UKH

Hopefully ✌ you already aware that there is a petition underway for a resolution* that GB Climbing (GBC) is set up as a financially independent subsidiary of the BMC.

My belief is that this solution is not only best for the BMC but also GB Climbing. Clearly the team who set it as a recommendation in the Organisational Review Report thought the same. I thought it would be worth exploring a bit further what a subsidiary would look like and the advantages it would offer. 

In November 2019 the Board fatefully rejected the subsidiary route and “announced that following lengthy consideration of the options presented, the Board agreed to progress new arrangements based on an internal department but with the same formality and robustness of arrangements as if a subsidiary was being set up” **. The Board minutes also repeatedly refer to ringfencing so clearly the initial intent was there but afterwards there no discernible attempts to implement any separation.  

Whilst the resolution doesn’t dictate how the Board chooses to set the subsidiary up, I thought I would set out my thoughts on how I envisage the new model working and why this would be an improvement on the current set up for those still in doubt.  

As a subsidiary it would still be part of the BMC in the same way in the commercial world that a Group company owns a subsidiary company. It would have its own bank account and have to file statutory accounts with companies house and have its own Board of Directors, either voluntary or paid. 

This is not an unusual arrangement for companies. It is quite common to have subsidiaries in not-for-profit companies - typically for their commercial activities (ie the gift shop of a museum. Commonly spin off companies flourish away from the parent. For example, the IFSC spun off from the UIAA and was fantastically successful in its mission to get climbing into the Olympics. Closer to home Mountain Training England (MTE) spun off from the BMC over 20 years ago which has evidently worked for them as (to the best of my knowledge) they have never sought an inclination to rejoin! MTE continues to remain a close partner of the BMC on grant bids and other matters - in fact one of the senior BMC staff members works for MTE one day a week.

This partner body relationship in grant bids would probably work the same way for GBC as a subsidiary as with its other partner organisations (NICAS, ABC). The partners submit their bids to the BMC and the BMC then collates them to make a one sport bid to Sport England and UK Sport. (By the way the BMC charges an administration fee for its lead role in all this). 

Regarding grants Sport England (SE) and UK Sport (UKS) are the dispensers of government money and are commonly the main sources of revenue for similar sized sporting bodies to GBClimbing. A matched funding formula applies to grant funding whereby when applying for grants a bid details the running and project costs and if successful you will receive 85% of that amount with the remaining 15% assumed to be derived from other sources. 

So, with a tightly managed budget and grant application processes in place then in theory all the grant money you apply for and receive should cover up to 85% of your expenditure. Unfortunately, GB Climbing finances haven’t been tightly managed in this way with some estimates being that less than 50% of GB Climbing has come from grant funding and the rest from BMC coffers.

Turning things on its head the 15% should I think key and should be the starting point to drive GBC budgets and how much it applies for from SE and UKS in the first place to make the books balance. Surely you should work out how much you can derive from other sources of income then for every £15 of that prudently allows you to apply for a further £85 of grant money, but no more. This sort of practical thinking does not appear to have happened at the BMC and GBC has taken advantage of the  cheque book naively left open by the Board.   

However, if GBC became an independent subsidiary, that is no longer dependent on the largesse of a benevolent parent, it would have to stick to its budgets without excuses. That discipline should make GBC minds more keenly focussed on the independent income which would in turn drive how much grant income it could sensibly apply for. That income would currently be derived from commercial sponsorship, membership subs and ticket sales. It might also drive innovation with other revenue streams such as merchandising and coaching schemes. The incentive to do so would be high as every additional 15p you make here could in the round be matched by 85p from SE/UKS. It would also be more keenly focussed on value for money. There is also little doubt in my mind that a discrete body with a more defined individual identity and less decision makers would be more attractive and easier for corporate sponsors to work with.

As an independent body GB Climbing will have to cut its cloth according to the money it has. Value for money is more likely to come to the fore. This must be a good thing. The way money has been spent at GBC of late has smacked of empire building implementing an overarching command and control structure that has become detached from helping the athletes to the best of their abilities or drawing talent from the widest pool.

Independence also has advantages for GB Climbing in greater freedom in how it decides its strategic direction. Currently the GBClimbing leadership reports to an oversight body (the CCPG) which in turn reports to a Board of Directors who for the most part are drawn from backgrounds in hill walking, outdoor climbing and Mountaineering. This means the Directors have very little insight into the world of elite sport, grant funding cycles, safeguarding and the like and have to learn on the job to get up to speed on these areas to meet their responsibilities. The extra hours this has entailed extends far beyond what might reasonably be expected of voluntary positions and to the detriment of allocating time and attention to the rest of the BMC. This lack of knowledge also represents a major risk and leads to an over reliance on those full time professional staff who have a sporting body background who in turn will have bias and agendas in how they choose to direct resources and their own time, The consequences of this have been devastating in 2023.

As a separate body these issues would be resolved as the Director of GB Climbing would be intimately involved in the operations and finances as their day job. The rest of the Board would most likely be drawn from volunteer representatives from the BMC Board, Mountaineering Scotland, Mountaineering Ireland and the Association of British Climbing Walls and maybe an Athlete representative. The knowledge base would be higher, as would accountability. With everything centred in the subsidiary  it should facilitate more nimble and expert decisions in operations, finance and strategy .  

Lets turn to things from the perspective of members who form the traditional core of the BMC.  Currently the communications in web articles and in Summit naturally trumpet the achievements of the GBC athletes. This gives a perception (rightly so IMO) that the BMC is overly focussed on competition climbing and so weakens the support of the core membership who have no interest in it. As a subsidiary GB Climbing would communicate far more through its own channels to its own fan base and this would take away the onus on the BMC marketing department to constantly get an impossible balance right in representing all elements and help rebuild some of the lost loyalty from the core membership in the process.

Finally, there has long been an uneasy feeling about the BMC being both a representative and governing body. This has caused disruption with governance and the articles in attempting to meet the requirements of Sport England and UK Sport whilst also preserving democratic powers for the members. Internally the culture of being both representative where you advise what members should do versus governing where you tell what members must do is quite different. Again, separating the two bodies solves that divergence in attitude and operations.

In conclusion the BMC should prioritise being fit for purpose to serve its members and the climbing community at large as opposed to doing what it perceives makes it politically most powerful. 2023 has laid bare that the BMC cannot competently and fairly manage GB Climbing. The model I suggest is a practical solution to this and several other long-standing problems.

Change never comes easy to the BMC but I think this change should be embraced rather than feared as it combats several threats and creates a few opportunities. If you feel the same way please sign this petition so members have the opportunity to vote on it at the AGM.

* Link to petition for resolution:  https://chng.it/WRLdt7wGJ2

**Board meeting summary Nov 2019   https://www.thebmc.co.uk/bmc-board-of-directors-november-2019-meeting-summa...

As ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen would say, ‘too prolix’….

Read the book. Don’t remember the character. Welcome your advice on how to condense this without losing key info. 😘

On a practical note...

The BMC / GB Climbing is in the middle of a negotiation process for LA2028 UK Sport funding for the next four years.

If GBC was going to become a subsidiary then would it pass the financial checks required to receive the money directly (which may be tricky for an organisation with no financial history) so would you envision the money flowing through the BMC to GBC (which is the status quo) or do you see a way in which GBC gets the money directly allowing them to carry on receiving UKS funding?

I have to say that all sounds very sensible and I agree.  For me it boils down to there being an irreconcilable conflict of priorities between representative and governing bodies, the byzantine and inefficient complexity of the current structure, and the demonstrable lack of financial transparency and accountability.

I'm no longer an individual BMC member, but I am a member through my club.  Can I sign?

Hi, not really a direct dig at you, I’m pretty sure someone will be along soon with a counter argument in essay form.

Usually by this stage in a campaign, it’s all about the bullet points and big ticket items, the time for detail and procedural descriptions has passed as information fatigue sets in. In reality, I would have expected more votes on the petition at this stage. I also don’t think that lack of votes indicates support for the status quo, rather indicates general apathy. What’s the core message here?

It appears that the majority of members value current and continuing excellent protection and widening of access to crags plus conservation. There are a few other activities which seem to have popular support, certainly why I pay my subs. The BMC as a ‘members’ organisation’ seems to be highly valued, however was allowed by the board to morph into an ‘organisation with members’. How does the petition, action at AGM etc. start to protect and build the former, and reset the latter in simple bullet points? There are other issues to which I’m sure need a bullet point.

Other practical questions which Simon has yet to address:

How much is this going to cost in money, staff hours and volunteer hours?

When can the proposed arrangements be put in place?

Club members and Individual members have the same voting rights, the main differences between the two are that individual members get a small amount of personal accident insurance and access to more issues of Summit each year (not something which I personally make use of).

The idea that GB climbing is both extracting massive largesse from the rest of the BMC and would be best placed to thrive without that based on some speculative additional focus on "value for money" (and somehow a massively higher knowledge base extracted from its massively reduced cost base) strikes me as cake-ism with a weird side helping of austerity economics.

If you think the BMC over-subsidises competition climbing then that's an entirely valid point of view, but I find it somewhat of a stretch to claim that everything would be massively better for competition climbing if it's budget were only hacked down substantially.

Just to be clear, I do not think the current status quo of GBC and the financial burden on the BMC is sustainable either, it was more a matter of trying to find viable solutions to the current situation and it is fair for Simon to explore them.

Great stuff. Keep it coming. I’m driving for the next few hours but will respond to all posts directed at me later

I suspected as much. My message on the subsidiary is actually simpler and remains the same.

A subsidiary would cost members slightly more to run, due to duplication of some areas (esp. admin and governance). It would not reduce financial risk to the BMC in any meaningful way. Although it should encourage better financial control, there is no guarantee of that.

I think it might add significant risk to grant income (of which ~£1 million is in the BMC but outside GB Climbing). Grants were stopped for a while after the motion of no confidence.

Any transition requires a significant cost and lots of disruption at a time when the BMC has incredibly tight budgets and workplans. 

It is very divisive and will almost certainly need an Article change and formal vote.

A subsidiary would dilute BMC membership influence on governance.

I think it implies competition climbing membership is less worthy than other areas of membership. These members' reps say they don't want a subsidiary.

Simon has never addressed these points and unfortunately adds misrepresentation to boost his case..... the worst being defining ANY core BMC spend in GB Climbing as an overspend: hence justification for his saying a department (that has only in name existed for a few years and was on budget in mid 2021) has been overspending for years.

Away from this subject I would say the following:

The BMC financial problems are real and involve some mistakes (the biggest being assumed membership growth included in the budget income) and some bad luck (many membership organisations are in financial trouble after the last 4 years). I totally agree the BMC must provide greater openess and transparency on finance to the membership.

I think the stakeholder relationships in GB Climbing need significant improvement (for a sport governing body) and clear evidence that actions on this are appropriate and having an effect (according to most members in that area).

Indoor comps may well be the Cinderella area in membership priorities (cf access etc) but those involved are still keen climbers backed by a small army of hardworking BMC volunteers. Most of these members are young or parents.

I believe in a diverse membership where the whole is greater than the combination of parts. I think being together better maintains our relevance for the future.

As someone on Council I'm very upset the organisation isn't saying all this. I'm also upset how much the seemingly endless political stunts have damaged staff and volunteer morale and now are impacting the diversity of Council (again some of this is because the organisation isn't speaking with a clear voice).

On the positive side I'm impressed with the attitude and actions of the new CEO and happy with Council, FAC, Board and SMT's recent agreement on budgets. Council felt the 2024 plans were feasible and proportionate.

Very much TLDR;

I think the divorce would very much diminish both new bodies.

Like it or not the vast majority of new climbers come via indoor walls and many of these first engage with the BMC via comps. I suspect the BMC will become less relevant and more crusty without this youth influx.

As for the comp body this will divorce the competition from the sport resulting in increasing polarisation and a greater gulf between plastic and rock.

The BMC is in a state, I have no illusions about this.  Part of the way it got there was by shockingly bad management and part of this was involvement with the competition machine.

Like or not, part of the way it will redeem itself is by getting it right rather than sacking it off.

We must all recognise that the demise of the BMC has not solely been about competitions and the divorce, while satisfying a lust for change, isn't a magic bullet and is fraught with it's own problems, many of which have a long timescale consequences.

[On the other hand I'm content with the idea that Olympic fever was one of the biggest nails in the coffin and it isn't like this wasn't predicted which makes it really really annoying.]

What, less worthy in that it has a whole organisation entirely dedicated to its interests?

How indpendent could the subsidiary be if it is financially dependent on the parent company, as it must be given the starting proposition that the BMC is subsidising competition climbing and it has exceeded its budget? 

As it stands, the subsidiary would have to have parental guarantees, meaning some form of financial liability to BMC. If it didn't have this, it would not be a going concern and woudn't meet the criteria for receiving grants..etc. 

In other words, GBC as an 'indpendent subsidiary' is only acheivable if its budget is balanced. In which case, we wouldnt be having this discussion.  

The two big 2023 GB Climbing departmental unexpected costs were a misunderstanding of complex UKS budgets and some poor financial control in the department.

Neither Board nor Council wanted to see that happen and very much regret that it has (so there was nothing 'dedicated' ). The Board still holds collective responsibility for outcomes and should be explaining that to members, and in my view apologising (despite some significant mitigating factors).  Council was at times not properly informed but acted quickly when other information came to us (from members), from spring 2022.

Something else that is so frustrating in a democratic member's organisation is Simon has two area Council representatives in the Peak and two others on Council who are Peak regulars. I can understand why he might be reluctant coming to me, yet he spoke to none of us before posting his resolution on a subsidiary. Council have ongoing discussions between meetings, have three meetings a quarter and last week had a specific extra meeting on budgets.

My impression of the 2024 budget (that I sincerely hope is public soon) is it specifically resets the position on financial control, and on the grant errors does as much as is possible within the current agreed contracts.

