UKH

I am still shellshocked from being informed last night that the BMC Office was unable to verify a substantial number of those who signed the Change petition as being BMC members to the extent that it takes the numbers well below the 382 required for the resolutions to be included on the AGM agenda. 

I sent the details of 411 signatories for the subsidiary resolution and 461 signatories for the financial disclosure resolution and was completely confident that at least 382 would match up against the info I sent (name, location and full or part post code) with the information held on the BMC membership database. There is a small discrepancy between my figures and theirs (probably mainly due to me sending 19 later that have maybe have not been included) but I’m told that for the subsidiary signatories only 151 were verified, 45 came up with a match but weren’t current members and a staggering 195 weren’t matched at all. Similarly for the financial disclosure only 177 were verified, 50 came up as match but weren’t current members and 214 weren’t matched at all. I’ve requested further info from the office to try to understand how it went so wrong. 

However, the net result is that I’ve failed to progress this as a member only resolution because with the shortfall involved there isn’t enough time between now and the 27th April deadline to remedy the situation. I’m sorry to all signatories that I’ve let down – I’m also gutted.  

The only avenue left to get the resolutions on the AGM agenda is to escalate the resolutions to Members Council for them to vote on. The threshold for this is 25 members which obviously we have and despite initial advice to the contrary it is possible to pursue both routes according to MC.   

The resolutions were discussed broadly at a recent MC pre-meeting and the feedback via Jonathan White was:

- This is the first time that anyone has brought a motion from the membership since the 2018 Articles came in, so as we don’t have a tried and tested method of administering that we’ll need to work our way through it pragmatically.

- If the BMC office has a preferred approach to make administration easier for themselves, then Simon should be given whatever assistance that we can give to use that.

- That in Council and beyond, there’s full support for Simon’s right to bring a motion, and recognition that he has a sufficiently high level of support (i.e. we shouldn’t get hung up on absolute numbers, not least because the BMC’s hasn’t published precisely how many voting members it has as the basis for the calculation, but more because that clause was about ensuring that there is a high level of support for any motion, and there is clearly a high level of support.

- That in Council and beyond, there’s a very high level of sympathy for Simon’s request for more transparency and for the costs of competitions to be firmly ‘ringfenced’. The real debate will be on how we do that, not if.

A function of the BMC as a Council is to be a forum for debates between members, and in that ‘the organisation’ should be neutral independents facilitating the debate, and then actively supporting the implementation of whatever is decided

From an MC perspective representatives (like MP's) represent both the members and their own views and will take into account the number of signatories that have supported the motions. It maybe that the resolutions are voted to be included at the AGM but without MC endorsement. I have no idea how it will play out.

Homing in on Jonathan’s statement “there’s a very high level of sympathy for …for the costs of competitions to be firmly ‘ringfenced’. The real debate will be on how we do that, not if.”  I would like to add that any internal ringfencing alternative will be a far weaker structure that is more prone to ‘funny business’ than a subsidiary with the sort of consequences we have seen in 2023. 

My rationale for ringfencing using a subsidiary structure is this:

The financial and operational risks and responsibilities at GBC have grown substantially since becoming an Olympic sport and will continue to grow. This growth is illustrated by staff numbers rising from 1.5 FTE (Full time employees) to I believe 12 FTE in 2023.

Currently there is significant moral hazard with the departmental set up of GBC as there is incentive to increase exposure to risk because the organisation itself and the those that make decisions do not bear that risk or even much in the way of any consequences when things go wrong. 

A subsidiary set up will reduce those risks to the BMC (and its traditional activities such as Access) by introducing a stronger framework of accountability, transparency and decision making in the following ways:
•    By containing the GBC finances so it is completely transparent in its day-to-day workings and the statutory accounts how much it has received and spent  
•    By introducing full legal accountability for the governance, operations, and finances with the subsidiary GBC Board notably with its CEO
•    By creating a structure and route leading to GBC no longer being subsidised by the BMC
•    By populating that Board with volunteer members from Partner Organisations and those from Competition Climbing and Professional Sport all of whom are professionally and/or personally invested in the success of GBC and knowledgeable about the sector  
•    By replacing the current two layers of senior management (CCPG and BMC Board) with one (the subsidiary Board) to facilitate faster and more knowledgeable decision making. 
•    By instilling financial discipline at GBC of having to operate within the constraints of its own bank account and thereby encouraging it to develop ways of generating additional third party income. 
•    By creating a divide between the representational and governing aspects of the BMC 

To date internal ringfencing of the internal department has failed and even if introduced any internal departmental arrangement will largely rely on goodwill and competence and be prone to abuse. A subsidiary arrangement is a far more robust long-term solution with its formal legal framework which introduces higher standards of accountability, transparency and decision making.

To wrap up, thank you everyone who has lent their name to the petitions. It has demonstrated how much members care about trying to safeguard the BMC. I think the whole process has exposed severe deficiencies in the clarity and content of some of the clauses in the articles and lays bear the practical difficulties of progressing a member resolution which I hope leads to some reforms.  

Simon
 

Simon,

As someone currently on Members' Council (and on the Board) I do support your right to put a resolution to the AGM, under the Articles. I have to admit that I was surprised to find that, under those same Articles, it would appear that Members' Council itself is not allowed, as of right, to submit resolutions unless they get an 'external request'.

I should also be properly open and state that whilst I support your 'right' I would vote against your proposition 2 (I hope proposition 1 is being openly addressed for the future). I really feel that the 'changing of the guard' we currently have needs to work it's way through the system.

Well done for being the only one brave enough to bear the bad news.

You were in favour of the ORG’s ‘firm recommendation’ for GBC ringfenced in a  subsidiary 5 years ago…what happened to you  

Sorry to hear that. I voted in favour of your proposals.

What's the BMC's position? That people who voted are not in fact members? If so, how exactly is that claim verifiable (or not)?

Thanks for supporting the petitions.

I’ve requested a breakdown so I can do some sampling. I was expecting a handful of anomalies but nothing like 195/214

There was an article in the Daily Telegraph a couple of weeks ago about the National Trust using similar tactics to stifle members concerns. Sir William Proby previous NT chairman stated "stifling dissent will only lead to a running sore of disaffected members outside the organisation which will damage this great institution" the BMC should heed this warning ⚠️

The National Trust which is under pressure from a concerted campaign by right-wing shit-stirrers, led by the Telegraph? I'd take what they they have to say on the subject with a ladle of salt. 

Wait, so the BMC say you haven’t got your numbers quite right?

The irony.

As the Daily Telegraph article you refer to is behind a paywall, I cannot verify the veracity of your claim. Therefore I gave you a down vote.

Also, how can "disaffected members" be "outside the organisation"?

As a wild guess the article was probably highlighting the "concerns" of a bunch of alt-right anti-woke blue-rinsers complaining about the NT highlighting the truth about where the wealth came from to build the stately piles of England & Wales. Not exactly a valid parallel with the concerns of BMC member with the BMC?

I'll check with our membership secretary, but I think it's possible that members who join through a BMC club, and have paid their club subscriptions for 2024 within the period Jan - Mar 2024, may not have been registered by their club with the BMC until 31 March and therefore may not have been counted as "BMC Members" by the BMC when they signed your petition, even though they believed themselves to be so. I'm treasurer of Ipswich Mountaineering Club and I know that I only transferred the subscriptions to the BMC for our first tranche of members at the end of March, which was when the BMC expected us to do so.

Martin

the BMC Office was unable to verify a substantial number of those who signed the Change petition as being BMC member.
 

Ok, if that turns out to be true, then so be it. But how exactly (and by who)  is it going to be verified? If it turns out not to be the case, where does it leave the credibility of the BMC?

Interesting! Thank you 

Thankfully I don't think the BMC has any members who dislike it to the extent that the individuals involved in the "Restore Trust" campaign hate the National Trust (and moral decency).

Simon:

It's a shame that your motions are potentially going to be rebuffed on a technicality (or possibly a clerical error as mentioned up thread). There is sufficient support for the motions to be submitted to Members Council for consideration to be added to the AGM agenda so hopefully this will be done (even if I believe that separating GBC is likely to be counter productive).

I signed up for your proposals but i can't remember details of what ID it asked for?  Can you remind us?

May be WE can confirm the nature of our BMC status, even if the BMC can't verify it.  You could challenge the varacity of the verification outcome if you can demonstrate failure of its process.  Maybe you know someone on the 'declined' list who you can talk to?

As I watch all this unfold, I'm getting there.

An AGM where everyone has a mute button that refuses to address what members want to hear about is pretty disdainful. A decent organisation would put Simon's motion on the agenda because it's clearly on members' minds. If they don't then I'd strongly support a monc.

It seems like there’s either a willingness to engage and listen to concerns, or there isn’t. Can’t they just choose to debate around the issues? It would be disappointing if the rejection was on the grounds of the member names not going through as Martin Hore reports above. 

