Indoor bouldering has seen an explosion in activity over the last decade, with many dedicated bouldering centres being built all over the country. To support this activity, in 2018 Mountain Training published guidance for the safe supervision of bouldering in consultation with the Association of British Climbing Walls. However, as yet there is no national standard or pathway to accredit supervision competence, other than through roped climbing qualifications, such as the Climbing Wall Instructor, that may not be appropriate for bouldering-only venues.
Responding to calls from the indoor climbing industry, we (Mountain Training) are investigating a proposal for an indoor bouldering qualification that could accredit holders with the basic skills to instruct and supervise bouldering safely. We would like to establish the desirability, demand and preferred content of a bouldering supervision qualification from across the entire sector involving both professionals and volunteers.
We have launched two short surveys, for individuals and organisations, so that we can first establish the need and, if necessary, design a qualification scheme that best suits the sector’s needs. If you would like to take part in this process please complete the relevant survey which should take less than ten minutes.
All data gathered will be held in strict confidence by Mountain Training.
The survey for individuals is aimed at potential candidates of this new qualification.
yet another NGB that seem to be Gatekeeping the outdoor industry for those that have the resources to pay for the continual generation of further sub-divided qualifications.
What is mountain Training doing to make its quals open and accessible to all and lowering the barriers to entry for those not currently well represented in the sector?
I think you'll find its doing quite a lot. I enquired about starting up Lowland Leader courses at my centre and was told that I will have a much better chance if we are offering courses to less-represented groups. That is just one example that I know of. But better yet, start a discussion as a new forum topic rather than trying to derail this post.
genuinely not trying to derail the post. My question was earnest and it is encouraging to hear that they are trying to address these issues. Mountain Training was asking for feedback and I thought that their questionnaire was limited in its scope in comparison to their above post so I thought I would reply here in addition to filling out the survey.
Out of interest did they offer any help as to how you might go about offering Lowland Leader to less represented groups?