Holistically, the GB Climbing department annual loss (as unwelcome as it was) was much less than the grant income gains to other BMC work outside the department. Grants leverage our ability to do good work. Overall, the reserve limit wasnt exceeded and the plan is to increase the reserve in 2024. Access related staff in ACES are still 20% up on an FTE basis compared to pre-pandemic;  the three new Wales and England staff (replacing an England departure and a Wales retirement) have settled in well and are as much a delight to work alongside as their predecessors.

Probably slightly more so than now,  but as you point out with almost no reduction in liability to the BMC; and as I pointed out at extra cost. The example of the IFSC/UIAA  and BMC/'MTE' (inverted commas as there are a few organisations under the Mountain Training arrangements) in the OP above are unfair: they are totally separate organisations (as are NICAS and ABC).

It's also unfair to be snide about the admin fee...BMC staff have to do that work.

We would have to first establish SE/UKS position. You seem to imply that it flowing through the BMC (as for other partner organisations as I understand it) being a problem for UKS funding? If so it would certainly be worth exploring what guarantees would be be required from the BMC for the next four years for GBC to receive moneys directly. In that circumstance I would expect the BMC in return to have some significant leverage which would unfortunately  compromise independence for four years. Perhaps it could take the form extraordinary powers or Board veto built in whereby it the BMC steps in to micro manage GBC if it looked as if those guarantees might be exercised perhaps triggered by a level of budgetary divergence agreed from the outset. One for the lawyers.

Thanks Dave and agree with all that

Tried to email you but yes absolutely club membership gives you full voting rights. Pass the word round the club if that isn’t widely known. 

I assume these are rhetorical questions as you are repeatedly very adamant that staff salaries are top secret! As for volunteer time it is voluntarily provided and free. Many volunteers would be happy to be involved in a project that safeguards and possibly saves the BMC.  

ASAP ideally but that would be driven by the Board as there isn’t a deadline with the Resolution 

GBC is definitely spending a huge amount of money (over £1m pa including shared costs) but sending fewer and fewer athletes to comps and very little of that expenditure goes directly to support athletes. They’ve used the money to build a bureaucracy. Dismantle that bureaucracy and adopt a cheaper decentralised approach to greater direct effect to support the athletes. 

See above

As an update there are now 328 who have signed in support of financial disclosure and 279 for GB Climbing established as a subsidiary. 

The link to sign in support is here: https://chng.it/WRLdt7wGJ2  

How do you support just one resolution if you don't want to support both - I'm only getting a single "Sign this petition".

Here you go

BMC Resolution: Disclosure of finances for GB Climbing

https://chng.it/DztL4x2KyV

BMC Resolution: Set GB Climbing up as a separate subsidiary:

https://chng.it/XPMn2xybGF

They were not rhetorical questions. There is no need for the costs/ person hours to be separated out by staff members, just a rough indication of none payroll costs + person hours (split between staff and volunteers as staff hours will displace other work they could have done).

I would imagine that members would like to see an indication of the resources which the organisation would need to spend were your proposal to be successful so that they can make a well informed decision when voting. 

Here are a few tasks which would need to be undertaken as part of the separation (I will have missed lots of other bits of work):

Removal of clauses 4.1.9-4.1.11 from the articles so immediately a General Meeting is required with a cost of Circa £7k for an online one, although you could save this by initiating the change after the next AGM.

Preparation of GB Climbing Articles of Association - 40 -60 hours? Possibly some legal costs external to the BMC.

Variation of all GB Climbing Staff Contracts changing their employer - 2-3 hours probably.

Office move for GB Climbing staff - 40-80 hours + moving costs (depending how well they do the whole paperless office thing).

Recruitment of GB Climbing directors.

Setting up the new GB Climbing company with companies house and relationships with suppliers.

Currently this sounds a lot like the "Sunlit uplands" promised over Brexit, not like a motion which members are able to make a well informed vote on.

I look forward to seeing what the BMC puts forward to resolve the issues which have occurred over the last couple of years.

Ideally what we need is for the Board to sort out GBC so that there isn't a need to separate GBC from the BMC.

What I'm hoping is that Paul Radcliffe recognises this and makes a clear statement to this effect

Isn't the point of the petition to have the BMC bring it to the AGM, discuss it and bring to the membership to vote on? It isn't a petition to force the BMC to make the changes without a discussion first.

I also don't remember being told when GB Climbing was dreamed up how much time and money it would take to manage, but for any changes you expect these values?

An understanding of external costs and staff/ volunteer time commitments which would be incurred if the membership were to vote for the separation would clarify the impact which the separation would have on the organisation. If the motion passes it commits the BMC to do the necessary work to enable such a separation up to the point where a change in articles is required which requires a supermajority of 75% as per article 17.1.1:

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/bmc-articles-of-association

If the membership are voting for the BMC to prioritise separating GB Climbing from the BMC over other work they deserve to be equipped with an understanding of how much stuff doing this will displace compared to any alternative proposed by the Board/ Members Council.

If there had been a formal vote on the creation of GB Climbing as a way out of a financial mess when staff are working at, or close to, capacity for extended periods of time I would expect the board to provide similar information to inform a discussion by members, or at least to confirm to members that it had been done and could be fitted in with other priorities of the members.

I agree with Steve that the board and members council need to put forward a proposal that addresses the issues.

If you want people to make an informed choice it would be essential to know the costs of leaving it as it is too. Difference is that's very well known, but the board just straight up won't tell us.

From what I understand of Offwidth's various posts over the last week the 2024 budget should be sorted and I very much intend to ask the council members on Friday to ensure that members are given an accurate picture of what is going on prior to the AGM and that any proposals which make it onto the ballot paper have enough information surrounding them (including costs and time involved) to enable members to make a well informed decision.

As a specialist committee chair my only knowledge of the budget is that there is very little to go around, Tech Committee is typically quite cheap to operate so I think we have largely been left alone thankfully.

They have form on forecasting so the 2024 budget isn't really that interesting. The accounts they're hiding (motion #1) is what we need to see. If they keep fobbing us off with this world's slowest audit bullshit we can only assume we won't like what we see.

Edit to add: I'm not in favour of the split, for the record, but will argue that if you want to play the informed choice card we need both sides.

My only resistance towards motion number 1 is around the level of detail Simon wants (costings by individual staff member for the entire organisation). Members deserve to understand the current position, what assumptions made in 2023 and 2022 proved incorrect and what was mostly right. This will determine how much confidence they can view the 2024 budget with if we can see the assumptions made to support it.

We have already discussed this. The resolution doesn’t require that.

Council felt the 2024 plans were feasible and proportionate.

Maybe if these plans were a little more public and the organisation were a little more open and communicative with the members, there wouldn't be voids that allow the rumour mongers and general stirrers a chance to fill.

GBClimbing should remain as a department of the BMC but it should be much more accountable, less of an independent empire (Which has and is being built rapidly, (17 staff?) and more athlete oriented. I have contact with several athletes, athletes parents and supporters of climbing comps, and the full on feeling is that GBClimbing is all about GBClimbing and not about the athletes or the BMC or even about climbing!

The "Disclosure of finances" - no problem

The "GB climbing subsidiary" - not convinced we need that yet, although when/if we see the finances it may become more obvious. Concerned that if passed there may be considerable expense sorting everything out in preparation for the "separation" to then have it fail at the necessary super-majority vote.

The biggest problem IMO is that the board (& senior management?) still don't seem to get the fundamental issue - communication, communication, communication 

As long as the BMC had the finances and will to provide a parental guarantee to return funds in the event of failure of GBC to achieve its contractual targets, those sorts of considerations shouldn't be a show stopper.

Unfortunately, due to a prior appointment, I can't make the Peak Area meeting. It would have been interesting to meet the new CEO in person, find out how much research he has done into the problems with the GBClimbing department of the BMC, and what he proposes as an interim solution to these problems. Hopefully he has some ideas to put to the members, an important consideration, so they can mull them over. 

He should also be making huge efforts to improve communication with the members so that any problems are clear and the solutions (Even if unpleasant!) are made available to the members. The appalling lack of communication is what has allowed this kind of thread to flourish. Leave a void and it will be filled, usually by rumour, misinformation and frequently by downright unpleasantness!

From speaking around to climbers, (BMC members, non-members and competition climbers) the general response has been that GBClimbing is an out of control little empire, and the BMC has lost control over it's own processes and management. 

Please let's all get together to save the BMC in it's entirity  for the benefit of all outdoors persons. It was good and can become good again with a decent effort from higher mangement!

You publicly stated that was the level of detail you want if Motion 1 passes in a post a couple of weeks ago, if you have backed down from that I am glad.

Communication is certainly a big issue but IMO the fundamental issue is (lack of) action, action, action

Has offwidth hacked your account? There was discussion around the content of the email request I put in last year and conflating that with the text of the resolution. 

If you want to frame that as backing down I did that directly to you on the 14th Feb

OP UKB Shark14 Feb 2024

In reply to spenser:

Quite. You interpret it correctly 

Paul Ratcliffe was Chair of the CCPG (the BMC Committee charged with oversight and guidance of GBC) prior to being appointed CEO and also sat in on the 'listening sessions' held with climbers/parents/staff etc to investigate concerns. I would guess he is as well briefed as anybody!

John - he was Chair of the CCPG for over a year and knows as well as anybody the issues with the GBC department 

I don't know if it's reflective of Sharks previous experience of working in corporate groups, or a reflection of the general "sunlit uplands" approach he's taking to this whole thing, but it's also worth noting that he's positioning one model of how a wholly owned subsidiary company operates, but that it's far from the only one. 

You can instead have a subsidiary company whose board is drawn from the executives of the parent (the CEO, CFO and CRO let's say), where there's a system of intercompany loans or overdrafts in place to manage the cash accounting, where the staff largely remain in the parent entity or a service company with services provided on a recharged basis and so on.

In that scenario from an operational perspective the distinction of it being a separate company is to an extent invisible except when it comes to those people doing the financial reporting, the secretariat function (making sure that all board decisions have evidence of email signoff from the relevant execs, and other similar formalities) and maybe stuff like supplier management, if that isn't all done on a basis of recharge as well.

Under that model, not much changes except you accrue some extra costs along the way.

Good point. I should have substituted ‘would’ for ‘might’ when I said  “I thought it would be worth exploring a bit further what a subsidiary would look like and the advantages it would offer.” 

The resolution is deliberately non-prescriptive to allow the Board plenty of wiggle room in how they deem it best to structure the subsidiary.  

Fair enough, I had forgotten about that response and just remembered the crackers idea which had been posited earlier in that thread.

And no, Offwidth hasn't hacked my account, I just happen to share some views with him.

It was the pompous “if you have backed down from that I am glad” I was responding to

Offering up a solution that permits nothing really to change (and this is likely the cheapest model to implement, which will have obvious appeal to a cash strapped organisation) seems like a lot of effort to go to when a likely outcome of the process wouldn't really address any of your concerns.....

Edit: cheapest and least disruptive model to implement, in the sense that it avoids the need for new recruitment, transfer of staff etc

Thanks, I have seen a couple of structures, but they were normally there for other reasons (one business for verification activities, one for consultancy etc etc, or to ensure that external funding goes to a specific project in a subsidiary rather than being used by the parent business).

Have to trust that the Board wouldn’t seek to waste money in that way and face criticism for doing so

I always agreed with communication being key (and  in that some relationships needed clear actions for improvement).

I think the 2023 departmental budget sizes, overspends (cf budget) and core BMC contributions are the more important numbers to many members expressing concerns to me or online.

2023 was a very complicated year with two financial resets, an internal reorganisation with some redundancies, and some staff departures who were not replaced.  I'm amazed the deficit remained roughly where Roger, the Board chair, estimated in the autumn, especially given the unexpected issues around UKS grants, and know full well the huge amount of work that must have gone into that. I'm also amazed with staff and key volunteers outside the Board who kept important BMC work progressing last year, despite the financial problems and impacts of reorganisation and departures not replaced.

I think negative language about members with concerns is unhelpful unless they have clearly done something wrong.

If your resolution forces them to waste money, through that lens, you could see them arguing that this is the least wasteful way to comply with it

Assuming enough voting members vote it through then the only thing they are forced to do is comply with the wording of the resolution. As a financially independent subsidiary it would afford greater transparency, accountability and protection than the current setup. For some just having it separate from the main part of the BMC is a desirable end in itself.

If the Boards solution is to circumvent or significantly water down the resolution then it is open to be challenged via further potential resolutions. Hopefully they will engage more widely in their deliberations via open forums and the like so it doesn’t come to that. 

But is he briefed in what the members think, or in what has been fed to him by involved parties? 

I wonder if the terrible communication abilities of the BMC may operate both ways. That is why I phrased it like I did!

The 'negative language' is what fills the gap when positive language on no language is the alternative. I still speak positively about the good works of the BMC and it's volunteers. The general perception is what I am talking about about. This perception is the result of the BMC not communicating it's good works effectively (or at all) to the outdoor community, allowing mistakes to go unresolved (maybe they have been resolved but no one tells us!) and leaving holes to be filled by rumour, guess work, misleading comments and general disinterest! It is impossible to persuade people that the BMC is good. Even the insurance fiasco (not the BMC fault) made things worse because of lack of communication!

I will continue to try to promote the BMC, but it needs senior management to take control, especially of GBClimbing, before even my loyalty fades!

That's kind of my point, you've agreed that the outcome I've suggested is compliant with the resolution - and logically is therefore neither circumventing nor watering down what is required of them. 

For the reasons already given, I think this is by no means a certainty, despite you having reverted back to "would" in your argument...

Eh? How could it not?

“As a financially independent subsidiary it would afford greater transparency, accountability and protection than the current setup“

Can you paint a picture of a setup that meets the requirement to be a financially independent body that doesn’t improve the transparency, accountability and protection (for the BMC) than the current setup especially bearing in mind everything that GBClimbing has done or failed to do over the last 18 months.