That said, I'm encouraged by what I’m hearing about our new paddling friend at the top.

Me too but I'll reserve judgement until we see it translate into actions. Still early days yet, so watching and waiting for now.

Showing some acknowledgement of members' concerns here by talking about at least motion #1 would be a very very easy win....

If the verification issues related to club members this should be fairly straightforward for Simon to identify if he's been given a list of names that haven't been verified as I suspect the bulk of support from club members came from within the CC, which he is a member of. There were a lot of questions from club members asking if they could support the motions (concerning in that a lot of BMC members don't seem to know what democratic rights they have within the organisation, but various people were happy to confirm that they have the same voting rights as individual members provided they are over 18).

RE: New CEO, I am hearing tremendously positive things from Andy Say, Offwidth/ Steve Clarke and a staff member. He made the right noises responding to my question at the Peak area meeting. I understand that he has arranged at least one meeting for Simon with one of the funding bodies to help Simon put together the details of his speech introducing the motion 2 at the AGM. He very much gives the impression of believing that if something is being done it should be done properly and equipped with the salient information.

Jonathan White's comments feeding back from Members' Council is strongly suggestive that the motions, or something a lot like them will be on the agenda.

I absolutely don't want the motions to not be discussed at the AGM as the result of a technicality, it seems pretty clear that I am in agreement with Members' Council on this based on Jonathan's comments. 

If this is the case then I would feel duped that this information hadn’t been relayed as I just took the numbers at face value. Similarly I should have been informed in advance.

It would also be the case that the BMC office cannot hold itself out to manage a verification process by any means if they do not even have the names for a huge swathe of members. 

I signed the petition and am definitely a BMC member.  Happy to help you with any verification you try to do 

Thanks. Hopefully I should get the splits early next week. I sent the below to the Company Secretary yesterday but I’d also now like to know how many members don’t have their names and addresses recorded on the database and in turn how this impacts on the legitimacy of the Office’s capacity to verify signatories to member resolutions. 

Hi Thom

I got word from Andy Say last night and am frankly still a bit shellshocked about the numbers of those who signed up but weren’t members and those that you couldn’t identify. 

Can you send me back the listing of the signatories that fell into each of the three categories and any supplementary info to help me understand where things went wrong. 

Thank you, Simon

Clubs are required to provide address etc to the BMC. You can't be a BMC member without them having the data to provide to the 3rd party liability insurer and you can't be a member of an affiliated club without being a BMC member (a few years ago there was an issue with this around a CC member who refused to allow the BMC to have this data).

You would be right to feel hard done by if it is the club membership issue which Martin has suggested that has resulted in invalid signatures.

Just because the signatures weren’t validated doesn’t became make them invalid signatures  if they are in fact BMC members.

If the BMC Office doesn’t possess the information to validate significant numbers of members (or indeed any) then it doesn’t have the legitimacy to declare any signatures invalid.

It is small wonder the figures were relayed back to me by poor Andy who incidentally wasn’t provided with any further information as to why so many signatories weren’t validated. 

Hi Simon

I've now checked with our club membership secretary. He was efficient and notified the BMC of each renewed or new member within days of their paying their club subscription for 2024. But he doesn't think there was any clear requirement from the BMC to do so. He could have delayed doing so for a period, extending potentially to when we paid the first tranche of subscriptions across to the BMC at the end of March. There is also some mention in the BMC information around this of a "period of grace" for 2023 members renewing extending to 31 March 2024. So it's possible that people signing the petition thought they were BMC members but didn't appear on the BMC database, either because they had paid their club renewal subscription, but their club membership secretary had not yet notified their renewal to the BMC, or they had not yet paid their club renewal subscription because they thought there was a period of grace till 31 March.

If you receive the list of non-member signatories from the BMC it should be fairly easy to identify if the above has happened - you will probably know some of them. Either way, there seems to be a method by which Members Council can get your motions on the agenda.

I write as someone who, along with others on here, strongly support your right to get the motions debated, even though I may not vote for both of them.

Martin

Thank you for support and following up on this.

The BMC should have been open about these issues from the outset rather than hoping no one would question what was going on as appears to be the case. Again.

Unfortunately it is not straightforward with progressing through things with MC either. 

I’m obviously only able to progress the resolutions as worded in the petition but I understand that some MC are unhappy with the wording but it is only possible for them to vote as worded. If they reject it they can’t themselves vote through a similarly worded resolution due to the restrictions in article 11.8.2 (b).

There is also the not small matter that neither MC (or even the Board) are allowed by the articles to post resolutions 🙃

Can you email me your name, postcode and membership number to:

simon@simonleeconsulting.co.uk

For reference the membership number can usually be found in the top right hand corner of on any marketing emails sent to you by the BMC.    

I can then send on to the BMC Office for validating.  

Thank you, Simon

The petition is still running:

https://chng.it/WRLdt7wGJ2

I signed. Happy to give my BMC membership number if required.

It sounds like you're slightly jumping to the worst conclusion here, unless you've got additional information about the nature of the issue that hasn't yet appeared on this thread. There's speculation that the discrepancy could be caused by issues verifying club members, perhaps especially at this time of year, and if that's the case then the BMC could perhaps have highlighted that in advance or found a workaround. It seems to me that it's also possible significant numbers of people wanted to support your cause but actually aren't BMC members, or entered an incorrect address (e.g they've moved house but forgot to update the BMC), or saw you struggling to reach the threshold and figured signing a few times under different names would slip through the net. Those petition sites sometimes advertise petitions to other people themselves within the site (e.g "you've signed this petition, now have a look at these others you might be interested in"), so maybe some people even signed without any real link to the topic at all. Weirder things have happened on the internet.

Let's establish the facts before using this as another stick to beat the BMC with. Especially as there's currently every suggestion that they could still find a way to have the motions debated regardless of the signature issues. I get that it's a huge disappointment to you after pouring so much effort into rallying support, but I'm afraid I just don't find the percentage of verified signatures all that astonishing considering the number of different ways for signatures to end up legitimately unverifiable by the BMC.

ditto

If this is the issue, doesn't it also raise a question about whether these ,"Schrödinger" members are insured?

I was specifically responding to Martin’s post that confirmed how it worked with club registrations and yes it would have been useful to have been made aware of the lag. Whether that had a significant impact on the validating remains to be seen. 

My understanding is that they are covered for the first 3 outings with a club regardless and then once they are entered into MSO they are covered once again. A club membership secretary would be able to explain in more detail how it works.

I see, thanks.

I had no part to play in that decision; I had resigned a year earlier somewhat battered. 😂

I know but you told me you thought it was a good idea

Done.  Good luck!

Frankly if I moved house I don’t I’d tell the BMC either.  I’ll do anything to avoid being sent Summit…

Simon; six or seven years ago I totally supported the recommendation.  But it didn't happen. The opportunity to create an independent 'NGB' for Comps passed. Just like the Articles proposal didn't happen 😊 I can live with it.

Right now I'm focussed on trying to get what 'is' working 'right' I'm afraid.

*Don’t think 

If you don't want to receive Summit Magazine you can just email office@thebmc.co.uk with your membership number and say you don't want to receive the magazine. 

Don't give up on a good idea.. or be short termist..

It was just a joke but funnily enough we did contact them to ask them to stop sending two copies (my partner and I are both individual members), and then again when both copies continued to arrive despite our request.

We gave up, we get two copies of every issue. Neither gets read.

Strange, they confirmed to me that I wouldn't get issues in the future within a day or so.

Simon

I personally told you right at the beginning that the information for change.org was not enough to verify members; as we found in 2018 with John Roberts resolution.

You were offered the opportunity to use the BMC web form for the resolution, which ensures members are validated for the vote.  You chose not to use this method.

Staff have spent 3 full days trying to verify your voters.

I asked Andy to give you a heads up on Friday as I was unavailable most of the weekend and Thom wouldn't be able to contact you until Monday.

Finally it should be clear that the articles have 2 thresholds.  0.5% (382 members this year I believe) for members resolution or 25 members for it to be sent to Council.  Those numbers are binary (i.e. 381 and 24 are not enough) because they are in the Articles.  This principle was clearly agreed and supported by council on 6 Apr. 

Everyone on council supports your right to bring resolutions under the articles and are expecting to formally review your resolution at our meetings in May if you request we do as you have >25.   I look forward to you contacting Thom or I on or before 27 Apr if you want this raised to council under article 11.8.2 as you have suggested above.

How long would it have taken just to publish the information they're trying to get out of you?

In reply to Andy Syme:

The Membership Manager told me he would be able to match postcodes and names with the database. That doesn’t sound like a hard thing to do. 

I’m surprised and sorry that it took so much staff time but the threshold of hundreds of signatures was set by the Articles not by me. What were the difficulties in terms of why it took so long?

