seems to apply to everything in life. A slightly bigger house, a bit more money, etc...

So at what point do we envisage we have enough climber/members to be able to retain access to these crags? Or are we just going for constant growth? Why can't we retain access to crags without growth? More climbers = more money = more problems. Does the money help with a crag like Kilnsey? Or does the growth have an overall negative effect?

That's great and Facebook is active on the hotspot venues around, so hopefully things will work out. But if it doesn't work, and these venues can't sustain growth?

Maybe not. But if the crag was less busy it'd help regardless of the demographic.

I'm not say you are demonising SE. Bob and his allies have set out to do this and swing the opinion of the membership. They would like the members to believe that SE hold the purse strings and they will force the BMC to jump to their demands or take their money away. Hence why they keep SE at the top of the agenda. The BMC does not need SE money. Taking SE money is entirely a BMC choice.. The BMC is not 'accepting' SE money. They have bid for it successfully and there is no obligation.

The concern about bringing new people into the sport is often raise. Honey pot sites are described as bursting so promoting climbing would only be detrimental; and SE money would add to this.  Yet in the last few years SE grant money has played a part in bringing over 115,000 new climbers in just one sector alone; this has had no measurable impact on the honey pots you list.

The noise is myth generated by Bob & Co.

How do you know?

I think it is pretty clear that members unsure of how to vote should consider the proposals with the mindset that Sport England could change or disappear at any time. How, in says 10 years,  do you want the BMC to be run.

Both proposals offer workable solutionss and I for one am glad that members and volunteers have taken the time to put both together. It's amazing how passionate members are about our organisation.

I think it is very enlightening that NC has settled on the T3 way forward, and that they back a neutering of their role to maximise the chances of SE funding (while it is available). This is persuasive for me, but I note that those who have most to gain from T3 (the various BMC 'partners') have played a large part in the formation of the proposals and there promotion (not least in the start of this thread)

I have had the benefit of knowing, and counting as friends people very active on both sides of this debate, and am sure none of them have set out to upset, abuse or insult anyone. It is a shame that the level of debate as fallen to a lower than expected standard on both sides in a democratic (and pretty low stakes if we are honest) process. 

I look forward to reading more of the views of those who have more experience of the workings of the BMC before I make my choice.

Regards

SH

Now Andy; you know that is not a fair description!

I'd say 'pretty accurate there Sir!'  Sport England DO hold the purse strings and ARE telling the BMC how to organise their governance.  Is that incorrect?

C'mon Andy. I expect better from you than that.  I'm nobodies '& Co'

Good, considered, post.  And you put your finger on some of the issues.  I too have been saying all along that one of the litmus tests for the upcoming AGM is 'if Sport England didn't exist (and they might not in 5 years) and the funding didn't exist (which it might not next year!) would you look at the proposals on offer and say - 'Yep - that looks like a really good model for the BMC over the next twenty years'.

I've got my own views, obviously!

Andy, the UIAA President's report was published and funded by UK Sport, probably a mis-use of funds but hey ho that's another issue (well it isn't actually  is part and parcel), so is a public document. I think I have an electronic copy but my email here is none existant so you would have to wait until I am back in blighty to get that (if I still have it).

But I will message you!

Edit: Found it on my laptop but I remember that I searched on the UIAA website to get it "PRESIDENT’S REPORT 2005, Alan Blackshaw, October 2005"

Andy, I'd have thought that they are pretty much 'core work' and therefore ineligible for SE funding?

Agreed that the funding aimed at promoting Hillwalking from SE may well have fed into the 'Mend Our Mountains' campaign through their support of the BMC Hillwalking Officer but I can't think of anything that is an 'access programme' that benefits from SE funding?

All.  Can I just say, again, that the constant reference to Bob Pettigrew is both tiresome and smacking of real desperation.

As a supporter of the alternative proposal I think I can safely say that Bob Pettigrew had nothing to do with its drafting.*

The evocation of an evil, silver-haired mastermind stroking his cat in a cave somewhere below Tideswell whilst plotting the downfall of the BMC is imaginative.  But also fairly pathetic.  There's got to be better super-villains?

You all just need to look at the two proposals: one that accepts the Sport England requirements for continued funding (in the short term) by shifting all power to the Board and one that seeks to improve the governance of the BMC whilst trying to retain member control through the National Council. 

Your choice.  Your vote.

*I did see an early proposal from those who supported the MoNC.  It gathered no real support and I, personally wouldn't have touched it with a bargepole.  I like a member controlled BMC. 

Its the NICAS scheme.

That doesn't prove anything does it?

Is it unfair. A number of people have been arguing inaccurately against SE based on ignorance of the process. Follow back to the root of their position.

Yes, SE are telling the BMC how to organise their governance. But only if the BMC bids for SE money. It is right and proper for SE to say to any NGB/NRB who asks them for money... 'you will have good governance in place before we give you public funds'.

If the BMC doesn't want SE money then SE won't care and the BMC will do exactly what it wants to do. The two bodies won't be dealing with each other. I don't mind if the BMC asks SE for money or not. The BMC can function on fees and sales. What I want is a National Body who represents mountaineering, walking and climbing as a whole as practiced in 2018 and going forward. The current BMC doesn't do this. It has little idea how to do this. I've sat in a meeting room and listened to the utter utter distain shown towards the commercial sector. Yet this is where UK climbing is today.

I think saying “all” power is shifted to the Board is misrepresentative and suggestive of a group of people who will be acting unilaterally. 

The authority for final decisions on policy and accountability for consequences of those decisions will be delegated to the Board who are empowered to make decisions that they believe are ultimately in the best interests of the Membership. The Board will be informed of what those best interests are by the Members Assembly and other channels. Andy Symes further up the thread rightly talks about the importance of “soft power”. 

If the ORG/NC recommended Constitution wins the day along with JR’s Ordinary Resolution then that will signal the beginning of a new type of BMC and the impetus to carry through the ORGs other recommendations that are member-led in terms of online polling and debate to establish better purposes and priorities so the Board and Office have clear goals and direction in its activities and make decisions that further those objectives.

Eehhrr...yes. The NICAS scheme has over 115,000 participants registered (last years figures). So that's 115,000 people going through their schemes and actively climbing. The Trust that administers the scheme received funding from SE to support the scheme. Why didn't it significantly affect the honeypot; because it's an indoor scheme.

Nice that you managed to slip in the word significantly.

Yes, I know it's an indoor scheme. But as a climber who started at Leeds Wall, and was outdoors within a year, and climbing at Malham the next year (it was far too hard for me then), I think that argument is evidently poor.

Is it no longer self-sustaining, then?

That's what I said, isn't it ?

In a loaded and misleading way

Yes its sound. The SE money was for extra's..

Answering these posts is my light relief from bleeding a pair of Avid Code brakes. They've got a lot to learn from Hope and Shimano.........!

And that statement is designed to be crystal clear, 'unloaded' and not  to obfuscate?

Not so...the word was chosen deliberately because climbers registered on NICAS are not visiting the honeypots in numbers that would have a noticeable effect.