It's clear in my mind that Paul understands the broad issues on these two resolutions. What the members think is a much wider issue and no-one can claim they know that until a vote is made.

Hi Simon.

I have signed your other petition for disclosure of GB Climbing finances. 👍

Sav

As good a reason as any to allow it on the agenda 👍🏻

It's pretty simple, since the problems arose somewhere in the interaction between the Board and the senior managers involved,  DESPITE the governance structure (which demands responses to known serious issues, with Council involvement on the strategy on that and overall financial considerations). It's a people issue within what seems to me a perfectly workable governance structure with sensible protections (it's descibed otherwise by some, but most membership bodies run through company or charity stuctures that have a Board, senior leadership, staff, and some form of membership 'Council', linked under 'Articles' in cooperation for the good of the organisation and full membership.

Trying to solve people issues with governance change is in my view foolish and governance change will always be expensive and disruptive, even if sometimes being necessary.

The transparency and accountability might improve slightly or it might not, because of a new structure, but the people responsible will always make the bigger difference (in making it work well or otherwise). As for protection: best case, as many with company expertise have explained on these threads, it won't change much; however, if the funding bodies or our partners or those involved in comps react badly it could do severe damage to the BMC.

I'd add seemingly endless angry arguments over governance structure have already impacted volunteer and staff morale... we simply don't need more of that unless it's totally clear in hard evidence that it is essential. I don't know of any equivalent organisation that does so much good yet is saddled with such disruptive behaviour arising from the opinions of such a small minority of 'single issue' type governance activists.  

The Board (including the CEO) carry collective responsibility, not GB Climbing.

The negative language I was referring to, was you saying:

There are genuine member concerns here that should not be described in that way unless there is clear individual bad behaviour as well.

On Council I'd agree, though I doubt my colleagues will thank me. Yet for the subsidiary resolution going direct to the AGM, bypassing Council, I fear it will dominate debate (including the need to unravel the misrepresentation in you background information over things like how you defined 'underspends'). AGM time is limited and there are other member concerns I'm aware of that seem more widespread, more fact based, and in more urgent need of actions, and will inevitably lose out. In particular, different concerns to yours on overall BMC finances and the concerns of GB Climbing stakeholders.

I agree. I'd prefer to see a resolution eg mandating the BMC leadership to actually do something about the concerns which have been raised at length. I don't think this requires structural change - just action to be taken. I do think the transparency on the GBC finances would be useful to see.

I did in the post at 0856. You replied to it at 0906

Tell that to everyone from the comps community who signed the open letter of no confidence in the GB Climbing leadership 

https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2023/09/open_letter_gb_climbing_athletes+pa...

The validity of the issues they raise are separate to your proposed 'solution'.  The representatives of that group that I've heard from so far don't agree with your proposal. 

Stakeholder relationships in a govering body of a sport have to be functioning properly. On Council we are still waiting to be clear that fully appropriate actions are being taken to resolve any issues that are clear from investigation. I personally have reasons for optimism since the new CEO was the chair of CCPG, a committee, that like Council, took stakeholder concerns seriously (a CCPG committee you misrepresented as 'failed' in the earlier thread).

I think most would agree that “failed” is apt based as it was on the summary of the internal report into the CCPG which read as follows:

Report Conclusion

The ‘Purpose’ of CCPG, as drawn from its current Terms of Reference, are:
Purpose
The purpose of the CCPG should include, but not be limited to:
• Advise and report to the Board
• Support and challenge GB Climbing
• Develop its strategy and long term aims
• Advise GB Climbing on the management of resources at their disposal
• Exercise the delegated authority of the Board in accordance with these terms of reference
• Assess the performance of the CCPG and GB Climbing against set criteria to ensure that competition climbing is being governed in the best possible manner

We have not seen any evidence that would lead this Review to conclude that any of the above criteria have been met.This is clearly a breach of the operating mandate which CCPG and GB Climbing were duty bound to deliver, and a failure to comply with the Terms of Reference which were set out and agreed by the BoD and for which they are accountable

This has been the point for some time. It is a governance issue between the board and senior management. Unfortunately it has been going on for far too long with little or no visible action or results. I disagree with separating GBClimbing from the BMC, but I do believe more openness about the management, finances, staffing levels and oversight of these by the board and the council is essential. Then much tighter control applied to this BMC department. 

I speak as a normal member who thinks the BMC does a decent job but could do better with their oversight/control, but also as a friend of several competitors who think that GBClimbing is a small empire that has little interest in competitors and lots of interest in self-promotion. 

(When senior managers are obstructive to/uncooperative with the over-sight body, there needs to be a major 'course correction'! It is only fairly recently I heard about this!)

The model you described would not meet the description of a financially independent body and be seen by all for what it was - a con.

Great news though, now when you've finished munching through your veg box you can book a hotel at "discounted" rates*.

https://thebmc.co.uk/hotelplanner-partners-BMC-official-accommodation-suppl...

Can we have a third motion about just being a council of British mountaineering and giving it a rest with all this stuff?

* - compared to using booking.com it's one of them extra special, negative discounts

The question is whether he has the same view, if so we await with baited breath on what he intends to do about it

I would suggest that Hotelplanner haven't encountered the concept of a club hut?

Clearly not. The thing that was bugging me though, given the letter gbclimbing received not long ago, is a slight worry that a year from now we'll be hearing about parents taking their kids to comps being coerced to use the official accommodation supplier and having to pay over the odds for rooms they could have had cheaper. But of course gbc and bmc will take on board the feedback and make changes so there's nothing to worry about there...

In your view, yes, but I suspect it would meet all the legal prerequisites, which is my ultimate point - the resolution is in an uncomfortable middle ground where it's too lax to force any change unless the board decides they want to use it as a vehicle to make changes, whilst creating extra work regardless of the way in which it's engaged with.

Ultimately, you're trying to use legal structure to solve a problem with people and process, which only works if the people in question want to solve the problem, because otherwise the legal structure just becomes a compliance exercise.

I usually book direct but I'm glad Best Western + The Quays is there. 👍😀

Sav

That's the sort of thing I would expect of Loughborough's Athletic Union (made a deal with Kukri, societies/ clubs couldn't buy anything coloured purple, the university's colours, without going through Kukri.), the BMC's staff are thankfully significantly more competent than the people who wind up running students unions.

We did this discussion before,  on the original thread but for the sake of those who missed it, I'll repeat my main points with some more detail:

The review you copy from is a Board review report discussed in March 2023 Board Minutes and you are cherry picking from it and ignoring some time scale issues.

Full details were covered or linked in the UKC news item from September 2023:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2023/09/bmc_release_gb_climbing_review_repo...

The letter from GB Climbing Stakeholders, you linked above, is reported by UKC also in September 2023. So their concerns at that time clearly were not all covered in the review report (as the analysis for that would have been finished quite a few months earlier then went to Board in March 2023 for sign off).

Paul was appointed chair of CCPG around Sept 2022, presumably to help resolve some of the issues in the review report, that are clearly dated as happening before his time.

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/gb-climbing-welcomes-new-chair-ccpg

The big problems with stakeholder concerns first started to become evident after Paul was appointed. Council first discussed really worrying sounding issues in March 2023, after being alerted by parents, coaches and athletes.... who's view was the CCPG under their new chair Paul was taking their concerns seriously but things seemed to be 'stuck' at Board level (presumably because of complexity of dealing with situations around complaints or potential disciplinary issues). I still think the CCPG, under Paul R, did its job within the governance structure from late 2022, dealing with sensitive issues in some pretty difficult circumstances. They were not failing at that time.

Glad that you agree that these resolutions should go forward to the AGM for the members to vote on them.

That's democracy after all

The main democratic route in the BMC is debate at local areas, then Council, then AGM. Also every area has two positions on Council and at least nine other Council members who could be approached on governance issues: the President, three Council appointed Board members (CNDs), four national reps for the four main BMC activities (NECs), plus of course a clubs rep for club members.

The 0.5% signatory route is a protection if enough members feel Council isn't able to progress or something very urgent has happened. Council are progressing on budgets and GB Climbing (albeit slower than I'd like) and the infomation relating to the subsidiary resolution wasn't new (Simon just raised it too late and missed the chance for other routes and seemingly failed to liase with any representative on Council). However, yes,  if ~400 members sign a properly proposed motion under rule it has to progress to the AGM.

If an AGM motion contains misrepresentation, that has to be challenged. As such, misrepresentation is really unhelpful, as it uses up AGM time that could be used for other member's concerns or questions. I really hope Simon edits his background material with the President or some other AGM representative so we don't have to waste AGM time dealing with that.

All very good but as these issues have been running now for over a year clearly this process hasn't worked and it's now time for the membership to exercise their view

Just noticed Carl, as a Director at the time, has confirmed on BMC Watch the real problems with increased staffing predated Paul R becoming chaIr of CCPG (and he implied because it was known in summer 2022 the Board review wouldn't be good). Saying the Board review shows the CCPG failed under Paul R from September 2022 is unfair.

This is all perfectly good debate with lots of valid opinions but the overriding sense here is how glacial and convoluted anything to do with the BMC is. They have proved themselves totally unsuitable to running competition climbing (I’m not distinguishing GBC/BMC here - the buck stops with the BMC). They hold the international licenses and they have proved a totally unsuitable organization to have such responsibility. It might not even be the people running it, maybe the org makes it impossible to do the job. We can have all the debates we like but while everyone chats away, young people’s very short chances of sporting careers are being wrecked by the BMC. It needs a completely different setup - led by climbing athletes, ex-climbing athletes, and admins with a deep understanding of sport climbing  - to take control of the licenses. If the BMC wants to carry on having a go at running some sport climbing, fine (but right now it can’t even run a national series!). What the BMC can’t do is arrogantly rest on an assumption that nobody can take those licenses away from them. Young people are suffering over and over again - it’s absolutely devasting to hear stories first hand and I challenge  any board member to meet some of the affected athletes face-to-face and not be deeply moved. BMC internal politics mean absolutely nothing to athletes, who just want to get on with representing their country as best they can. The BMC has failed the athletes, had a chance to do something, then failed them again. It’s time for athletes to properly organize, reach out to new sponsors (they’ll make a far better job of it than the BMC ever has), and then to the IFSC themselves to make an evidence-based case for why the BMC needs to have its monopoly removed.

Good job I never said that then! Besides which overstaffing wasn’t covered in the CCPG review as far as I remember. And also the review was a review for the entire period since it’s inception which I think was since 2019 so not clear what dig you are trying to make. 

It all seems very sad, doesn't it. It would seem that on the one hand we have a bunch of BMC members upset by the overspend and lack of accountability of the GB climbing, and on the other hand we have a bunch of athletes frustrated by the inability of GB climbing to support them and their athletic careers.

I wonder whether the root cause is actuaĺly the Governance structure.

What’s crazy is that most athletes aren’t even asking for support. They pay for pretty much everything themselves. All they want is the BMC to get out of the way and stop blocking international access by holding the licenses but refusing to use them.

I meant support in the widest sense,  not necessarily financial support.

👍

Just to follow up. It seems to me like some in the BMC leadership seem think the athletes need to accept and understand that the BMC has to balance their needs against mountaineering, access etc.

Sorry to be blunt, but this isn’t true. The athletes only have to understand this to the extent that they are trapped (for now) by the BMC’s unearned monopoly on the international licenses. The athletes owe the BMC absolutely nothing. If they can - and I believe they will - break the monopoly then if the BMC wants the support of competive athletes it’ll have to earn it, like any normal organisation.

The athletes couldn’t give a damn about the board’s excuses for why things seem so hard to fix. It’s not the athletes’ problem to fix. It’s irrelevant *why* the board can’t fix it - maybe their list of excuses is right, who knows - what matters is they haven’t fixed it. The athletes don’t owe them “more time”. The athletes never agreed to let the BMC gatekeep the licenses, they owe nothing. No excuse, valid or otherwise, justifies them maintaining a monopoly they have no moral right to. They never earned it.

If the board try to fight athletes breaking that monopoly then the board needs to justify to all members why they want to fight it. Do they genuinely believe they can deliver for athletes better than anyone else? If they can’t make that argument then the only argument is about the BMC itself and maintaining power for its own benefit, which is no argument at all. Either do the job well, or get out. Only breaking that monopoly will lead to clear thinking.

I think it would help understanding and the debate if you could give a simple explanation of what these international licences are, why they are important, and what you feel is going wrong with them.

Hi.
 

Not sure this is meant to be directed at me but I’ll respond with my take.

I agree with you that it’s not incumbent on the athletes to give two figs about mountaineers but conversely it’s not incumbent on mountaineers to give two figs about competition athletes either.

Whilst it’s nice if we can all co-exist in one big tent it’s problematic and unfair if a minority massively monopolises the space in that tent.

The BMC is, simply put, a gatherer and dispenser of resources to the good of the climbing communities at large and it’s members particularly. Personally I judge it’s success by how efficiently, effectively and fairly it does that.

Not only is it unfairly directing too much money at GB Climbing it is also using that money inefficiently and ineffectively - hence your complaints and those of the comps community at large.

There needs to be a change in both and the subsidiary route, to an extent, will enforce that. 

Thanks. So the IFSC issue a certain number of competition places to each nation. The number of places is affected by your team results in earlier years.

The only way to get one of the places is via the BMC - they have a monopoly (which they exert via GBC) on the right to issue licenses to compete. If the BMC decide they don’t want to send you, you don’t go, there’s no other way, no matter how good you are.

The BMC only take a fraction of the available places, leaving loads of talented athletes unable to compete. They claim this is because people haven’t met some “performance standard” - in other words, compared to other nations, we’re rubbish. This is nonsense - the measure of performance is deeply flawed and this year they’ve even rejected (pending appeals) athletes who exceed the standard. Nobody is against performance standards but they haven’t been set up properly. This year we appear to have selected just three female athletes across both disciplines in the U20 category. The idea that they’re the only ones good enough is a complete joke. (By the way, I have no axe to grind - we’re not appealing anything)

You can see from this graph what it did to last year’s attendance and at first glance it looks like this year will be even worse.