In light of the comments above can you confirm how complete the database is at this point and whether the information is sufficient to complete a full and complete validation process by any means?

Simon, as you've seen details sent.

Also as mentioned, despite not supporting them both, I hope these resolutions get on to the agenda at AGM and we can have a robust discussion about them to allow us to move forward.

I am sure the MC will do what is required to get them discussed.

I never receive anything from the BMC but am a paid up member through the Cleveland MC. I'd fully expect not to be on the BMC database. 

It seems strange that so many people signed a petition thinking they were BMC members / saying that they were. Either lots of people are mistaken or there's a flaw in the BMC system of counting who is a member. Seems like it's probably the latter. 

They have and in large numbers of cases the names and the postcodes, or partial postcodes, either didn't match a unique BMC member or matched multiple members, current and expired.  They are not saying the unverified people are not BMC members but that they can not verify them as BMC members.  The process we offered requires a number of data items, in order to allow verification without this issue.

Yes, very few directly matched so staff had to do significantly more work to try and match people.

According to Clubs Committee Chair, there is only 1 club who has not renewed yet (circa 200 people), so unlikely to be a significant factor.  Clearly if the club hasn't updated a members address then the BMC have no control over that, or a way to ascertain who has moved in the last year.  

That would suggest your address is out of date (so don't receive Summit) and your registered email is out of date or you are spam filtering all BMC emails.

What I can say is 22% of people we could verify, their name and address matched a record in the BMC database, were not BMC members any more.

Thank you for the info. It may well be that the out of date postcode info on the membership database accounts for a lot of signatories. I am getting the spreadsheet back from Thom shortly and can start crunching through it. I am also getting a lot of emails through from signatories 🙏🏻 with their membership numbers and also a lot of nice messages.

Finally I would like to pick up on this point that you made:

This is not clear to me at all given the feedback from the Council in the OP which was relayed via Jonathan White:

- That in Council and beyond, there’s full support for Simon’s right to bring a motion, and recognition that he has a sufficiently high level of support (i.e. we shouldn’t get hung up on absolute numbers, not least because the BMC’s hasn’t published precisely how many voting members it has as the basis for the calculation, but more because that clause was about ensuring that there is a high level of support for any motion, and there is clearly a high level of support.

The articles may be clear but the extent to which they are followed to the letter isn’t. For example, as I understand it, the Board didn’t properly consult (such time, place or means)  with the Council about holding the AGM online

I see what JW said to you but wasn't part of that conversation.  I know what was said at the meeting on 6 Apr and Council were clear that the Articles had to be followed to avoid being in breach.

The Council pointed out this error to the Board (Item 8 7 Oct https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=2306) and flagged their concern to the Board, but did not ask the Board to reconsider given the financial constraints on the budget.   The Chair of the Board accepted they made a mistake and will consult in future.

I am sure you like other members would want the Board and Council to follow the Articles.  If mistakes are made then taking appropriate action to correct, or prevent future occurrences is sensible, but I would disagree with your inference that it should set a precedent to deliberately ignore them in the future.

Two answers for the price of 1........

Doesn't matter what Jonathan said, the articles must be followed, or there is the possibility of decisions being challenged and potentially reversed. Especially when its potentially contentious, such as changing the structure and relationship between BMC and GBC.

What Simon or anyone else wants isn't relevant here; the articles must be followed, so its 0.5% of the membership number. So its also important that the BMC knows exactly how many members it has, or things could get messy. And we all know what can happen when  BMC numbers get messy.......

i would suggest the BMC gets some expert legal advice on this, it'll pay dividends in the long run. Where's Rupert Davies when you need him?.....

Delays by clubs in uploading their memberships shouldn't make any difference. BMC membership runs from 1 April so any who were club members last year were still current members up to 31 March whether or not their club had uploaded their details for 2024 (the deadline for this was 31 March). 

MSO is a bit of a mess since it seems to run in calendar years (which is probably how most clubs organise their membership). The only ones who might have been missedare people who joined a club for the first time on or after 1 January 2024 and whose details hadn't yet been uploaded.

As there appear to be different views of Council's position on this, for the record I stand by the feedback I gave Simon, which he's quoted at the start of this thread. My recollection was passed on to him very soon after the meeting, drawn from my first hand knowledge of having attended the meeting and actively participated in it. Some others evidently have a different recollection of Council's view, but if those are people who did not attend the meeting (perhaps due to not being Councillors, or due to being on the other side of the world at the time) then that may go some way to explaining the differences in our respective recollections. I invite others who were present to give their persoectives so that Members (past, present and potentially future) reading this can draw their own conclusions. Where's Councillor Offwidth in all of this?

Of course the letter of the Articles matters - to some of us 'Articles Geeks' more than it does to some others. But equally so does the spirit of the Articles, and the basis for those being drafted in the first place, plus the fact that this is the first time that some of them are being tested. We didn't write everything down in 2018 for easy reference now, and (shock horror) we might not have got all of it right!

To jog a few memories, the 0.5% figure was an arbitrary number arrived at in 2018 after some debate, and justified on the basis that John Roberts had managed to easily secure c. 700 signatories via social media (I forget the format, but it wasn't subject to verification) to support the spirit of the ORG recommendations prior to the preceding AGM. The previous requirement for 25 signatures was considered by some to be too low a threshold and open to abuse (though it had only been used once in about 40 years), but after some debate a variation on the 25 was retained - but now requiring Council support as an additional threshhold to cross.

On 19th March and again on 6th April, Council recognised the strong support for Simon's motions, and the reasons that they've been raised. We have significant reservations about the potentially detrimental impact of a decision 'if' to separate climbing without having really thrashed through the 'why, what, where, how, when and who', but absolutely appreciate the need for the debate. We'll see if tomorrow night's Council meeting is any different. To all who have supported Simon's motions, make sure that your memberships are up to date, and lobby your Councillors in parallel with aiming directly for the AGM.

My personal view is that now is not the right time to separate competitions off (IMO the reasons we didn't in 2019 still stand), but our role is to represent the views of Members and the wider community (not just our personal opinions) and to facilitate the debate - not to stifle it.

Just on the specifics, BMC club membership runs from 1st Jan to 31st Dec each year (plus student clubs run Oct to Sept, and Youth Sept to Aug, to match respective academic years).

There is though recognition that most clubs also operate to the calendar year, and so it's not possible for them to instantaneously collect their own memberships and then process them and in turn convey that on the the BMC. For that reason there's a grace period - agreed with our insurers - that cover will be provided for up to three months whilst membership returns are processed. The BMC in turn continues to provide access to services. Yes, if Clubs have not passed on details of new members (or updates for existing ones) then the office can't know about them. Arun and team are good, but telepathy is a big ask.

BMC Club membership ceases at the end of each membership year, and any monthly graph you see of BMC membership will show a drop of c. 3500 from 1st October which hopefully builds back over the next three months, and then a drop of c. 20,000 from 1st Jan, which again (usually) builds back up again. BMC membership has a 'sawtooth profile', so when we talk about annual membership, it's important to do so referring to the same date each year. For that reason, although a legitimate calculation has been made that 382 is the number required for the motions (not 381 or any other number), as the 382 is entirely dependent on which day the calculation was made (and that's not stipulated in the Articles, just that it's the number declared at the previous AGM - was it declared?) Council asked that we not be too rigid about exactly how many Members were needed to meet the threshhold. We weren't playing fast and loose with the Articles, but recognising the subjectivity of applying them.

For anyone who's a total geek (or statistician), the number 382 given means by back-calculation that the assessment of voting Members on that day must have been 76,400. As a Councillor (and previously a Director) I've seen many graphs of BMC memberships, but never seen graphs or tables of the number of Voting Members we have.

Memberships is the number of membership fees paid. Voting Members is the number of people over the age of 18 who've paid membership fees (plus Honorary Members who don't, and Patrons who might, but not Associate Members who's membership fee could be to make them a Member, but not a Voting Member...). When it comes to voting, proxies can vote, but don't themselves have to be Members (of any description).

Keeping up?

I was previously an individual Member and a Member of two clubs, so although only one Voting Member, I paid three memberships and appeared three times in the membership number. Conversely a family Member under the age of 18 who also belongs to a club does not figure in the calculation of Voting Members at all. From what I've heard, the BMC probably has about 4000 fewer Members than memberships, and as 4129 of the Members (on 5th April 2024) were aged between 14 and 18 (I don't have numbers for U14s), there are probably over 8000 fewer Voting Members than there are Members (which may make the threshhold easier to achieve, provided your support isn't from e.g. U18s, who can speak but not vote - we're working on that, and not by limiting their ability to speak).

Sometimes I feel like I should get out more.

Did anyone mention somewhere that our Articles may not be perfect, or the easiest for the average Member or the wider membership or participant to follow...? At least UKC readers are all clear on this now .