The additional problem is that fielding a weak team reduces our chance of future quota places, punishing the next generation by robbing them of opportunities through no fault of their own. 

Even if somebody wants to argue for the merits of an incredibly high-bar selection policy, it doesn’t matter - the BMC does not have the moral right to let a couple of people dictate to the whole community that that’s how it wants to run competition climbing. It very obviously (see LONC) does not have the support of the majority of the competition community, but it can do what the heck it likes because it has a monopoly it never earned. You can think the policy is right if you like, but you don’t have the right to impose the will of a couple of people on the whole community.

Athlete’s bravely spoke out, but the situation has got even worse. Their reward from the “listening session” seems to be even more outrageous selection decisions and the BMC deciding it can no longer run a national series. Unselected athletes, once again, have absolutely no clue how they become candidates next year. It’s an absolute disaster zone, with young people’s hopes shattered. Nobody cares about the BMC politics. It just needs to go.

Not directed at you at all. I completely agree - the mountaineering community has no duty to comp climbers at all. The only issue for me is the license monopoly - imagine you needed a license to go for a hike but the BMC only gave you one if it felt like it, because it was balancing resources. 
 

It can’t have it both ways - let the BMC/GB be involved in comps if it can afford it, but if it can’t responsibly distribute the licenses, it can’t have a monopoly either.

I find myself in the curious position of caring little for competition climbing but caring a lot about how climbers are being treated.

If they want to own competitions, they have to do it really bloody well. If they don't, they don't deserve to own it. If they think they're doing a good job, they have a PR mountain to climb. Which ironically would probably need yet another staff member. What a to do.

Exactly this, thank you. There’s no fundamental conflict between the branches of climbing. If the BMC would accept that it isn’t qualified to exclusively hold the licenses, other groups could help. People out there want to put time and money behind our athletes but very few will work with the BMC.

I agree. Ethically the BMC should earn the right to retain its governing body status. However, practically I don’t believe there is a mechanism to forcibly take it away.

There’s always a way (given that “shame” doesn’t seem to be a thing). Especially with all the evidence built up over the last few years. As I said, if the board can’t make a case beyond retaining its own power then their argument for clinging on is incredibly weak.

I am likewise in a similar position Steve (and I think a lot of people are). I don't watch competitions other than the odd clip on Facebook, the idea of sitting in front of a TV watching sport never appealed and the noise in a stadium would likely prove overwhelming for me at points.

The athletes are young people whose lives revolve around having the ability to train incredibly hard for a chance to compete, the BMC's side of things is having clear selection processes in place, supporting those selected to perform at their absolute best and providing access to the competitions.

They are delaying their development in other areas of their lives at a significant stage such that they will be starting behind their peers if they choose to pursue a career outside climbing.

Getting the finance side right is important, but doing the job properly is just as important, there is no point doing one if you can't do the other. The BMC has a bloody brilliant access team and members should expect GB Climbing to be just as good, at present it seems to be pretty far short of that from the perspective of the people who it most affects.

The split which Simon proposes is going to put a load of work onto the people who need to be focused on making GB Climbing work effectively which is unlikely to prove beneficial to the Athletes and certainly won't solve the issues with licences given that the same processes will be carried across.

I completely agree. For a long time comp climbers have tried to engage positively with the BMC and get the problems fixed in ways that don't embarrass the organisation. We've been reasonable and patient and have always tried to help the BMC to help us. It's got us nowhere.

It's now become clear that the BMC couldn't care less about comp climbers, and in particular the board has knowingly sat on its hands and let a disastrous regime continue into yet another season. The only priority seems to be to protect the BMC's image even if this means sending out publicity material which is frankly dishonest. (For example, the February bulletin says that, "We continue to implement what we have learnt from last year across our competitions and feedback is 'cautiously positive'; which is encouraging" - I would like to see the feedback data and hear exactly how it was gathered, because the feedback I am hearing across a wide group of comp climbers is overwhelming negative.)

I would say that goodwill has been exhausted and quite suddenly the mood has changed: a lot of comp climbers now have no loyalty towards the BMC whatsoever. 

Really? In the earlier thread I stated:

"In Simon's background the following statement is plain insulting:

The CCPG broadly did it's job last year. It listened to stakeholders' concerns and reported numerous serious issues up to the Board (ask the athletes reps on the CCPG committee), but a response to the report got bogged down at Board/SMT level."

This was your reply, which mainly covers the period before Paul took over and before the major stakeholder issues surfaced.

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

What are the BMC / GBC saying is the reason that they are not sending their allowable quota of athletes to international competitions?

From other sports I have got the impression there is a wider elite sports policy or accepted practice (not sure if coming from UKSport or not) which is that you only send people to international events if they meet a certain performance level. 

I’m not saying whether this is right or wrong, just reflecting it might not be a decision in the hands of the BMC/GBC

When you think about it, it’s not really surprising when the main decision makers re comp climbing are from (swimming?) backgrounds, mountaineering, and canoeing. (Ironically he’s probably just starting to realise the BMC is up **** creek without a paddle).

It’s completely in the hands of the BMC (see other countries). Even if you took the performance standard at face value, it’s a red herring. Nobody is against performance standards - in fact athletes keep pointing this out over and over again. GBC have no idea how to measure performance - it’s comical. And athletes this year have exceeded the performance standard but still been dropped. It’s important to not let anyone propagate lies that this is about whinging athletes who aren’t good enough. It’s a strategy pursued by the BMC for their own reasons and they don’t have the support of the majority of the community. They only do it because they have a monopoly, but I’m extremely confident that’s soon going to end, regardless of how complacent they are right now.

Just to be clear - mine was a genuine question from an interested but uninvolved person, not an attempt to spread disinformation.

so what are the BMC/GBC saying is the reason they aren’t making use of their full quota of places?

Yes, that's the reason given (AFAIK a policy the BMC has chosen to adopt rather than one imposed by funders), but:

1) Those designing and adopting this policy don't have expertise in comp climbing, so don't understand how (if at all) the principle would work in this specific sport.

2) Since every route/problem is different, setting and applying performance standards is much more difficult in climbing than (for example) swimming, where you can simply say that competitors must beat a specific time in order to make the team. The impossibility of using performance standards in climbing is illustrated by the fact that both last year and this year, the selection panel ended up overriding the standards in order to select the team (last year several climbers who didn't meet the standard ended up getting selected, and this year several who did make the standard weren't selected). 

3) Looking at the competition results over a season will show you that it's just not easy to predict who will win - one week someone might win a World Cup and then next week they might not make the final. (Again, it's not like some other sports where the same competitors consistently retain a marginal advantage over their peers.) So using the fiction of performance standards (based on a single day's climbing) to select a small team almost certainly means you end up not selecting people who might have done very well. No one is arguing the BMC should select climbers who aren't capable - anyone with detailed knowledge of the UK comp climbing scene (which should, but probably doesn't, include GB Climbing leadership) could tell you who's good enough; there's no shortage of candidates.

4) Even when there are climbers who are borderline (maybe they won't win internationally), selecting them to the team will enable them to gain international experience, so that next year or the year after they might be in a position to win. Having a larger team in order to build experience is especially crucial for the UK given that there is such a dearth of top-quality facilities - there are maybe 3 or 4 lead walls in the UK that are anywhere near international quality, so it's very difficult for people to reach international standard unless you select them to the team and in that way expose them to the best routes and walls.

5) In any case, a central aspect of the BMC's remit is providing access. In selecting a small team it is denying access to international competitions to its own members. Even if a climber isn't ever going to win an international medal, if they are good enough to be in the top x climbers in their category, why shouldn't they have their day? Where does the BMC get off denying climbers their chance on the say-so of some sports administrators who wouldn't know a gaston from a hole in the head?     

Sure I realised that. It’s just that the idea of “whinging athletes” would suit those pushing an unsupported agenda so we have to be careful it doesn’t take hold.

Generally it seems they claim it’s because people haven’t met a standard, but as I say, the measure is daft, but it’s also obvious nonsense when they haven’t selected people who very clearly did exceed their standard in any case.

Many  of us believe it’s because they don’t have the money or desire to support British climbing and just want credit for a couple of elite climbers doing well at the Olympics so are pretty much gambling on that. 

Again, for their own personal needs, that might work (it probably won’t because the best teams have strength in depth) but it doesn’t even matter. They have no mandate to simply pick a strategy that leave many great athletes high and dry. Taken to its logical extreme why not just pick say, Toby. Everybody would agree that wasn’t right, but at what point do you draw the line? 
 

Removing the monopoly removes the ability to sacrifice a large group of young talent by the whim of a few people who don’t understand climbing. It’s going to happen. The BMC will likely argue it’s impossible to break the monopoly, but a) they’re wrong and b) why the heck do they think they deserve to have a monopoly?

From what I've read, mainly on UKC forum's:

• Cost to the BMC if an athlete goes to a competition abroad - £nil
• Cost to the BMC sending "support" staff for one or more athletes - £considerable
• Usefulness of "support" staff to athletes - questionable 

So if nobody is selected for event X but athlete B wants to compete and make their own way there, I can see no reason why they shouldn't go. If they're not good enough they'll soon find out during qualifying.

So to my mind, the main "offence" is having unused licenses, seems to be totally inexcusable.

Bad selection criteria appears to be secondary, it can be improved. But regardless of that the process should be:

1. Select athletes who meet the selection criteria and send them to the relevant events.
2. Offer unused licenses to all other "registered" athletes on a first come first served basis.

There are no doubt lots of other problems but not using up our quota of places is just so fundamentally wrong.

Thanks for taking the time to reply in detail.
I have to say it does all sound pretty depressing from what you have written

The fact that they chose not to select people who did meet the performance standard shows that performance standards are just an excuse - they actively want a smaller team come what may, regardless of whether or not climbers are good enough. It's a disgrace, and it ought to be a resigning matter, either for the staff who are pursuing this destructive course or for the board who are standing by and letting it happen.  

Completely agree (obviously). The board are responsible for the mess and a significant number of them would go if they had any shame*. They’ve presided over this. The decisions by GBC can’t be an excuse. If the BMC holds a monopoly on the licenses then the BMC must issue a mandate for how the British climbing community is to be supported by the licenses and then instruct GBC accordingly and make sure they hire or retain those people willing to operate to the BMC mandate - one that has the interests of athletes at heart. This is all predicated on them having the license monopoly. If the BMC board is too weak or doesn’t care enough about sport climbing and young athletes, fine, do what you like, but make clear you do not intend to insist on monopoly control of the licenses. It’s one or the other - do your job, or get out of the way.
 

*board: sit down in person with some of the athletes who’ve been screwed over this last few weeks then decide if you’re proud of the BMC board. Young people’s mental health is being wrecked through callous incompetence and indifference - something I’ve seen directly. It’s a disgrace and brings shame on the organisation.

Playing devils advocate here, but are the benefits of International competition being overstated some what? I have heard figures in the region of £15-20k annual costs in upper youth categories to attend a full-ish International calendar - with pretty much all that athlete/parent funded. The reality is that these costs will exclude a large number of athletes, and will put a lot of financial pressure and stress on families that can find some way to pay them.

Personally, I would also like to see investment in top-level domestic youth competition series attended by the best domestic climbers and climbers from around Europe. The very successful IMST Youth Colors Festival being an example of something similar. GB Climbing has potentially a great product to sell to media and sponsors, I wish they would show a bit more ambition, their disregard for domestic competition is very short-sighted.  

Either way, staff costs as a percentage of budget are way, way too high.

What makes you think that GBClimbing are at all interested in the opinions of the athletes/parents or BMC members who may not compete but believe that competition is worth doing.

It comes across to me and the few others I speak to regularly that GBClimbing are only interested in GBClimbing. They get paid to go to comps, and the athletes have to pay for themselves. GBClimbing decide who meets their arbitrary standards, which appear to be very flexible. GBClimbing appear to have no interest in the BMC or what it says and stands for, just so long as the BMC supplies the money to support GBClimbing staff.

Sadly I know some GBClimbing staff and what I have said above is born out by their statements, eg. when asked about there being no mention/promotion of the BMC at climbing comps and training sessions the answer was 'we don't want to be distracted'! That sums up the current situation completely.

This whole thing makes me sad and embarrassed to be a member of the BMC, especially when talking to the parents of young comp climbers!

One thing worth adding for completeness and fairness. There are now a significant number of great coaches in GBC who do genuinely care about the athletes. I presume they don’t have much influence over policy and even less over BMC dysfunction, but it’s worth noting there’s some really good and passionate individuals who deserve credit for the support they try to provide. They are definitely not the blame for the mess.

I can’t believe you can sit there and type The CCPG broadly did it's job last year. 

Read the posts by Alphacker and Red Geranium above and by Carl Spencer, David Xiberras, Gareth Edward, Josh Bridgens and others on BMC Watch. Do you think they share your view that the CCPG broadly did its job in overseeing GB Climbing? In fact does anyone but you hold that view?  

Nothing I’ve read suggests that anything has improved since the CCPG report was presented to the Board in December 2022. No discernible actions have been taken to improve matters. Some say things have got worse.

In November last year the comps community spoke out for the first time ever declaring no confidence in the GB Climbing leadership. Listening sessions then occurred but the Board neither backed nor changed the leadership. The Board listened but still has yet to act. 

There might be legitimate reasons for the CCPG failing in overseeing GB Climbing (Carl has posted about this on BMC Watch) but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still failing.

If anyone is misrepresenting things it is you with your Panglossian spin. In your capacity as a nationally elected councillor you should be communicating the reality of things at the BMC to your constituents (of which I am one) rather than a constant stream of apologism. 
 

This whole matter seems to have gone up a level.

Up until now it's mainly been more traditional members calling for GBC to be split in someway from the BMC.

Now we're getting a very strong view from those involved in competitions that they also would like to see GBC split from the BMC.

They are also expressions a very strong opinion that those involved in competitions have little if any interest in other aspects of climbing which has been one of the arguments for competitions remaining part of the BMC

I've been clear that for a national sporting body ongoing poor relationships with stakeholders is unacceptable and that needs timely action to resolve (with real progress being confirmed by those stakeholders). I wrote a letter to Council with 5 others in March 2023 raising this and other areas, including finance, where the Board had failed to inform Council properly under our governance rules and where action seemed slow.

It is not my role to report to the Peak area but I've spoken to you privately prior to one 2023 meeting and when another Councillor felt they couldn't speak up at the last area meeting in 2023, I did.

The CCPG changed under Paul R: nearly all the Review report criticisms pre date his time (again easily confirmed by Carl,  the Director linked to the area). You are using the review report as evidence for a time period when it mostly doesn't apply. The CCPG did its job that autumn and reported the serious stakeholder concerns to the Board in late 2022. The concerns seem to have have remained serious ever since. Responsibility for improvement on such serious issues lies with the Board. However, a departing CEO, more sensible budgeting arrangements (as promised when GB climbing was formed) are real changes. However, we still need improvements to be evidenced  in our competition stakeholder relationships.

The reason I keep returning to this is because I want the problems resolved. I think your subsidiary proposal very much acts as a distraction, when focus is needed to deal with very real issues facing athletes, parents and coaches since autumn 2022. It also distracts from other areas where members may want answers. 

I've always supported clear information being presented to members on how much core funding is received by GB Climbing (from my first days on Council in 2021).

I welcome the debate at the Peak area tomorrow. 

I’m going to stick my neck out and say something that may be deeply unpopular with some athletes and their parents. In general I’m in favour of imposing high standards for attendance at international competitions. I say this as someone who has had direct experience of going to, and performing poorly at, international comps and also someone who has seen a great many promising young climbers have their progression completely derailed by the experience of being the best in their country/age group for years and being unprepared for the demoralising reality that they are not yet there on the world stage. 
 

Such a policy is always going to be deeply unpopular with athletes who want to compete and are not allowed to, and doubly so with their parents who have put a lot of time and effort into their child’s enjoyment and achievement, but I do think it is best for the athlete overall. 
 

HOWEVER….

if you are going to have performance standards you’ve got a moral imperative to get them right, and to bloody well stick by them if athletes you don’t think should go to comps meet your standards. 
 

So the suggestions that athletes who met the criteria still cannot compete are very disturbing. Also, the idea that you can reliably judge these standards with one or two routes at a selection event is being rightly rubbished by athletes. 
 

One promising way forward would be to set standards like “athletes should onsight Y routes at a certain level within X months of a selection event”. It takes a little thought to prevent gaming of the system, but it should be do-able.
 

1) Arrange a selected group of approved setters whose grading you trust. They set routes of the required standard at walls around the country, either paid for by the BMC or as part of their usual setting work. 
2) Athletes notify the wall staff of their intent to onsight said route. 
3) Athlete succeeds, wall staff sign a piece of paper which can be scanned and emailed to GB climbing. 
4) The top Z athletes at the selection event get to go to the comp, provided they meet the standards above. 
 

Ok it’s not perfect but it’s simple, cheap and seemingly better than what we have now. 

Matt Bird has pointed out changes in setting have led to it being difficult for such processes to predict semifinal and final performance at worlds.

That’s not a great response for several reasons. 
 

First, if you average over more routes, you get a much better idea than for a couple of routes on one day. 
 

Second, the point is not to predict performance at world cups. It is to create a bar that must be exceeded so that attendance does not lead to very poor performances and demotivation. 
 

The only predictor of whether someone will make semifinals is to send them to a competition. But you can know with some certainty that a male senior competitor who has never onsighted 8b will do very poorly. 
 

the point of performance standards is supposed to be optimal athlete development, not saving money by only sending athletes who will get out of the first round for sure. 

No - GBC is entirely a mess of the BMC's own making and cutting it loose to evade responsibility is not an option. We're advocating for a new organisation to take over NGB duties and oversee comp climbing. Presumably the BMC would then wind up GBC. 

Honestly, you don’t need to worry about saying anything controversial. The idea of imposing high performance standards isn’t controversial nor is it unpopular with athletes and their parents. There’s been language like “athletes who are ready”. Well (random example), you don’t make a European Championship semifinal one year then suddenly become “not ready” the year after because you got beaten on selection day by one zone. 

I don’t know any athlete or parent (maybe there are some but I don’t know them) who disagrees with high performance standards. We’re lucky enough to have such talent right now but we’re throwing it away.

The narrative keeps getting twisted (I don’t mean by you, but in general) to make it sound like athletes disagree with high standards. This is a absolutely not true.

Easier said than done (unfortunately). The NGB status has to be voluntarily ceded. Internally that would require a special resolution to be passed by 75% of BMC members who voted. Externally it would require the organisation to be approved by Sport England / UK Sport and the IFSC. 

Correct - the key is taking the license monopoly away from organisations not fit to own it. A split makes no difference to this. Either the current monopoly owners, BMC/GBC need to run if properly or entirely new people need to be invited to step up and the BMC agree to a smooth handover. Unless they can make a sound argument for why they are the best possible guardians of athletes’ interests, any resistance is about BMC power and their own interests. Members should be asked to decide if they want the BMC to have that fight on their behalf or whether to give up their monopoly control in a constructive manner.

It’s definitely not easy, but with plenty money and the best legal advisors a constructive solution can be put together that actually helps the BMC long term. Too many passionate people, many with very high level connections and deep knowledge have now had enough of the BMC board’s failure to deal with the mess. This won’t be allowed go on.

You mention more sensible budgeting arrangements. This included cancelling the national series. The athletes punished again, to fix the BMC’s mess. It’s totally unacceptable. If there was simply no other option to avoid serious financial crisis, obviously it has be done (but they should disclose how many possible sponsors they called to try to save it - who reckons they even called one? I’d love to find out), However, at that level of abject failure, directors need to be resigning. Not even running a national series is below what we thought was the bottom of the barrel, but it’s not clear if the board is as utterly embarrassed on the national and international stage as they ought to be. Once again, the athletes shouldn’t care why the BMC is a complete mess, they just deserve a body to represent them. If the BMC can’t then it’s the BMC’s fault, nobody else’s, and the athletes should absolutely be using all the evidence they have built up over the last two years to fight to get free of this nonsense unless the BMC gets its house in order within literally days.

I fully appreciate your sentiments but it’s the Board of Directors that you need to persuade. I’m guessing here a bit but that might require you to put together a resolution together like I have or persuade the Board to do so and that your entreaties are wholly representative of the Comps community. Without a track record in governance, finance or operations you would then need to persuade UKS/SE/IFSC that you are fit for purpose. I can’t see that happening however strong the moral argument might be. 

I suggest (but then I would!) that your better avenue would be to back the creation of a financially independent subsidiary and get involved in the politics to ultimately lobby/cajole towards full independence having developed a track record in the meantime. 

Just to be clear *I’m* not proposing to run anything or set it up (I’ve got a job!). There are groups out there that could absolutely be fit for purpose and I hear all sorts of organizing going on now which is really encouraging - it gives people hope. I don’t care if someone takes over, or if the BMC miraculously sorts its act out, all I care about is, having seen young athletes utterly distraught through no fault of their own, that a leadership emerges that looks after their small chances of sporting careers.  

Maybe no track record is better than a really terrible track record!

I wasn’t suggesting that you should. I admire your passion and I’m truly sorry to piss on your chips but the reality of organisational politics between UKS/BMC/SE/IFSC means that this is really complicated and certainly won’t ever happen in a matter of days.

The usual suspects to take over of the ABC or Mountaineering Scotland have been mentioned many times in the past. They have very few time full time employees and literally no NGB experience. The BMC has decades of experience as an NGB but is still struggling to manage it as it transitions from a fledgling to Olympic sport. There has always been to talk of the NGB status being taken on by another organisation but founders when the difficulties are properly explored. 

Look at other sporting bodies with issues of bullying, drug abuse, paedophilia etc. Have any of them been stripped of their NGB status?. I actually don’t know but I assume not. 

I’m much more confident regardless of history, but let’s say nothing works, how sad for the BMC board that the only way they can hang on to control of comp climbing is through others being blocked by bureaucracy, and a monopoly they never earned. What a depressing outlook for any professional to have no incentive to be the best option for athletes. Good leaders would hate it.

I’m just calling it as I see it. I’ve long held the view that it should be separate in the best interests of indoor and outdoor climbers rather than politicians. GB Climbing as a subsidiary body is at least a step in the right direction.

It would be an even bigger disaster for athletes but I respect your view that for the BMC itself and the wider membership it has logic to it. Unless, as I think others have mentioned, in the end the BMC had to rescue a failed GBC. What would you propose the consequences should be if the separated GBC went bankrupt? What does the BMC do with the licenses then? … hmm, hang on … maybe you’re on to something

I’m just going to repost this because it’s lost in a long thread and, amongst all the negativity, this bears repeating (and I say with confidence this view is shared by athletes and parents):

One thing worth adding for completeness and fairness. There are now a significant number of great coaches in GBC who do genuinely care about the athletes. I presume they don’t have much influence over policy and even less over BMC dysfunction, but it’s worth noting there’s some really good and passionate individuals who deserve credit for the support they try to provide. They are definitely not to blame for the mess.

There has always been an element of this, borne out of the treatment of the comp types by the BMC board, but it does seem to have gone up several levels......

That is utter bollocks; we had a straw poll of comp climbers a while back, and the most inportant part of the BMC's work in their eyes was access and conservation. Also see for a small example the lead story on UKC for most of the last week was about Shauna Coxsey, and to check it was still there, I have just looked again, and 3 of the 4 articles feature "comp climbers" in the outdoors; Jim Pope, Shauna, and Buster Martin.

Understood,  I just couldn't find the words to express that concisely

the relationship with SE / UKS might be difficult to rebuild, but as the relationship between the BMC and UKS / SE isnt great, I dont think this would be insurmountable, but heavily dependent on th BMC being willing to step back. However, if the BMC are not willing to step back, given all the problems being experienced, then this would probalby jeopardise the not insignificant sums the non comp parts of the BMC receive as part of the deal. The IFSC would support any organisation that would further the cause of competition climbing. They are a far more influential organisation these days, but when i discussed this very subject woth the IFSC some years ago, they were extremely helpful. The reason it didnt happen before was down to money and time. Now that GBC has what i would consider fairly generous funding, and more FTE's than i could ever have dreamed of, it wouldn't be such a pipedream. I still have the business plan (adjusted for inflation....).

The ABC are a membership organisation that do concentrate on furthering the cause of their members, so wouldn't really be in the running for taking this on, unless it could be seen to benefit its members. If it was put to a general meeting and the membership voted in favour, then it could be done, but i'm not sure it would be the best home for it. And as a declaration of interest, I'm on the board of the ABC.

Climb Scotland wouldn't be a bad shout, but there would be political issues with Sport England (there were issues with SE money being used for Scottish athletes, and it was a bit of a game to get around that back in the day).

Absolutely this, 100%.

The demoralising effect...

Isn't this to a large extent manageable by expectation management, basically "you are going to get slaughtered at your first international event, it's a whole level up which you won't even have suspected existed"

And then some managed encouragement along the lines of "but don't worry about it, everyone goes through it, you actually need to experience this for yourself so that you can see and appreciate what you need to aim for"

Etc.

I'm not convinced that making GBC a subsid will actually solve anything. It is to my mind a last ditch resort when everything else has failed and even if the finances are sorted it doesn't sound like that will guarantee that GBC will be fit for purpose. I don't think we're at the "subsid" point yet although we do seem to still be going in that direction.

Why can the board not instruct the personnel in GBC to do things better or get out. From the accounts on here from the competition "side" it sounds like it's not difficult to define what "better" means.

I'm just a Councillor, alongside others, representing members and reminding the organisation of concerns raised like yours, and many others, and pointing out such an ongoing level of concerns is rather an existential looking threat for a sports governing body.

What I have heard similar variations of multiple times, so it clearly needs further investigation, at a minimum, and why I replied as I did to motwu. Plus I know Matt, who is is incredibly well connected and represents some of the best UK comp climbers ever.

It will solve lots of things:

-it will solve the perception that the BMC is becoming overly focussed on comp climbing at the expense of its traditionally core activities such as access that is turning so many members off the BMC

-it will solve the reality that the BMC is becoming overly focussed on comp climbing at the expense of its traditionally core activities such as access that is turning so many members off the BMC

-it will extract GB Finances from the homogenous mess that is BMC accounting that masks the true cost of running GB Climbing

-It will mean GB Climbing has to operate within the constraints of their own bank account which will prevent cock ups like the £150k overspend by GB Climbing in expectation of grant money that didn’t exist

-it will institutionalise financial discipline and proper accountability for decision making within GB Climbing

-It will free up the BMC Board to focus more on the traditional core activities where their skills, interests and competence mainly lies 

-It will solve at a stroke the dilemmas presented of being both a representative and  governing body

I’m not labouring under the impression that this can be done overnight. If you think we are heading in that direction then let’s start the process now by giving members a chance to vote on it in June.

And why should we have to force this? Members Council has the power to include the resolution at the AGM. The Board has the power to include it at the AGM. I think there is more than enough indicative support from 291 members (so far) that they should give members the opportunity to vote on this.

Genuine question needs asking re finance. From what I understand there have been a huge number of appeals after this year’s shambolic selection. I expect a significant number of these won’t just go away when the BMC dismiss them. How much in reserves have the BMC set aside for legal fees? Are they insured against compensation payouts? (It’s only a matter of time before an athlete who’s been treated appallingly and had their mental health wrecked finds someone with the resources to help them fight back). In my opinion it’s as big a risk to BMC finances as anything else.

Your first 2 points, agreed. Third point, should do. The rest require GBC to be properly managed and if it's not then all of those issues will remain.