Remember there's an alternate reality in which the board just shared the accounts with the members they allegedly represent when asked and all this went away and none of this faff had to happen. Remember that.

That would only address motion 1, I would however like for the members to have access to a reasonable level of detail around finances (i.e. not down to individual salaries or stationary orders, but more detail than saying GBC costs were £Xm and insurance £Ym). 

I don't think anyone is arguing against the financial disclosure.

Update on signatory verification

The Office sent me back my Change spreadsheet yesterday categorising each signatory on the spreadsheet as either a ‘member’, ‘non member’ or ‘no match’ but with no further information as to what info they used to determine that.

I spent a few hours yesterday cross referencing the spreadsheet with the emailed information sent to me by signatories.

Re non-members there are 3 so far who are almost certainly members but have been judged to be non-members which is concerning and I have notified the Office about them to look into.

Looking at the information emailed to me by most of the 'no match' signatories there is usually a difference in postcode between that provided by Change and that provided by then on email. This difference has probably been used to determine the signatory being in the ‘no match’ category. Looking into this a bit more the postcode difference is more likely to be a result of the inexact way Change gathers information than for example signatories changing address. 

Looking at the privacy policy information on the Change website indicates that location of a signatory is initially derived by from the signatories IP address to suggest their location using an IP service called Maxmind. So, for example, when I went on to the petition to test this it suggested my location as S8 even though I live in S10. 

I have emailed the Company Secretary this morning to update him on all this and suggest that based on an understanding of how Change collects data that in my opinion it would be reasonable to verify a member as a close enough match if for example there is only one Jane Doe on the BMC membership database where their postal address postcode is S10 but the Change spreadsheet provides a Jane Doe signatory with an indicative location of S8.

I’ve been told there is concern that getting the FY 2022 figures would be problematic (I think the word impossible might have been used).

If this is actually the case then it’s small wonder that the finances are in such disarray and another piece of evidence that GBC needs properly separating out.

With changes to some key people, very few are now arguing against the financial disclosure. Council certainly fully supported that, as does the new CEO. The 2023 accounts are with the auditors (as they are at this time every year) and will be published with (or ahead of) the AGM papers. Council saw the draft numbers in February, and the 2024 budget was set based on those draft numbers (as it is every year).

At the Open Forum on 20th March the CEO stated what the competitions budget would be for 2024 - back to what was approved by the Board (that I was part of) in October 2020.

In reply to Longsufferingropeholder:

There's an alternate reality where the senior staff and volunteers had applied the checks and controls that are designed into the BMC management system to prevent the organisation losing c. £0.5m over two years and having nothing tangible to show for it at the end. That's the thing to be _really_ angry about.

Published accounts are just the formal factual report on the debacle. They don't solve anything - that is a task that has to follow. Do remember that.

In reply to UKB Shark:

The 2022 figures were published ahead of the 2023 AGM, and those at the 2023 AGM may remember me challenging some reporting on them (was competitions almost entirely public funded as stated, or only 61% public funded as the figures indicated?). Others will be aware that a Director had been challenging the coverage of the reported numbers, and considered the true figure (including contribution to overheads, full cost of employment, proportional allocation of costs from other departments- e.g. MarComs) to be significantly higher. The published 2022 figures were based on one view of cost allocation, but that's what we have to work with. What would be very difficult to do would be to retrospectively reapportion these, and would also divert resource from the current critical mission of trimming c.£0.5m pa from the BMC's running costs (c. half being the 2023 budget over-allocation, and c. half being the 2024 extra/over cost increases, particularly re. insurance) without so damaging the BMC that membership decreases and the issues escalate.

As Members/Owners of the BMC, it's our money that's been lost - not that of the staff or Board. Once the accounts are published, and explanations and apologies given, and key people have departed, hopefully those most effected by this can then draw a line.

We have a new CEO two months in, new interim CFO about to start, an acting head of competitions (who has a track record in his last department of operating to budgets and making savings when required), some new Directors in recently and some further changes of Director to come at this AGM, plus more later in the year.

I've been as big an internal critic of what's happened over the last 2 or 3 years as anyone, but we have the opportunity now for a re-start and to rebuild the BMC back to where it was and on to where it should be. All hands to the pumps to achieve that.

Thank you for your detailed explanation. (One of the good things about UKC is that people are willing to explain complicated issues in detail and not expect that everything worth saying can be communicated in 140 characters!).

I did think that club membership ran from 1 Jan to 31 Dec, and that a "period of grace" was permitted up to 31 March in the subsequent year to enable clubs to process the new year's renewals and get that information (and money) to the BMC. 

But. I've checked by BMC membership card (rescued from the bin as per another thread on this forum) and it clearly says I'm a BMC club member till 31 March 2025. So something doesn't match up here.

IMO it shouldn't be necessary for detailed interrogation of the petition signatories here. These are important issues, clearly of interest to a substantial number of members, and the Board or Members Council (or whoever else is empowered to do so) should simply put them on the AGM agenda without further question. I look forward to seeing that happen. I will decide which way to vote having heard all the arguments (including those from the Board) but I'm not at all happy that I might be denied a vote.

Martin

Well said.

Broad agreement with the odd exception (despite urging BMC practical support for Simon and flexibility on 0.5% also being what I asked for, for very similar reasons you descibe): in particular, I feel current verified numbers don't justify formal debate on voted positions with real consequences (and, worst case,  potential legal issues Ian raised).

I saw the real anger at the Peak area meeting on process difficulties Simon's motions faced and recognise what is happening does not to match the 'spirit' behind the change in numbers to raise a members motion. I just objected to Simon unfairly blaming indiviual staff for issues when it's the organisation's responsibility to aid member democracy.

I still oppose the subsidiary motion for the same reasons. I support internal papers we have received, from the CEO and NEC for indoor climbing, that to me achieve the same things Simon claims a subsidiary would, whilst spending much less members subs, with much lower funder and partner risks, with less time and energy spent on needless governance change and with comp climbers being regarded as climbers inclusively like all other members. However, I still totally support his democratic rights and the need for the BMC to do their best to facilitate them.

On finances I back your comments. The broad picture has been presented (but could be better communicated), but audit has to conclude before we post extra detail.  There are no obvious major nasty surprises Council have been informed of.

I do worry about a terrible decline in diversity on Council and other serious issues, like costs pressures for many on affording membership that need space for member debate that a weekday evening online AGM will struggle to meet.

❤️ Amen to that

Do you think you’ve signed? - I don’t see your name on the petition to have it included on the AGM agenda unless you’ve only signed in the last 24 hours.

https://chng.it/WRLdt7wGJ2

I've just called the BMC members' helpline. I want a refund of my second affiliated club subscription. No matter whether I chose option 1,2 or 3 they ended the call. Disappointed. 

Might be better to email. I’ve noticed they’ve changed the Staff List page and taken out all the email addresses and not even replaced with general ones. The general address is office@thebmc.co.uk but I’ll email you are more specific one

The information on this web page is still current.

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/claiming-multiple-membership-refunds

If you don't want to download and attach the form, just put the same information (membership number, names of clubs, how you want the refund paid) into the body of an email to the same email address.

Once you've requested a refund, it should automatically process for subsequent years, no need to request every year 

Offwidth:

Exactly how many verified members does it for you?

How many hurdles do you need and how high do they need to be? 

Currently there are 155 verified members for the subsid 177 for financial disclosure. That is already a 6 and 7 fold increase on what the previous threshold was. 

... I feel current verified numbers don't justify formal debate on voted positions with real consequences (and, worst case,  potential legal issues Ian raised).

But it would seem that the current number of members is wrong, being inflated by those who are members of more than one club, or who have individual membership as well as a club one (or ones).

Not only does this adversely affect the number of signatories required for any motion, it also lies to any governmental bodies when it comes to claiming membership numbers - always a requirement when getting monies.

How long before the Sports Council (or whatever) decides that figures they receive from the BMC are lies, and either demand an independent audit of membership numbers before allowing any funds to go the way of the BMC - which would seem to be an almost impossible task - or alternatively refuse point blank to issue any funds whatsoever ?

What happens to Competition Climbing then ?

The BMC make the decision but I think it must be somewhere around 0.5% as our articles define it. Your current position of a good bit less than half of that percentage clearly doesn't meet that but I think the BMC should be doing all they can to help you on verification

I just think an 'exact' number of 382 isn't sensible given the regular patterns Jonathon describes and data issues on multiple counting some club memberships and current ineligibilities of under 18s on the motion submission date.  If your motion succeeds it commits significant organisational resources at significant risk, so needs to meet a legally defendable position (as other members may become very unhappy with that extra cost and risk, if that process happened based on a significant percentage who signed your petition who were not verified as being BMC voting members).