And separating GBC doesn't solve the "what's it doing for the athletes" issue.

The problem as I see it is this. If the BMC (and I suppose I mainly mean the board) can sort everything out then there's no need for a subsidiary GBC.

Spending effort on what your proposal would require (before a super-majority vote) will detract from their ability to do that (we could argue to what extent but it will have an effect).

If the BMC can't sort everything out then your proposal makes much more sense.

Are we at the point where we're sure the BMC can't sort it out, or are we still at the pissed off grumbling stage.

The problem with not following your proposal is that it might mean another year (because EGMs are even more difficult to sort out) of mismanagement before going down the "subsid" route.

In summary, I think your proposal is too soon, but I'm worried that next year it'll be too late.

How much confidence do you have in the BMC sorting this out? An “internal department but with the same formality and robustness of arrangements as if a subsidiary was being set up” was promised but it didn’t happen despite the CCPG being Chaired by the person who did the ODG work and insisted it needed to be a ringfenced business unit.

Maybe our new CEO can change the culture and instil the disciplines checks and balances. Maybe not. Maybe he will but it slips back under his successor. Maybe he leaves sooner than expected. I want to take away those risks and uncertainties with a formal change. It’s always easier to kick things down the road. The Board chose to do that in 2019 and look where we are now. 

The demands and expectations are only going to grow in the competition world. The Board have been blind and now seemingly overwhelmed in dealing with GBClimbing. That’s probably to a large extent because competitions and grant structures aren’t their area of expertise. In the Open Forum the Chair said it had been a massive learning experience and consumed an unsustainable amount of time from him, other Directors, the Finance committee and staff. It shouldn’t be this way and doesn’t have to be with the subsidiary route.

Those demands and risks are going to grow. Not just financial. For example policies and costs around Red S have been put back on to the National Federations to manage. Maybe GB Climbing has to hire in in-house medical expertise next. My view is let’s plan and put in place something now that works for the decades ahead. 

I would expect if the resolution was put to the vote and passed it would take at least 12 months to identify the structure and constitution that was required. If the Board chose a route that required article change that could be done at the 2025 AGM with implementation taking place after that. It’s not quick but better than doing a rush job with issues that come back to bite.

On the athlete side, the BMC hasn’t been able to sort it out for years and there’s no obvious evidence they plan anything significant. Nothing reassuring from the new CEO. The suspicion (which might be unfair but until he says otherwise is what many think) is that he’s bought into a line of convenient BS that the upset is coming from weak athletes and their parents who don’t accept high performance standards. That line, if explictly stated anywhere, would be an absolute total and utter lie. It’s the measurement and setting of the standards that’s a joke, as is not selecting people who exceed them anyway, as is an overall policy that allows them to decide someone who makes a European championship semifinal, keeps getting better, suddenly becomes not ready for internationals. The reason “performance standards” cause such anger isn’t because people don’t agree with them it’s because a large number of people don’t think that’s what’s going on at all, and the phrase is just an excuse for other agendas. Non-climbers shouldn’t try to treat elite climbers like fools. The climbers know who their genuinely talented rivals are - the current team could all tell you who should be there alongside them.

is anyone able to expand in this? Was this a decision taken at the start of the year or a reaction to difficulties mid-year? I thought the money GBC had was ring fenced and that’s why the course corrections fell on the rest of the BMC and GBC did not suffer any job losses etc?

I still don’t understand what ring-fencing/subsidiary status really means in practise. What precisely happens if it goes bust? What if it gets sued by athletes (or anyone)? If it went bust and we had no national series (moot because we don’t anyway) but specifically no international team, the athletes would lawyer-up to prevent their careers being ruined by a group claiming to be the monopoly NGB but not having a team. Who would they sue? It’s not trivial to just stick liability into a subsidiary and get off the hook. Give GBC free rein without BMC oversight and the BMC could find itself on the hook for whatever disasters it managed to unleash. If the BMC essentially makes GBC independent, on what grounds does it have the right to just hand over the international license monopoly to them (esp with their track record). Surely they could be legally challenged to tender for bids? (No bad thing IMO). The main point is that it will definitely be terrible for the athletes (unless they open up bids), but it might not even be able to achieve the things that could be argued help the BMC. Honestly, I’m not a lawyer but I think the BMC needs to be all in or all out, not in a situation where its members end up paying for some unknown disaster that unfolds in a subsidiary it doesn’t properly control.

W.r.t. all in or all out: perfectly valid arguments for both those options. But all in means the BOARD accepting the grave responsibility that comes with holding the exclusive ability to further or to ruin an athlete’s career. They simply cannot be allowed to own competition climbing (via a subsidiary or otherwise) if they think this responsibility is some trivial matter that can be brushed away to some far off point by more listening sessions and reports. Step up and do your duty NOW, or, give up control of comp climbing, or else just go away. I’ve got every sympathy if the board members say they don’t understand comp climbing. Fine, then the BMC isn’t fit to run it, so get out of it.

Ringfencing it primarily applies to finance and means that a department can only spend the money allocated to it and runs its own P&L. The extent to which you can separate it will vary but given that the intent was to run it as if it was a subsidiary means it would be very separate. For example the BMC should have billed it for office space and shared services such as marketing, IT support, web development, HR etc and perhaps it should have also operated it’s own bank account. It should also mean that it has greater ownership and accountability for decisions.

I get it, but without meaningful separation of liabilty I don’t know what it means. They should have a budget anyway and if they’re way out of line with it, usually someone goes - on the spending or supervisory side (or both) depending on who was to blame. This separation only works if the consequences are clear i.e. if it runs out of money* then it folds. At that point the BMC *must* hand over comp climbing licenses - they’d be challenged in court otherwise, almost certainly, so it would be end of the BMC as the NGB. To be fair, without dramatic improvement, extremely urgently, that end is coming anyway.

*of course technically running out isn’t the threshold - there’s obviously a point at which you’re no longer a credible NGB (e.g. not attending internationals) and athletes I presume would then ask a court to agree, if it got that bad. 

Many would argue that the selection debacle and the dropping of the national series is already lower than the performance threshold required to be an NGB.

If only the board agreed with “performance standards” for the BMC itself, eh? They seem to be big fans of the idea. Would still love to know how many potential sponsors they phoned before they canned the national series? A proper governing body would realise that dropping the series was a humiliating mass resignation situation and would have been hammering the phones.

There are two issues here, the finance mess, and the athlete selection/support mess.

GBC being more independent, in whatever form, is primarily to deal with the finance mess.

From what you and others have said it sounds to me that the main requirement to sort out the athlete selection/support mess is a change of GBC personnel. And that this is only likely to happen from the board taking action (a la Alan Sugar).

I'm interested to know in what way athletes could sue GBC/BMC. Very difficult to prove financial loss (which is what suing is usually about) and very difficult to prove mental health decline. Also, how would a court have the power to force GBC/BMC to transfer the licences (and the NGB status) to another body. I can envisage an injunction that might stop GBC/BMC doing something but that doesn't force the desired actions.

I’m not a lawyer, but one would assume that if someone had evidence of deliberate bias it would be grounds on an individual basis. On a group basis if you take an extreme example (say going to zero competitions and selecting no athletes) one assumes there would be legal avenues to take away NGB status. How far from that extreme and still have a good case? No idea tbh.

Any legal challenge would cost the BMC though, and unless it’s a frivolous challenge I don’t think it’s guaranteed the BMC could recover costs even if the BMC prevailed.

You should stop there.

Courts generally have little time for squabbles about who gets invited to play what games. They'll generally only get involved if the issue has a clear mapping to existing non-sporting laws (e.g., sex discrimination, employment law...) and then only reluctantly (see boxing & assault).

I suppose every sports law firm should shut up shop. Seems pointless them bothering really.

You might think so, but no. Most of their work is in arbitration and - as I said above - in areas where non-sport related laws have relevance.

Yes, that’s fair enough. The word “court” can probably be substituted with arbitration because you’re absolutely right that the vast majority of claims end up there (in fact there is of course a “court of arbitration for sport”). The general point stands - there are legal avenues to help people who feel they’ve been treated grossly unfairly and there are legal avenues if the BMC totally failed as an NGB (for example in the extreme made-up case above - obviously there’s a line somewhere and I’ve no idea where it is).

There's only one case (that I can think of) where an NGB has been stripped of it's status in a legal system similar to that of the UK and that was was for a far more serious issue (US Gymnastics). I think you are deluding yourself if you think that such an approach is likely to succeed in the BMC/GBC case over something which is completely within the remit of the NGB (team selection).

And while you’re at it, as in most companies there should be different spending limits set for a few key personnel, depending on need and seniority. 

To be honest the last few times I've looked for accomodation (Nice, Gateshead, Grenoble...) there weren't many club huts available. It's interesting if you test it out. It seems to be aimed at the 'adventure / back packer market'; lots of gites and dormitory accomodation on offer.

Test the same search on booking.com or Expedia. Then tell me how much this discount is.

That's a shame. It sort of undercuts the argument I've been pushing for months now that they are just 'climbers' who like to compete! Who you might well find at Malham or Caley as well as down The Depot. I've suggested that we start using the word 'climbers' now and again. They are all athletes but Liz McColgan is presumably happy being a 'runner'; Geraint Thomas is also a 'cyclist' and Mohammed Salah is.....wonderful.

If you really want to create a schism between 'athletes' and 'climbers' then go ahead. But personally I think that is negative. And it's just going to entrench those who 'don't like competitions and why should my subs to to paying for....' and 'the BMC has nothing to offer athletes so they'd be better off without it'.

That makes sense, not much profit to be made from someone who thinks £15 per person per night is expensive!

They aren't my words, but I can imagine the new generation of competition climbers are solely focused on competitions with no interest in other aspects of climbing

I'll let you do that.

When I checked for a night near Grenoble this 'BMC' portal came up with hostels etc at around £20-£30 pounds. Booking.com places started at about £40. But I'm afraid I just could be bothered to try and find a place that they both had to compare.

Then you would be utterly, utterly wrong. As previously posted, comp climbers also climb ver succesfully outdoors - Coxsey, Pope, Megos, Sharma, Ondra, Martin, Garnbret, Midtboe, Verhoeven etc etc etc etc. and at national / youth level, the list is pretty endless. 

I was referring to the new younger generation of competition climbers and I  hope you're right but time will tell

Not just a question for you...

Who determines which body has NGB status, i.e. who gave it to the BMC?

Because surely that's who can take NGB away from the BMC if it decides that it's dysfunctional.

So was i at the end of my post (national / youth level bit). There will be some who only climb indoors, but they wont be very successful at comps. At any age, climbing outdoors at anything close to your limit massively improves aspects of comp climbing. And Ive seen many cohorts of young comp climbers since i got involved in youth comps 21 years ago, and the most common pathway is for young'uns to give up comp climbing but remain active outdoors, with indoor climbing being more of a social activity for them.

https://www.sportengland.org/guidance-and-support/national-governing-bodies...

and UKS for Olympic sport.

So the existence of an NGB is through general consent, but if there is more than one, recognintion in the first instance is by the relevant nations Sports Council.

Re. Sport Climbing specifically, at an international level, the IFSC would go along with the national sports council (s) and for olympic sports, UKS.

Once again, it’s important to point out that it’s kind of the wrong debate to be pondering if comp (elite comp anyway) climbing is good or bad for the BMC or if the BMC has things to contribute or not. It’s selfishly looking at it as if it’s some internal debate the BMC can ponder to itself for year after year.

The problem is that control is of profound significance to a group of extremely dedicated young athletes pursuing serious dreams in what is now a serious international sport. Their NGB (the whole BMC) should not have voices in it that think it’s just mucking about on plastic, and of insignificant concern relative to access or whatever. It’s absolutely fine to hold those views of course, but these are voices in a comp NGB! Can you imagine, say, the comp swimming NGB having to worry about people who thought competition was just mucking about indoors? 

The biggest issue of all is that the BMC holds the right to issue (or not) international licenses. This means that great athletes get denied the right to persue their dreams by a non-expert organisation that spends a large part of its time (quite rightly from the organisation’s point of view) worrying about access etc. It has almost no specific sport expertise. The CEO was a canoeist I believe (that’s fine, the CEO role is different, I’m just pointing out it’s not also bringing climbing expertise by good fortune in the hire), and the head of performance (I think that’s the title) has no background in the sport. Even that might be fine if there was another key executive with a deep background in the sport. I think one of the managers used to compete a long time ago, but not at a significant elite level.

One thing that I *know* has happened recently is that there’s rising anger at the noises emanating from the BMC that things have improved a bit on the comp side. It smacks of confirmation bias (I don’t doubt they can find one or two fans) but it also gives the impression that they think that progress is enough. There are people suffering *today* because they’ve been treated grossly unfairly. Not just that, the dysfunction makes it impossible for them to understand how they could even get back in the team. This is *not* just “sorry you’re not quite strong enough, better luck next year”, there’s incredibly good athletes left out with absolutely no clue what they’re supposed to do next. As mentioned, they don’t even have a national series - the BMC pulled it.

Remember the scene in The Office where he says there’s good news and bad news - bad news, some of you are being made redundant, good news, I got a promotion. They could write climbing’s script: “Bad news, we’ve made a horrible selection decision and effectively ended your career with no route back in, but we do have some good news for you: someone told us X went well, and we all agree that we’re doing great now. Every cloud and all that, sorry mate, but I hope our improvement makes you feel better about what we did to you - I’m sure you’ll see the bright side soon!

The BMC needs to establish if it’s even capable of the elite role before worrying about whether it’s good or not for the organisation. It owns the role for historical reasons, and it’s time for a reevaluation.

(Apologies Ian W - note above wasn’t really ‘in reply to Ian W - it was a default thing I didn’t notice)

This is a very powerful argument for separating the elite competition NGB from the BMC

I agree, but only if the BMC gives up the power over the exclusive right to the licenses in a fair way. For as long as the BMC claims a monopoly on the licenses, then whether it holds on to GBC as a subsid, or appoints itself sole arbitrator as to who gets them next (and then for example gives them to the current GBC people, without competition) then it has a responsibility.