I simply can't see how the verification gap can be mostly down to the way the BMC handles club membership lists, given its now April,  but the way Change.org generates post codes could explain a much more significant percentage of that gap. On the other hand, sadly there is no mechanism to stop ineligible voters (even people who have no interests whatsoever in BMC activities) signing your petition.

Council are clear the future structure of GB Climbing must be debated at the AGM and the financial disclosure should be as soon as the audit completion allows accurate figures (ie as soon as possible before the AGM). It's also clear Council need to re-look at mechanisms (and member information on that) for future AGM motions. We are already looking at the possibility of reducing the member age for eligibility to vote.

The position has always been known but the 'error' has become smaller as the proportion of individual-only members grew. A lot of work has been done in recent months to show it's roughly around a few percent. However given some members may have differences in names or addresses held by different clubs it's possible some still have multiple membership numbers that the BMC can't identify as belonging to the same person.

I see any funding risks due to this as dropping due to the recent work (and calling it a 'lie' is plain wrong).

Incorrect. It is confused by the fact that the membership team commonly work in terms of 'memberships' because the number of different memberships equates to revenue figures. But they aren't daft and do know the difference.

One of the first things I did around this was check that the AGM doesn't get a report of 'memberships' it gets a report on 'members'. And that is the case. The staff clean the data of duplicates as far as they can, in order to report to the AGM the number of individuals who hold membership(s). 

What I haven't checked is whether there is a fixed date on which those figures are calculated as, possibly, the timing of the AGM might have a slight impact. Maybe we should report members as at 1st April annually?

It's never going to be absolute. At any one time, for example, the BMC will have several current dead members who can't really be expected to vote! (There are times when I think I might join them soon....😉) But the figure presented to the AGM (and that's the one that resolution thresholds are based upon) is, I am assured, as close as we can possibly get.

Edit - It has been pointed out to me that the requirement is for 0.5% of voting members. Which means we might need to look at the c.4,000 members under 18 who can't currently vote.

Simon

I thought I had signed, but obviously not. Just done. Also emailed you my BMC membership number. Is there a reason the email from Change.org requesting confirmation arrived in Spanish?

Martin

Maybe because I was in Spain when I started the petition 🤷‍♂️

sounds sensible (or a few weeks after the deadline for clubs)

and people joining

so whats a ballpark/working figure of VOTING members ?  No to hold you to it etc but indicative ? Im guessing the 76400 (382 * 200) figure is a good estimate  ?

hmmm the current resolutions doc says (under footnote 1 page 3)(https://www.thebmc.co.uk/media/files/290221_AGM%20Resolutions_V1_0.pdf)

1 0.5% of the number of eligible Voting Members at the previous AGM

that number must be known (allowing for non voters) ?

I would seriously hope that really says "the number of eligible Voting Members reported at the previous AGM!

At the last AGM we only just scraped up 51 voting members AT the AGM 😂

i copied and pasted it! but assumed it was the not the 51 figure !

If you're signing a petition, and you've already been made aware that your details will be checked against the membership database, then it's your responsibility to make sure your details have been recorded correctly on the petition.

Change.org always thinks I'm in Rotherham, not Sheffield. I always change the postcode on the form, to correct it (including when I signed the petition for the 1st motion)

Presumably but I have no idea where it is recorded. Maybe the 2023 AGM minutes which haven’t been released yet?

The BMC considered me a member, and sent me the invitation link to the AGM, consistently until 2023 despite me having not been a member of the university club I had membership through since 2019 nor having given the BMC any monies (to my knowledge) for my "club upgrade" membership since 2019.

It doesn't fill me with confidence in the accuracy of the membership database, to be quite honest.

Been knocked back on this. Matching a name on the membership database and providing an approximate location isn’t good enough. ‘Certainty’ is required: “We can only verify the data given to us if there is a certain match to a member. You are invited to re-submit a final data spreadsheet before the 27th April deadline including the 29 new signatories and with the most complete information that you can collect from the existing unverified signatories in the interim.”

However, the BMC database itself hasn’t proved 100% certain as I seem to have identified 4 signatories who are members who have been judged to be non-members (as opposed to no matches) including one famous mountaineer who is a member of 3 affiliated clubs. The ‘no matches’ includes the names of key volunteers and ex club presidents. I’m waiting back on how AMI members are recorded. 

That must be down to your old club. No names sit on the database that are not paid members or provided annually by clubs.

I have not given any money to the BMC since 2019 but they seem to have considered me to have full individual membership (by way of the "club upgrade") for four years since I last gave them any money. Slack admin from the club can't fully account for that.

How would you know - with ‘certainty’?

As I pointed out above the membership database is not infallible 

I think this is highly unlikely. Occams razor would much more likely indicate they forgot to pay their club subs. Have they contacted their clubs and confirmed they are still paid up members? If clubs have them as members then they will be on the annual list provided to the BMC (unless someone in a club is fraudulent and underclaiming members and pocketing the difference ... as Jonathan said happened once back in the 90s).

Just your speculation...it's easy to confirm either way. Pint bet on being right?

They have gone on the BMC website which says his membership is current and doesn’t expire till next year. As I said he isn’t alone in being judged a non- member. 
 

ps Have you ever considered employment with Fujitsu? 

Presumably there isn't much churn in BMC affiliated climbing club memberships*, last year's list must look a lot like this year's even if this year's wasn't up to date, the BMC affiliation can't have gaps in it, most people signing up to be members in 2024 will have been members in 2023 so still current.

*with the exception of university clubs of course but is your campaign of much interest to students...

I'd try verifying some of the responses yourself, assuming you have contact details and consent to follow up from your signatories. See if you get similar results. Given the modest numbers of responses involved and the niche interest it's far more likely there has been some search/clerical error than a systematic campaign to sign up fake/non members or bots to your petition.

jk

Yes - I have already sent the membership numbers in to the Governance Officer and Membership Manager for the ‘Faulty 4’ and I’m waiting to hear back as to why they were judged to be ‘non-members’.

This is suggestive of their names not coming up at all on the database or as you say a search/clerical error. Either way I’m required to provide certainty but the validation process is not providing certainty and according to Andy Syme above exactitude is important: “Finally it should be clear that the articles have 2 thresholds.  0.5% (382 members this year I believe) for members resolution or 25 members for it to be sent to Council.  Those numbers are binary (i.e. 381 and 24 are not enough) because they are in the Articles” 

Can you tell I’m pissed off?

I asked the BMC if 2023 club memberships were checked for a match and was told yes yesterday. I was also told yesterday John Roberts Change.org petition had the same large scale identification issues and at least one signatory who hadn't signed it. The idea these Change.org petitions are reliable data seems ridiculous to me given how open they are to abuse and how they get suggested to others by algorithms.

In the individual situations Simon raises it's easy to check if there is a real database issue.

Let's not forget the BMC has a web form for confirming indentity for member motions that Simon declined to use.

Thanks for the update/correction Andy.

I am no longer a club member* - waiting to see how I recover from a nasty motorcycle crash, as climbing is "difficult" right now.

However I still get e-mails inviting me to BMC Area Meetings.

Does this mean I am still on the Membership List, because I shouldn't be.

* Was never an individual member.

Note - still more than a little interested in what goes on, but currently not particularly enchanted with the idea of re-joining due not only to injury, but also the current "shenanigans". 

Hardly declined - I didn’t know it existed - nor did hardly anyone else. It’s not in the articles or on the governance page of the BMC website. You didn’t flag up its existence on the initial thread where I publicised the petition and it was only flagged up by Andy Say some time after the petition got going. It is also an unproven system and likely not to be as easy to use as the Change website which could be detrimental to getting the absurdly high level of numbers required. I’ve had a couple of failed passes to follow the MSO invitation link and given up and the webform could be equally clunky.

It also takes ownership and control away from the person starting the petition with information going in a black box handled by the Office who are not always neutral parties.

The BMC database could also be flawed. We would never know if there was mistakes in the systems and process. Where would the checks and balances be? 

I’m sure you will say the website and comms are great and the webform will be efficient, user friendly  and accurate but you don’t know that - no one does as it has never been tested.

Our President said above:

Interesting information Fred. There are certainly multiple problems reported with BMC email invitations to area meetings, including one Councillor. I doubt that means you are on the membership database as a current member.

Aside from being patronising (someone else’s observation) he’s been saying a lot of things lately that I don’t agree with and it very much comes across that he is out of step with Members Council too

Despite no longer being a member (a consequence of the insurance fiasco and the risible quality of Summit), I’ve been following this thread quite closely, so much so that I took the time to turn to my dictionary. I looked up “sh!tsow” and it said “See British Mountaineering Council”.

Since the membership database contains personal data relating to the members, the BMC has a legal responsibility under the Data Protection Act 2018* to keep it as accurate and up to date as possible.

Members who believe that the personal data held about on them on the database (e.g. their address or their membership status) is wrong can apply to the BMC's data controller to have it corrected.  If they don't know that it's wrong but they suspect it might be, they can submit a subject access request to find out.

If the membership database truly is in the kind of mess that seems to be suggested by some of the comments in this thread then worst case scenario the ICO might be be persuaded to investigate, and encourage them to get their house in order.  (Bearing in mind that the ICO also has the power to levy fines for data breaches** should it deem that to be appropriate.)

* Not the EU's GDPR, which no longer applies to the UK for reasons which should be obvious.  The 2018 Act was passed in order that the UK should continue to be regarded as having a level of data protection equivalent to that within the EU, once the B-word had been formally completed.

** Per the CIO web site: "A personal data breach means a breach of security leading to the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, personal data. This includes breaches that are the result of both accidental and deliberate causes."

Come on Simon, Andy either said that to you or he didn't ...it's hardly an opinion; then you distract from this by maligning him (Council is a democracy and most Council majority votes are unopposed, yet nearly all of us disagree occasionally with the majority view, more commonly Jonathan and I). Council have expressed concerns with Board communications and openess (under our MOU) at times in the last year and a half but that's a collective responsibility of the Board.

Claiming the office are not always being neutral, when they just spent days working on your behalf as a member (because you declined to use the web form) is pretty low. It's their job to be neutral in these resolution process situations.

You keep talking about this as if it's ludicrous for the BMC to even try to verify the signatures. If you expect them to just count anyone with a matching name and a partial postcode within a few miles, anyone could trivially sign your petition multiple times by just giving the names of a load of known climbers and guessed postcodes. Requiring an actual postcode match is still far from robust but at least it makes it a little more challenging for people to fake. And to be clear, I'm not saying that would have happened in this case, but if you're going to have petitions, there has to be a somewhat meaningful process for verifying that the signatures are real or why bother in the first place. It seems like the BMC are putting considerable effort into working on it.

How about flipping this on it's head Martin? We don't have a single confirmed example yet of a membership database problem so why are there so many rumours that there are such problems? In contrast Change.org petitions are clearly vulnerable to abuse and that has been demonstrated in the BMC on a previous John Robert's petition (large numbers not identifiable and at least one member listed who didn't sign it).

The one point I would agree with is BMC institutional silence on such serious issues too often allows the rumour mill to escalate.

The examples Simon provided of those who are members he claims have names who are not recognised is an easy situation to resolve one way or the other. I think my pint is pretty safe.

Guessed postcodes wouldn’t be within a few miles of their home address 

There is a precedent for using Change to gather names for a resolution which John Roberts did in 2018 which is why I followed suit. It did get on the agenda but I don’t recall or never knew exactly how.I thought the name and location info would be sufficient but it wasn’t exact enough for the Office. I didn’t appreciate how locations were gathered by Change until a couple of days ago.  I have also suggested the Office send out an email to all signatories saying: “You have been identified as someone who has signed a petition for a BMC resolution. If this is not you please get in touch with the Office”. They’ve not picked up on that option.

Yes. The Office is putting in considerable work and so am I. Should it be this way? No. We are both Guinea pigs of an untested, poorly articulated and ill thought through article running around a cage 

(I personally told you right at the beginning that the information for change.org was not enough to verify members; as we found in 2018 with John Roberts resolution.) 

Right at the beginning? No I don’t recall that. If signatories had inserted the correct postcode then the Change info would have been sufficient. That’s with hindsight. I don’t blame them - it was easily overlooked. 

(>You were offered the opportunity to use the BMC web form for the resolution, which ensures members are validated for the vote. You chose not to use this method.

For all the reasons given in my reply to you above 

I know. Is that my fault? Its a consequence of an absurdly large number of signatories required (372). 

Yes it is their job to be neutral but there is a recent example of blatant bias. As I am sure you are agree this is not the place to go into details except to note that not everyone at office adheres to that principle and this is one of the reasons IMO for anyone seeking to lead future member resolutions that they maintain control over the process.

The process which Staff and I asked you to use is the one published this year and previous years.  It would have avoided all these problems as explained when you first started using Change.org. 

Links to previous years AGM notices and instructions of how to raise a resolution below for information 

• 2021 - https://web.archive.org/web/20210223215451/https:/www.thebmc.co.uk/propose-...
• 2022 - https://web.archive.org/web/20220227080659/https://www.thebmc.co.uk/bmc-agm... 
• 2023 - https://web.archive.org/web/20240312155225/https://thebmc.co.uk/bmc-annual-... 

Also as previously explained in 2018 the criteria for a resolution was 25 members, of the circa 800 signatories we could not verify most of them, but could verify more than 25.

The change in thresholds was done in 2019 and was a special resolution passed by 99% of the voting members (2046 for, 9 against, 245 abstain) https://thebmc.co.uk/bmc-agm-2019-report

It was published after Petition went live and you would have to dig into the archives to find those articles. Are you expecting someone to do that to find something they didn’t even know was there?

It should have either been referenced in the articles or included on the governance page. I think it’s fair to say I am reasonably knowledgable about BMC procedures and I was caught out. 

It may not have been the intention to make member resolutions extremely difficult beyond the spirit of the original intention but that is what has happened and quite frankly you have done little to help knocking back suggestions and with your interpretations of the articles. 

Simon, Look at our messenger chats on 19 & 21 Feb and the call we had on 22 Feb. 

And while it was after you started your petitions it was as soon as I was aware (I was out the country with no practical internet 2-17 Feb) 

I started the petition on the 1st Feb so your messages were 18 days later so that doesn’t qualify as ‘right at the beginning’. 

No, but you could have asked someone before doing change.org, or after discovering the potential problems, and when your petition still had much smaller numbers, moved to the system that would have avoided all this work by staff and frustration on your part.

I think it is a fair point that we should add the basic process (without dates) as a link of the governance, or a similar, page so that in future it is easier for members to find.

Could have, would have, should have. There’s lots of things with hindsight I would do differently but moving to the webform isn’t one of them for the reasons given to offwidth above. What I would have done differently is ask that signatories tag their BMC number onto their surname (as one switched on signatory did) and ask that they they manually type in the post code. 

Horse has bolted now don’t you think? It’s gone from something that seemed to below everyone’s radar to widely known about now. 

I have no idea what you mean about any recent example of blatant bias (feel free to contact me offline) but I'm aware some members have occasionally made such public accusations of staff (without following complaints or other applicable procedures). On any past accusations I have been aware of, when knowing the situations, I always felt the staff members were following correct neutral process and hence the public accusations made about them, without due process, were unethical.

I'm not sure the BMC can legally devolve control of resolutions. You seem to be misunderstanding legally compliant company AGM process, in a democratic membership organisation.

It is unhelpful to suggest there is a data breech or a breech of security; there has not.

The issue is that the data provided from Change.org can not be matched with records in the BMC database because the data quality of the data from Change.org is not sufficient. 

The BMC records are as accurate as the data provided by the individuals and/or the clubs on behalf of the individuals.  MSO is being rolled out which will allow members to review and update their data more easily.

So in examples Simon has flagged in one case the postcode given by Change.org was in NE England, but the persons recorded address (which I believe they still live at) is in Wales.  In another case the club registered a person under their first name and surname, but they actually are known by another first name, which is what they signed change.org under.  

The staff have been working very hard to match the poor quality data from Change.org with the data we hold, they have done this professionally but if the data can not match a BMC member on the database then they can not be verified.

That reply was in reply to me pointing out that I've been considered a voting member for four years after my membership lapsed. It may not be an important issue, but it is an issue entirely unrelated to the format of the data that has been collected.

I’ve not claimed a data breach or breach of security but there are 4 cases of people who I have come across so far who are definitely members but been classified as non-members (as opposed to no match) which indicates their names are either not on the membership database or there was a clerical error in the validation process. 

Lucky you, I've been a club member for over 10 years and recently received my new membership card but have had no notification or information about the AGM sent to me.

It's almost enough to make you think they don't want people to participate.

That's because no information (apart from date and format) has been sent out because it doesn't yet exist!  The AGM will be on 12th June - two months away; it would be quite remarkable for papers, reports and motions/resolutions to have gone out so early.

In this instance it would be simply wrong to circulate an agenda and supporting papers whilst there is still discussion about a possible resolution.

Hi. I've just checked. Article 11.10:

"The determination of the threshold percentages of numbers (as the case may be) for the purposes of...[the Articles]...shall be determined by reference to the total number of Voting Members reported at the previous AGM, rounded down to the nearest number"

Apologies; I know it's 'geeky' but it is fairly clear. It's the number of members that appear in the Annual Report approved by that AGM.  The only wiggle room I can see is whether members who are under 18 are included ('cos they can't currently vote) are included in the reported number. That needs checking out; but the above is how the threshold is determined.

Thanks Andy - Assuming that is how it was arrived at then with the declared figure of members in the 2022 report being 83,018 and the threshold figure of 382 indicating 76,400 voting members means that there were in turn 6,618 non voting members. Who knew we had so many under 18's ....    