Of course it is to you as a signatory of the Motion of no Confidence. A complete separation of comps from the BMC was the key aim of that motion (and it was a real shame that debate couldn't have happened without an attempt to run a dishonest letter campaign hidden from the broader membership).

The fundamental difficulty is the funding bodies want a single point of contact for funding of a 'sport'. That is currently the BMC and most members voted numerous times by big majorities that they preferred it that way (at local areas for decades, in AGM debates for almost as long, in the Motion of no Confidence of 2017 and the governance Options debate of 2018).

Having a new organisation formed from the BMC and making the single point of funding contact as some new Elite Comp organisation, where outdoor participation grants go thorugh that, is just the reverse of those older votes. Change would be expensive and disruptive and it's far from clear the Funding bodies and partners and majority of current GB Climbing stakeholders would accept that. If some posting here argue lack of governance expertise is a hindrance for comps the reverse would apply to future funding relationships for outdoor BMC activity participation. Whichever way you look at it the BMC remit covers a wide range of varied games under the label of our 'sport'.

It wasn't the structure of the BMC that led to the breakdown of stakeholder relationships in GB Climbing. It was failure of some to follow our governance structure and the Board are always responsible overall. It is unacceptable to have poor stakeholder relationships in a governing body. Even if by some strange turn of events significant change happens, the BMC still have to improve those relationships in the meantime.

The aim of the motion was to get the Board to step down on some perceived governance transgressions. There was no mention of comps at all.

Wording of motion: Robert Pettigrew MBE and others will request the AGM to pass a resolution in the following terms:
‘That this motion of No Confidence is brought against the Executive Committee of the BMC and in particular because of the wilful and deliberate withholding of future policy decisions from the members in attendance at the Annual General Meeting held at Lhosehill Hall, Castleton, Derbyshire on Saturday 16th April 2016.
Further, this withholding of key and vital information to its membership is an example of very poor governance by the Executive Committee in their role as Company Directors, in a registered company limited by guarantee, and does not conform with the recently published Sport England Code for Sports Governance.“

Really?... this is the original motion distributed to clubs, from your site (4th post down)

https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,27926.0.html

Lots of others can attest to Bob's obsession with the Olympics, Marco and the IFSC: at numerous area meetings, AGMs and especially when the Motion of no Confidence was presented in 2017 (that you also attended).

As the parent of an athlete who was not selected, I want to thank Alphacker for voicing what I, and I'm sure many parents & athletes think.

My son started climbing outdoors and only started competing 2 years ago. He made finals at the JBBCs both years, and placed highest for his age last year. He thought he had a decent chance at getting selected.

We are deeply frustrated that GB Climbing are not making use of their quota places and excluding talented athletes who need access to international events in order to progress. Past performance at international events is the highest criteria in the selection process, yet GB Climbing denies them access.

I agree that performance benchmarks are necessary and welcome them, but as others have pointed out, they're not perfect.

Now he's in a position where the national series is cancelled and he can't access international events. How exactly can he prove himself for next year? A single selection event where anything can happen, and where its results are less important than those who did get a chance to compete internationally?

GB Climbing set out with the goal of of making GB the world's leading sport climbing nation by 2032. They can't do this by cancelling the national series and not providing opportunities to strong, developing athletes.  In my view, if the governing body can't put on a national series, their leader needs to be replaced or we need a new governing body.

I signed the petition because I believe we need greater transparency and urgent action. I'd like to see GB Climbing stay under the BMC, but unless the board makes some drastic changes it would be better elsewhere.

2017 AGM minutes:

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=1467

From that link, a summary of Bob's speech (saving us from the insults, sexist jokes and CV):

I've only just joined ukclimbing and saw this thread which does make interesting reading. I was involved in canoe slalom at the same time that Paul Ratcliffe was competing. He was the standout talent of his generation (Sharma/Ondra sort of ability). I don't know the fella but if you accept that comp climbing and canoe slalom are similar sports (individual, short bursts of activity where results are decided over a very short time frame) I would imagine that Mr Ratcliffe will understand what's needed to help juniors progress/support senior competitors better than most.

My gut feeling (and that's all it is) is that the BMC couldn't have found a better ambassador for comp climbing. How he finds a way through the politics I've no idea but I would give the fella a fair chance.

Thanks, and I’m so sorry to hear your situation. There are many others. This isn’t an argument about athlete A getting picked ahead of athlete B it’s about the compete failure of the BMC to act as an NGB, by denying access (the irony) to athletes who are more than capable of international competition by just leaving a load of places unused but having complete control of the licenses. This failure is the responsibility of the board and the new CEO. Their inaction is inexcusable. I hear now that the senior team is missing two world cups and sending only one female athlete to another. Our quota places shrink, future athletes locked out through no fault of their own, locking us in as a minor nation. All with a comedy aim to be the best climbing nation by 2032! Easiest target in world when you set it so far away that you’re unlikely to be still in the job by then, to be held accountable.

The Salt Lake thing is particularly daft if you care about BMC costs - we have to send coaches anyway, and then we don’t take the athletes!

But by not taking any competitors, we can say we didn't lose 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

That sounds totally nuts, but why do we have to send coaches anyway?

You do need them for things like appeals and at World Cup senior events athletes generally need a coach around. Historically, parents or guardians helped a lot at youth events. The GB coaches are really well liked I believe, never heard a bad word about any of them tbh.

Sorry, wasn't clear, I meant why do we have to send them if we're not sending any athletes?

Ah, sorry, we are sending some athletes but not filling the quota places, when there’s a perfectly good senior athlete left at home. The athletes pay for their own costs so there’s essentially no extra cost the BMC given they’re going in any case. That’s why it seems mad to me - why give up the development opportunity and increased chance for quota places next year when you’re already spending the money?

I think everyone wants to (give him a fair chance), but we’ve just come out of a selection cycle that’s left a load of talent distraught through no fault of their own. They don’t have the luxury of time. If Paul knows what to do but the board is somehow in the way then let’s hope he can push through them, but nobody really knows what’s going on. The athletes have even started 2024 having had their national series cancelled and now have no clue how they have a chance for selection next year. If he’s as good as you say but something is in his way he needs to speak up and say what it is. Even if that’s “we’re skint” then tell the community, and people might find the help we need. Loads of people want to help but they need to be able to talk to people who are serious about being world class climbing nation.

Totally in agreement with you there. Someone above explained about potential disillusionment/demotivation issues of "big fish in small pond" suddenly becoming "small fish in large pond", but:

1. It sounds like the athlete you're talking about will have already gone through this
2. And it's manageable with expectation management which is no doubt part of good coaching

Yes, this shouldn’t be an issue at all in the senior team - nobody at that age is getting selected when they wouldn’t be able to cope.

In reply to UKB Shark:

So I'm going to try and summarise my understanding of where the debate has got to - as much for my own understanding as anything. If I have profoundly misunderstood something, would somebody please let me know. I'm going to try and be objective and not put any of my own opinions in:
 

• At the very top level, the UK Gov Sporting organisations wish to have a single point of contact with each sport, covering both mass participation and elite competitive sport. Within the UK climbing / mountaineering world, this has lead to tensions from both sides
  • The "traditional" wing of the UK climbing and mountaineering world doesn't see indoor and competition climbing as relevant to it's core mission of access.
  • There is discontent in at least some parts of the UK competition climbing world that the BMC's focus on outdoor climbing and mountaineering means it doesn't have the focus and/or skills to act as the National Governing Body (NGB) for competition climbing.
• At the moment, the competitive part of the BMC organisation (GBC) is simply a department within the BMC. There is currently a petition for a motion to make GBC a separate legal entity, wholly owned by the BMC. This has been driven in the main by financial problems at the BMC, which have been claimed as due to overspends by GBC
  • This claim can't currently be verified as the accounts have not been released. There is a second petition asking for a clear statement of the accounts to clarify this question.
  • There is a debate on whether separate entities would achieve the desired result - due to the common commercial requirement for Parent Company Guarantees.
  • On the one hand it is suggested that making GBC a separate entity would enable the BMC to better concentrate on access, and GBC to focus on competitive sport. On the other hand, there is an opinion that with the current financial problems and exec turnover at the BMC, a major reorganisation is the last thing that is currently needed, and the priority should be achieving financial and organisational stability
  • There are also those who believe that the GBC takes more than its fair share of the overall BMC budget. Again, it is currently difficult to verify this claim due to the lack of transparency in accounts. Beyond that, there is a whole debate (which I am not going to get into) on what is fair, how much crossover between indoor & competition and outdoor climbing there is, and intangible crossovers both in terms of public consciousness and recognition of climbing, and of UK Gov support between mass participation and elite funding.
• Finally, there seem to be serious questions about the operational effectiveness of GBC. These would appear to fall into two areas:
  • Budgetary. It is claimed that there have been significant overspends by GBC (particularly around the Ratho competition).
  • Organisational. The national series has been cancelled (for budgetary reasons?). Places at international competitions are going unfilled because GBC will not let athletes compete. Some athletes and their parents are unhappy that the qualifications standards are either unclear, or not being adhered to, and that when athletes qualify for international competition, they cannot compete because GBC will not let them (even though they are not asking for funding support to compete).

Have I got this right? Have I missed anything?

That’s a good summary but I’d like to expand on your second section:

May be not wholly verified but there are some aspects that can be pinpointed. There are two parts to this. There is the overspend on budget and the overall cost of GBC to the BMC less it’s grants and other income (which I originally called an overspend but I’ll try to stick to calling it the subsidy). I’m more interested in the subsidy, and I think everyone else should be, as it gives a truer picture of the real extent (ie cash) to which BMC supports GBC so comparisons can be made to the support other parts of the BMC receive notably access.  

The Chair has already said that GBC has spent £150k of money that wasn’t there due to £200k of grant money pencilled in that didn’t exist. Whether you call that ‘within’ budget is a moot point but it is definitely the case that the cash had to come out of the BMC coffers and so is part of the subsidy. I don’t know what other level of subsidy was written into the budget but there usually is one.

There is also the fact that shared costs are never attributed to GBC in the annual report or accounts. Some seem happy that from an accounting perspective that GBC is living rent free in the offices drawing on all kind of HR, IT, Web, Management time and costs. I’m not happy especially that some of the grant (ie over £100k I understand) is actually towards these BMC costs and seems to being claimed by GBC and used for its own purposes. I also regard this as part of the subsidy. Add these three elements together comes to a larger number than is generally recognised. There is also the matter of what is meant by GBClimbing and how the funding is allocated. I’m doing some more digging on this and will post separately. 

I don’t see that the two are diametrically opposed. For financial stability to be achieved some internal changes are required now to achieve better financial responsibility and accountability. This should and is likely include an internal effort to better ring fence GBClimbing .

I suggest that this includes implementing the broken promise from 4 years ago of ringfencing GBClimbing “with the same formality and robustness of arrangements as if a subsidiary was being set up”. This will not only be a good end in itself but ease the path to implementing an actual subsidiary if that is what is decided.

As for short term disruption I can’t see any moves for the subsidiary being implemented (if that is what is decided) for over a year due to the decisions that need to be made on the form it takes. 

I realise I’m banging out about this well beyond the point of appearing unhinged, but I want people to keep in mind that debating what’s best for the BMC is fine and pretty much the point of this thread, but in the meantime there’s a group of athletes who don’t have time. Being excluded from international competition for a year or more can end a career. The elephant in the room is that the BMC has exclusive control of licenses and it’s withholding them, ostensibly talking about “performance standards” but where a large part of the community believes this is transparently a load of self-serving rubbish. It’s extremely hard to see how simply not attending two world cups is somehow related to athletes’ ability. Does anyone seriously think we just don’t have enough athletes to field teams? 
 

To avoid further damage to athletes, we need honest transparency about what’s going on here, as a matter of urgency. If it’s financial, people are willing to step up to help. If it’s because one or two people - if they were being truly transparent - genuinely only want to run a tiny team, then they need to be told by the board in no uncertain terms that they have no mandate to selfishly determine our national strategy to suit themselves. They have a duty bigger than that. If none of these things can be done by the BMC, or they simply refuse to ask for help in time for the season (which is weeks away), the BMC should share its license monopoly with any group willing to urgently step up, who meet the IFSC criteria, to get the other athletes out to compete this year.

I hope this doesn't come across as special pleading but the Board of the BMC has quite a lot to think about beyond GBC selection and filling places. That is the precise reason why the Board sets up specialist committees; in this case the Competition Climbing Performance Group. (There are also Clubs, Technical, Training, Access etc committees 'cos Board members might know nothing about materials degradation, re-wilding, hut management.....). There's an element of delegation goes on.

The Board actually wants 'GBC'* to be a success (why would they not?) and for the climbers associated with it to be satisfied that it does a good job!  Getting there seems to be slow.

*The definition of what 'GBC' actually 'is' and 'does' seems to be a bit of a movable feast.

I think yours is a very good summary.

I don’t doubt it, it’s a big complex job for sure. But again, there’s something very unique about this situation: the BMC controls the licenses. So it doesn’t have the luxury of not doing a great job. If the board can’t give this massive issue enough attention it has to give up that control. It’s grossly selfish to hog the control but leave athletes swinging in the wind while the BMC works out what it wants to do and how it wants to do it. As I said earlier, if say one needed a license to climb in the Lakes and the governing body was withholding them because one or two people thought it was good strategy that might somehow make climbing in the Lakes better by 2032, the community would say “what the … gave you two the unelected right to impose that strategy on the whole hiking community?” It’s no different.

It does come across as special pleading and displays exactly the lack of concern and urgency that the board has been guilty of for years now. These are young athletes' careers and lives, and the BMC, having assumed the role of NGB, has a moral duty to address the multiple and chronic problems which it has long known about. Where is the experrtise and experience of comp climbing at board level? Why has the BMC not bothered to recruit directors who are competent to fix things? Why have some directors privately acknowledged the incompetence at the top of GBC and then left that leadership in charge?

What you say about specialist committees would hold more water if CCPG itself had more comp climbing expertise and/or had a more effective record of managing GBC.

If the board is too busy to take effective action to protect the sport (and the young members whose careers are being ruined) then they should either resign in order to let more competent and committed individuals take over, or take steps to give up the BMC's NGB status.

Thank you, exactly this. 

…we’re really busy looking after mountaineers you know, stop giving us a hard time…

Yes, people would love to, but YOU CONTROL THE LICENSES!

Give up the unearned monopoly and I’m sure comp climbers will never complain to you again.

To whom? 

Let it be known that the BMC is open to alternatives or a partner who can at least help the BMC as the NGB use all its current licenses, and see if groups step up with an offer.

Surely they would also need to organise regional youth comps, school comps, inter-wall comps, assemble a volunteer team of organisers, judges, coaches, belayers and administer national and international competitions. In para, ice and ski mountaineering as well.

Or are you only focussed on one elite aspect.

Surely they would also need to organise regional youth comps, school comps, inter-wall comps, assemble a volunteer team of organisers, judges, coaches, belayers and administer national and international competitions. In para, ice and ski mountaineering as well.

Or are you only focussed on one elite aspect rather than the health of competition holistically?

If the BMC let it be known that it were open to serious discussion about transferring its IFSC national federation status to another body I am sure an effective solution could be put in place urgently. Untangling the relationship with UK Sport etc would, I'm sure, take much longer but if the IFSC (with the BMC's backing) recognised the new group as the national federation I am sure the rest could follow. I think most of the relevant (IFSC level) UK comp climbers would be quite happy to have no central funding whatsoever in return for full access to IFSC competition. For the vast majority (all?) the central government sports funding has no relevance - all it does is pay for GB Climbing staff and expenses. While the GB coaches presence at IFSC comps is of value that role could equally be filled by athletes regular coaches with no detriment to them. 

I think you may be exposing your lack of familiarity with the area. Other than the YCS the largest regional youth comp (MYCS) is already independently organised. School comps are independently organised by walls.I have never come across an 'inter-wall' comp. The BMC has just cancelled its main National comp series and only continues the Britsh events as (I assume) it would then clearly no longer be fulfilling its remit as IFSC national federation. IFSC recognition does not mandate taking on ice climbing and ski mountaineering - these are managed by other governing bodies, are not centrally funded and so could stay with the BMC if the BMC wished. If not they are basically already completely volunteer led and I'm sure they would be quite happy to successfully continue in this way.

Depends on the scope, the IFSC certainly doesn’t demand (at least not that I’ve ever seen) all those things of the national body responsible for licenses, so it would be entirely possible to run elite climbing separately and still do those things.

The quickest solution still remains the board telling GBC that its mission is to provide access for elite climbers and build the strongest possible British team, where “strong” means strength in depth and competing wherever it can, like all the other teams regarded as internationally strong. This includes making clear that seeing one athlete with generational talent winning an Olympic medal is not ”best climbing nation by 2032” (from an NGB standpoint that is - obvious it’s amazing for the athlete). 

I just don’t understand why the BMC is unable to sort this out. The whole thing comes down to the attitude of a tiny number of people being totally out of line with the needs of the comp community. It’s not like this is news to the board. 

So you'd like to fragment 'competition climbing' and have a new body that was solely focussed on the needs of a GBC squad (and the selection of that squad) involved in IFSC competition? 

No 'grassroots'? No 'para'? No 'ice'? 

Interestingly an inter-wall competition is being organised by the AYC in the NE. You need to keep your ear to the ground these days....

I'm not sure anyone has answered my central question about the need to organise holistically.

And, aye, I DO have a lack of familiarity with the area. That's why I'm asking questions.

Yours,

Pushing 80.

Not ideally, I’d like the BMC board to do its job. It had a LONC with signatures from the majority of the GB team, and has since doubled down on the strategy that most upset everyone and cancelled the national series. Still no one in the setup who actually understands the sport. Sorry but it’s pathetic and we’re sick of the board feeling sorry for itself while wrecking the lives of young athletes. It’s about time people took some responsibility for what they’re doing ,volunteer or paid. We’ve all had enough of the pathetic excuses while young people suffer. If the BMC is too skint to fix it, say it publicly and people can help.

My last comment on the thread. Blood pressure not up to responding this sort of stuff.

Er, maybe ask that AYC how much help they've had from the BMC and what they think of the BMC's ability to run competitions?! It's happening in spite of the BMC, not because of it.

Please would directors stop spinning everything in favour of the BMC's public image and start being honest about its dire performance in this area?

Stand corrected - found the 'inter wall' competition think you're referring to (Rock Solid?). Looks really good.

But doesn't that also prove the point - doesn't seem to have any connection to BMC/GBC, or at least that isn't obvious in any way on any website etc. So its quite possible to arrange these competitions cheaper and better than the BMC/GBC does.

And thanks for asking the questions!

It's up to you to give us a viable alternative, by stepping up and taking meaningful action.

If the person who's organised the Rock Solid comp heard that the BMC was claiming credit for it, he'd have an absolute fit. 

He's just returned from a nice break in Iceland, with suitably lowered blood pressure. I shall try to prevent him reading this, on medical grounds.

It doesn't have anything to do with the BMC; and nor do many other comps. Blocfest, battle of Britain, various iterations of the NIBL, SIBL, MYCS, Cumbrian bouldering league, ASBO and many many more are nothing to do with the BMC. However, national comps, including trials / British Championships / Youth opens (as was) shoud be their remit, and there should be no reason why they cant be organised within spending limits. Even if that spending limit is £92k for an international.... 

I thought that this is exactly what GBClimbing was set up to do, and also to keep within a ringfenced budget whilst doing so.

It is not doing it, and it is the responsibility of the board of directors to take a firm stance and tell them to either do the job fully and efficiently or leave and let more competent  people fill the roles. 

I am not a competition climber, I am in favour of the BMC focus being access, but the BMC are the governing body and therefore should be effectively doing the job of the governing body. Currently all concerned at the BMC seem to be saying 'it's not our fault'! It is their fault that they have not kept control of GBClimbing and it's self-serving management!

Hopefully our new CEO will take a firm grasp of the situation and if heads need to roll (some do!) so be it.

Here's hoping!

Actually, no. It's up to those wanting an alternative to step up and describe their proposed solution, wouldn't you say?

Argh, promised myself I wouldn’t look at this thread again to keep blood pressure under control. But that’s just ridiculous.

You’ve been given at least one proposed solution: step up and stop the BMC wrecking young athletes’ careers by actually dealing with the issues you’ve known about for years and if you didn’t know about in detail couldn’t have been made more explicit than in the LONC signed by the majority of the British team. The easiest solution is to re-read the bloomin’ thing, compare it to what’s actually happened since, then take some actual action instead of trying to defend the indefensible, and, I repeat, wrecking young athletes chances by an indifference to their plight that is in fact callous, whether you intend it to be or not.

The BMC are the ones that are utterly failing these unbelievably dedicated young people, as evidenced. Others are trying to suggest ways to improve but they have the significant disadvantage of not actual being on the bleedin’ board! Pathetic.

So based on my earlier post there seems to be 3 main issues:

1. Competition climbing being part of the same organisation as outdoors / access. UK Sport and Sport England expect to have one organisation to cover both elite and mass participation in any sport. In my view it would be a Brexit-level act of self harm to try and split competitive climbing from the more traditional areas of the BMC. Yes, competitive climbing may take more than its fair share of the overall pot, but I suspect that it's presence increases the size of the pot, so outdoors / access actually receives a net benefit. 
2. Governance. Frankly, I think that changing the governance structure (eg making GBC a separate legal entity) is just rearranging the deckchairs, and won't make any difference (see below). Also, it will distract effort from the places that the BMC management should be concentrating on.
3. GBC Operational Effectiveness. There are serious concerns about GBC financials, and its operational effectiveness in filling competition places. It seems very telling that on the one hand we have board members who appear to have limited understanding of the way that GBC is operating, and on the other hand we have no-one associated with GBC standing up to give their side of the story. This seems to indicate either ignorance or arrogance. My strong suspicion is that the management of GBC feel they are accountable to UK Sport and not to the BMC. Given the LONC signed by many of the athletes, and the lack of change since then, I believe that personnel changes in the GBC management may be necessary.  

Frankly, I think that if GBC was well run (3) would vanish, which in turn would remove (2), and fewer people would question (1). Fix the real issue - the current GBC management.

Whilst not disagreeing with either of your thorough posts, my summary (having read lots on UKC but not having any personal involvement) is:

1. GBC is being run badly

2. This is really annoying various groups of people who are involved in different ways

3. These people are therefore coming up with various proposals to change things

4. if GBC was well run it would all go away.

From my point of view this is not the case as there needs to be a discussion about how much it is reasonable for the BMC to spend on GBC. It’s always pointed out that the membership took a vote on supporting competition climbing in 2018 but it was never said that over the next five years the BMC would spend nearly as much money n comps as it does on access and conservation.

Since then there has been a constant attempt to diminish the impact on the wider BMC and exaggerate the benefits. 

But (as per my post), there are two somewhat linked questions. How big is the pot, and how much of the pot does GBC take from the BMC.

As per this post from Offwidth : https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/crag_access/what_would_gb_climbing_look_l...

"The fundamental difficulty is the funding bodies want a single point of contact for funding of a 'sport'."

We know that the BMC does generate some extra funding through competition climbing - because you have to be a BMC member to compete in a BMC competition. This is aside from any UK Sport grant income. I don't know how much the BMC receives from Sport England, but potentially the BMC's association with competition climbing improves our visibility and increases that funding. So I think we need to look at the bigger picture - by being the single point of contact for a sport, the BMC gains exposure, funding and credibility. If we lost that, would we be in a better position to look after the interests of our members? I'm not convinced. GBC may take more than their fair share of the pot, but they are making the pot bigger.

On a related note, the BMC missed a huge opportunity as climbing walls became popular. The sad truth is that most clubs are not interested in under 18s, due to safeguarding issues (which are much more front and centre than they were 30 or 40 years ago when I started climbing). So the route into climbing for most kids is through walls and competitions. The trick is then to be able to take this well of youthful enthusiasm and transition it to outdoor climbing. Not only have I taught my own kids to climb, but I am helping some of their friends to transition to outdoor climbing. Just last week, I was asked by a teenager at my local wall if I could teach them to climb outdoors. So my own view is that it is important for the long term that the BMC engages strongly with indoor climbers and youth competition, because this is where the bulk of our future membership will come from.  

I think this is an oversimplification - the BMC is spending a lot on comps, but it's also receiving a lot of government money (and potentially sponsorship etc) that's ringfenced for comps, so it's not like it's all money that would otherwise go on access and conservation if the BMC didn't run comps. IIRC we're also at a historic high in terms of spending on access and conservation, or at least in terms of numbers of permanent staff working on it.

What is fair to say is that it's hard to pin down exactly how the BMCs sources of income stack up against its outgoings, and particularly, how much of the income that's coming from members who care more about access, conservation, safety etc is going into running or attending or training for competitions. This is partly because it's a difficult question, but it's also one that seems hard to get a complete and straight answer about and one big argument in favour of running GBC (or whatever) as an independent subsidiary is that then, AIUI, everything then has to be explicit and up-front. And conversely, a reasonable way to take away some of the force of that argument would be for the BMC to provide that clarity (and give some sense of understanding why people care about it) under the current structure.

The information is (nearly) all out there. For the years 2018 - 22 the BMC spent (net) £1263 on comps and £1576 on access and conservation, management of huts and owned sites etc. Once the 2023 accounts are in that gap might have shrunk (or grown).  

See my post above. There are probably a couple of hundred (plus some parents/families) members who join as that is the only way to gain access to comps so these membership subs need to be added to the equation although to be accurate you'd have to remove the costs associated with membership.

Someone has given me a dislike for this so probably ought to show my working out (all figures are from here https://www.thebmc.co.uk/bmc-annual-reports-and-annual-accounts. Sorry not sure how to put tables here hope the format is understandable. For comps 2022 I've added the £90k net cost of hosting the World Cup. For 2018 there were separate figures for A&C and maintain of sites and buildings so I added these together

             Comp ('000)        A&C ('000)

2018         £141               £361

2019         £257               £257

2020        £268                £283

2021         £327               £453

2022          £270              £274

Total:         £1263             £1628

Climbing is, if not unique, certainly unusual in that the competitive side is tiny compared with the majority who participate for leisure purposes.  Most other sports I can think of with a large leisure element - cycling, canoeing and horseriding spring to mind - also have a strong element and history of competition. In climbing we have an NGB which receives government funding, much of which is to support elite athletes, but where only a tiny number of its members participate in competitions, a few more watch them, but probably the majority have little or no interest in them (and some are actively opposed to them, or at least want nothing to do with them).

The problems with GBC seem to boil down to poor financial control and poor operational management. The blame for both these lies principally with the management of GBC, although the BMC Board can be criticised for poor oversight. However I'm not sure how removing that oversight and putting it in the hands of a subsidiary board is going to help. 

The issue of the number of licenses being issued to athletes is a different matter. I'm not sure this is due to poor management, rather it seems to be a policy decision. The same might also be said of the cancellation of the national series.  It can be questioned whether these policies are the right ones, but that is not the same is saying they are being implemented poorly or incorrectly.  It is quite possible an independent subsidiary board might have come to the same decisions.

Even if it were to become an independent subsidiary the BMC would have to continue providing financial support to GBC, as it is a condition of the government funding that the BMC also puts in a percentage, so it will want to retain some oversight. However its influence over an independent subsidiary will inevitably be weaker than with an internal department.  Whilst better control of GBC is undoubtedly needed, especially over its finances, I'm not persuaded that an independent subsidiary is necessarily the way to go.