I think we are relating to the 2023 report rather than '22 ?  You know; the last AGM 😉.

And, as far as I'm aware, we actually have c.4500 members under 18 currently. There's a working group looking at extending voting rights to those under 18 right now. 

The 2022 Report was the last report unless I am going mad (possible) 

I think I’m guilty of not providing my membership details. Sorry, I went away skiing, caught a virus and was poorly for a fair old while. 
I’m a member via CC, by the way, not individual. 
I’m so sorry if I’ve contributed to the unverified number. 

No problem. Contrary to what I put in the opening post I’m have a last stab at trying to get the numbers. Just email me your membership number and postcode to: simon@simonleeconsulting.co.uk

We’ve got till the 27th

OK. I get it. The report at '23 was relating to '22.

😳. What a tangled web we weave.....But I'm guessing that the membership numbers reported last year related to those current at start of '23.

Not quite. It says “We ended the year with 83,018 members…”

And I would read that as 31/12/2022?

Ive just checked MSO for my membership number to send to you. Weirdly, the cost of my membership is £47k or so. Presumably this is the cost for the whole club I’m in. Very strange. 
I’ve emailed you anyway. 😀

Bargain! 

This is the total cost of the membership for all your club members I believe.

Me too. 

Our President was pretty clear above, and I've been reassured seperately, those cases either have different versions of names or live nowhere near the Change.org generated postcode. So no database issues have been identified so far and you need to get your petition supporters to check their BMC records/ Change.org postcodes.

Bully for you. I’ve found out separately one of the four is due to a different first name on the database (I think it still had his middle and used name) but given that he is a famous alpinist you’d think it would have rung an alarm bell. As for the other three they would have been recorded as ‘no match’ rather than ‘non-member’ if it had been to do with the post code alongside the 200+ no match members. I’ve yet to find out why they were overlooked. 

a famous alpinist you’d think it would have rung an alarm bell. 

No one at the BMC would have a clue about an alpinist, famous or otherwise although in this case there is some scope for confusion as the first name he is known by is not his actual first name.

You said:

Obviously claiming potential database errors, when it turns out they are not. I actually asked on behalf of you (and the membership) as a Council rep, because such database errors would be incredibly serious.

It's been clear all along 'no matches' could be members and in such cases more information is required for a verified match.

It's the route you chose, as opposed to the web form that would have done this automatically. Really quite famous people to you and I,  might not register to a busy membership admin team. Now the identification problem for those individuals are known it's easy to resolve with additional correct information.

No one? So Nick Colton and Dave Turnbull (as well as numerous volunteers!) know nothing about alpinism or alpinists? Cheeky.

C'mon David you know better.  And you are also absolutely right; if you are trying to properly verify memberships you can only work on the data you have. 'We've got a member in London called Algernon Fowler; are we comfortable that someone called Freddy Fowler that lives 3 miles away is the same person.. .'?

They should know amazing para-climber who is on the team, so obviously a BMC member. (That is if the list, which has been removed, was about the unrecognised signatories.)

There were other less well know people on the list who I know are members!

You're missing the point John. We can't just go by a name as it may also be the name of another member or even an impersonation (this happened to at least one member who didnt sign the John Roberts motion).

The validation problems are about having the same postcode and name as on the BMC membership database, (or better still, a membership number). The biggest issue is Change.org often comes up with very different postcodes to the postcode of where members live. The particularly famous climber happened to be known by a different name (used on the petition) to that he has provided for the clubs and hence the BMC database.

From the OP

So in terms of what went wrong I now understand that the Change location isn’t as exact as I assumed it was as it was often drawn from the IP address and often comes up with a nearby post district. I have asked that given this that the verification by location is relaxed more ie member name matches approximate location but this isn’t seen as acceptable.

Of the 45 ‘non members’ I have received emails from 7 of them so far including our famous alpinist. I don’t know whether their middle name is on the database or not. I don’t know the reason for the other six being counted as non members. I have agreed with the Office to park that for the time being.

Thank you to everyone who has emailed me. This has enabled me to gather the membership numbers of 62 signatories for both resolutions who were classified as non members or no matches in the verification process. Keep the emails coming.

Additionally there are 58 new signatories for both resolutions of which I have the membership numbers of 20 of them. Please sign the petition if you haven’t already.

I have chased those I know via Facebook and will email those in the CC handbook who I can name match.

I wanted to publish a list of the 200 or so names of the unverified signatories so others can chase them for member numbers on my behalf but that appears to conflict with GDPR and a post I made on UKC to that effect was pulled.

I will submit the updated back to the Office on the 27th which is the deadline. I have made a request that if the verification thresholds aren’t met that the Office sends out emails to the unverified to see whether confirmation can be ascertained that way 

I’d like to thank Arun, Josh and Thom for the work they have carried out so far and the further work that is heading their way. We are working in less than ideal circumstances to unclear rules. I’d like to stress that I believe they are working diligently as neutral parties. 

I won’t be able to devote as much time to this as I have recently in the run up to the deadline as I have a significant birthday tomorrow and off to Kalymnos on Monday.

Thank you everyone who has supported me and the campaign so far. 

I really appreciate you personally thanking the membership team Simon. 

If two members share the same name, and there's a signature by that name, then one might surmise that one or other member by that name has signed.....

Ask Andy Say about the one I e-mailed to him! Not a common name.

If you have a full postcode, which on average covers 15 dwellings that's probably true.  But where you are getting only the first part (e.g. BD17 which has over 18000 individuals) then it is much harder to say that those are the only 2 people with that name in that postcode and to then surmise they are the, or even a, BMC member.  

Change.org seems to default to your IP address to derive postcode, which for most of us isn't static or tied to our house, and then default to one of the 2317 top level postcodes (before the space in UK terms) which is why it proves so difficult to definitively identify people.  As the staff have clearly stated, it is not any person is not a BMC member, but that the data provided is not sufficient to validate them as a member

As Simon acknowledged above (thank you Simon) the staff are trying to be helpful as possible while ensuring that there is no basis for a challenge under article 11.11 which requires the signatories to be validated as voting members.

I get that but the impression I got was that when e.g. two members existed in a given area with the same name, any signatures with a matching name were being discounted. 
If there's one matching signature, the interpretation should be that one of them has signed and one hasn't, rather than that neither has.

To put it another way: 'we didn't count this signature because we couldn't decide which of the two paid up members called John Smith from S17 it was' would be disingenuous. Maybe I've misunderstood though. It's got pretty hard to follow.

I've not kept up with all the variations but I know staff are doing everything they can.

Interesting you chose John Smith as it illustrates the point.  There are circa 30,000 John Smiths in the UK, there are 2317 top level postcodes.  In simple terms there would therefore be an average of circa 13 John Smiths in each postcode area.  If we have 2 John Smiths as BMC members in a postcode area where it is reasonable to believe there are more than 2 John Smiths living it is not disingenuous to say we couldn't validate which John Smith it was.

Obviously John Smith is an extreme case but very few of us have names so unique that it would be a certainty that we are the only person with that name in a group of 26000 other people; circa 60M people in England and Wales and 2317 top level postcodes....

the issue is there are (say) 100 John Smiths in S17 - is the signature one of the 2 members or one of the 98 non members?  Depends on the process of validation (do we know what that is and how its applied)  The likely hood of the non member being aware is also an issue/judgement call.  It depends if you are starting from "could this be the member" or from other side "prove this is the member"

sounds like the staff are working really hard to do the right thing, but as it's the first go at this system it's being tested to its limits.  Obviously stable door/horse bolted situation but sounds like there needs to be a revamp of the advice/process/requirements etc post AGM. 

For example the BMC in-house system being widely publicised  (i've no idea how it works - does it email all members a personalised link to fill it in, like a ballot ?)  but with the advice that if it's not being used (and it  shouldnt be compulsary for all reason stated in thread) the requirement is for full postcode, name as registered with BMC, membership number,  ...

BTW change.org defaults Wakefield, I live in York bloody miles away

Yes, this is sort of the other side of my point. Do we think there are bad actors out there calling themselves John Smith who live in the same area as member(s) John Smith but aren't members yet have signed anyway, or do you say "It's probably one of those John Smiths then. Count it."?

I think the benefit of the doubt should go to Simon, but it doesn't sound like you agree.

It doesn't matter, we need a defined process that's legally robust: so we need to confirm a correct list of eligible individuals actually voted (especially when Change.org petitions are so susceptible to impersonation, ineligible member or non member support). My personal view is use of the web form should become compulsory in future to stop such problems.

Not to mention that it would be surprising if Change.org even got all the postcodes correct to the closest top level postcode. My experience of websites estimating location from IP address is that they can normally get the right country but often not much closer than that.

It doesn't matter, we need a defined process that's legally robust: so we need to confirm a correct list of eligible individuals actually voted (especially when Change.org petitions are so susceptible to impersonation, ineligible member or non member support). My personal view is use of the web form or paper signed support with valid information should become compulsory in future to stop such problems.

It's not Simon you'd be giving the benefit of the doubt to, it's anyone with access to the petition website, which is everyone with an internet connection. And presumably the extent to which you relax the verification for this one becomes the standard going forward unless the articles are changed. So even if you think it's implausible that anyone tried to game the system for these petitions, or signed in good faith despite not being a BMC member, do you think it's implausible that someone could in the future?

Steady on. At most it's anyone with an internet connection who has the time and motivation to guess at the names/postcode pairs that might have multiple entries on the register of BMC members...

I think there should be a better way of doing this in the furutre. There wasn't one for this. Or rather nobody knew there was.

Depends how far you're saying the benefit of the doubt should extend. Some of the suggestions, not necessarily from you, seemed to go as far as saying that postcodes should be ignored completely and a name on the petition that matches a member should be sufficient. That's trivial for anyone to game. An approximate postcode match would require a bit of social media stalking for each signature, which would certainly require a bit more motivation but hardly insurmountable.

Well it seems like Simon was offered the BMC option fairly early in the process. But yes, completely agree that this can't be the way forward.

I think that was covered above. It wasn't that early.

I was only questioning the cases described above, where there's a choice of members that could match. I think that should count as 1, not 0.

Remember the absolute worst case outcome if someone did game this system this time round and malevolently get the motion on the agenda is that members get to have a discussion.

Be pragmatic this time. Fix it for next time.

certainly would simplify matters (ignoring the reasons to maintain independence)but thats a pretty big barrier/disincentive,  very few will use paper, and the current MOS system is clunky. But if it were better maybe could scan the cards you'd be lowering the effort required and hence improve response (esp using phones ).

but thats a lot of effort/manpower/money to implement a system that rarely gets used

Google thinks that my IP address is about 320miles away from where I live,. Geo-location based on IP address is notoriously unreliable.

When I moved here I discovered that there's someone with the exact same name as me living in the next postcode area (turns out he's a cousin!). We frequently occur on customer databases together and are confused. My dentist looked very confused once before he realised the notes he had on screen were for my namesake, not me, and I once almost hired a car in his name!

I personally think it's in the BMC's interest to have these resolutions on the AGM agenda so they can be debated and voted on by the membership,  after all we are supposed to be a member organisation, otherwise the issues are just going to keep rumbling on which is not good for the BMC's reputation.

I suggest if you fail to get your resolutions onto the agenda you think about putting them to an EGM and use the BMC's Web form to get the necessary signatures.

I think there's a number of issues at play here, all of which have combined to make a horribly convoluted mess.

• Simon wasn't aware of the BMC's online form before setting up the change.org petition (not his fault, and the suggestion that he should have abandoned it and switched to the form once made aware of it is ridiculous IMHO) 
• Change.org assigns postcodes according to IP, which may not necessarily match those on the BMC's database (mine won't, I signed at work)
• The BMCs membership database seems to have some inaccurate or incomplete data
• Club memberships seem to have caused some kind of disconnect between their membership details, and those that the BMC has on file.

I don't think any of these issues are Simon's fault - and that he's now having to try and rectify this is farcical.

As part of what I do for a living I look after large databases and so I understand and appreciate the issues that are par of the course when dealing with large data sets such as this (though the databases I look after run in to the hundreds of thousands rather than tens).  So let's not get hung up on the issues, there's no fault or blame here, this is just what happens with databases.  These can be addressed in due course.

I'd suggest the BMC draws a line under those now, finds a mechanism by which they can hold the debates Simon has tabled and gets on with it.  There's clearly support for the debates to be held, even if the motions aren't carried (which I suspect 1 will, and the other not)

In short, let's just cut through the crap - the self perpetuating nonsense about articles, thresholds and the rest of the Jackie Weaver conjecture and deal with the issue at hand.  We're all grown ups here, and we're getting lost in the reeds on all of this.

The grown up thing is to understand that there are procedures to follow as laid down in Articles.Its a legal entity not a group of mates down the pub or in a what’s app group or an internet forum. 

This is correct. But what's stopping the BMC itself putting the resolutions on the agenda, or the MC?

Seems like MC intend to do that if it's needed, based on posts here.

Not according to this one:

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/crag_access/bmc_resolutions_shout_out-770...

That they conflict with what the BMC wants to put on the agenda to address the same issues. 

As I understand it council's plan (if Simon actually submits the motions to them rather than persisting with the 0.5% route) is to have motions which incorporate the proposals put forward by Simon alongside what the BMC plans to propose (stated at some point today in one of Simon's two threads if I interpreted it correctly). Putting Simon's motions on the agenda worded as is alongside other motions which are proposing other solutions to the same issue is going to wind up being a horrible mess of an AGM, all of the proposals really need to be voted on as part of the same motion to avoid a colossal mess that risks a legal challenge and the subsequent massive pain in the neck, and bank account, that would be.

Don't bank on it

You're making a lot of assumptions there

Ok, it seems like they intend to make sure the issues are on the agenda, if not the precise wording of Simon's motions.

Leave it out! Simon says..... he thinks that 'maybe' MC might not want to. 

There are two issues at play here. Does MC think that if Simon requests them to consider his resolution then they should do so as part of their support for 'members'? (No such request has been made). I think MC are keen to support the principle that if Simon gets the appropriate numbers then he should be heard.

And would Councillors themselves vote for those resolutions? I can't speak for them. I wouldn't.

Are you frightened of financial disclosure and transparency as well, Andy?  You do surprise me...

Ok, that's reassuring. Thanks. I'm not party to any of the discussions so it's good to hear any updates. I'm sure there's plenty of chatter going on in smoke filled rooms and it's hard to judge from outside who supports what. It would be great (not least presumably for Simon) to know that if he does pull the trigger and ask MC that they'll back him.

You wouldn't vote for sharing the financial info? That's surprising. I can understand voting against the org split, that's how I'd vote too notwithstanding any compelling new information, but the first motion seems like a no brainer.

News to me. Not sure why an internal reshuffling of deckchairs (if I can put it like that) requires a tabled resolution. Either you agree with GBC becoming a fully owned subsidiary or you don’t in which case the deck chair shuffling can continue.

No doubt Womble Dickinson / the Board / MC hive will present a document on the AGM papers to explain why the subsidiary resolution can’t / won’t / shouldn’t work and why an internal arrangement is vastly better for X,Y and Z reasons and then wheel in someone with a formidable IQ and credentials to articulate that at the AGM. 

So any structure other than precisely what you've personally come up with is a deckchair-shuffling stitch-up?

Yes that’s precisely what I mean 🙄

I wasn't trying to misrepresent you, that's genuinely exactly how that post came across to me.

Fair enough. I was exaggerating in a hopefully humorous way to illustrate why I think a complex vote on two resolutions (which  might have different vote thresholds) is unnecessary.

The alternative internal option would have proceeded anyway without it being discussed at an AGM because it is highly unlikely to be anything other than an internal reshuffle with no legal ramifications. The details of the internal option can be presented as part of the argument against a subsidiary resolution if it gets tabled.

Having said that the BMC always trends towards complexification so that might devise something different. 

Bog off Neil 😂 (Though I'm chuffed at your 'surprise').

I'm all for financial disclosure and transparency. I've managed to get agreement that the finance report that goes to the Board will then go the Members' Council. It could then go to Areas (for the geeks...)

I think the old ship is turning, Neil, and I'm feeling more positive now than I have for the last six months (I only got back 'in the game' just before the last AGM).

And that's why I wouldn't vote for the resolutions. I don't think #1 will be needed and I also think that  #2 could be really disruptive.

Ain't no smokers in our rooms, Pal!

I take your point. I guess my response is that I'm getting the vibe that a resolution is simply not going to be needed. We have a very different CEO.

I'll be honest, and possibly indiscreet, and say that as someone who has only been involved back in BMC politics for a short while, the finances in some areas have been a real mess. It was commented that my questions at the last AGM were....'aggressive' with regard to finance. But they were fairly on point given what subsequently came out.

You wouldn't believe the work that has been done to try to untangle the finances for last year. But it's been done....nearly. When the auditors give the thumbs up is when we can properly say, 'OK, this is the situation'. And I hope that may be available for the next rounds of Area meetings.

I really hope you accept that those of us on MC that post on here just can't make concrete statements about things that haven't yet been totally finalised.

Fair. And I appreciate the response, thanks.

Still think it would be a good idea to have a resolution making sure the board come through with the information this time, because, no offence meant to you personally but we've heard a lot of that from official voices at the BMC before, and the accounts were coming out any day now 6 months ago.

This assumes that the new CEO will deliver what you're expecting. The resolution would make this a requirement.