UKH

Issues have surfaced at the BMC and GB Climbing in recent months surrounding overspending and governance. We sent questions to CEO Paul Davies.

In July, we asked 'What's happening at the BMC?' following news of redundancies, overspending and a projected 2023 deficit of over £275K if the status quo were maintained. We highlighted our concerns about the competing interests of the BMC's representative role in outdoor access versus its governing body role in competition climbing and criticised the BMC's lack of clear communication. Meanwhile, more revelations and rumours were surfacing. An updated statement from the BMC and a 'CEO Q&A' with CEO Paul Davies were subsequently published by the BMC in mid-August, but left us with more questions than answers— especially relating to the management of GB Climbing, the internal business unit of the BMC which manages competition climbing.

In an effort to find out more, we asked the BMC if we could send more questions for Paul to answer.

Read more

Wow.  I'm glad that's all cleared up.

Great work Natalie.

What is the reference to Bern about at the end, I don't think that's come up in any of the discussions so a lot of us won't be familiar with it (including me)?

Next time I need someone to talk for an hour without saying anything I know where to look

A reference to the recent World Championships in Bern? 

I'd guess there might have been some queries about spend there?

Ah, makes sense now! 

While supportive of competition climbing and wanting the athletes to be appropriately supported I don't personally follow it and hadn't twigged that it would have been a recent event.

I'm trying to imagine getting through a quarterly business review by responding 'it's complicated, happy to explain it to you some other time, I'm fully committed to clear communication though'.

Quick number check:

Member contribution to GB Climbing in 2023 just under 16%, let's say 15.8% of 1.2 mil = £189,600

List price of Kilnsey put up earlier this year = £150,000

🤔

​​​​​​

Excellent work Natalie and UKC

I found the response from the BMC to be both condescending and dismissive of UKC and by association the membership.

I hope UKC will take them up on their offers to explain things in more detail. Keep at them like a terrier and don't let them hide behind commercial sensitive

Some stuff genuinely will be commercially sensitive, a lot of stuff won't be (I can only think of one sensitive discussion in 4 or 5 years on tech Committee for instance).

If I've understood what's being said, there's a complicated budgeting situation dependent on membership subs, matched funding and commercial contributions (which apparently sometimes fail to materialise and which we can't discuss because of commercial sensitivity). And on the debit side, random extra liabilities nobody could have predicted.

Finance isn't my strong point though, so I've probably misunderstood.

That GB Climbing logo - why a dolphin playing with a beach ball?

Yep, that's the impression I have too.

Finance likewise isn't my strong point. I would like the BMC to be more open about things in general, it feels like a complex and arcane beast for anyone wanting to get involved for the first time, this is not necessary. The information is there, but it is hard won if you are trying to use the website.

The contribution 'from the BMC' also includes money derived from insurance sales and other trading. The actual 'member' contribution is probably in the region of 10%.

But, sure, it's money that 'could' go on other things.

However, finance is my strong point, so if it had been explained, I could have translated it into plain English on your behalf. There are also others on this forum who understand finance, and by deciding it it all too complicated for our sweet little heads, he isnt exactly endearing himself to us.......

Thank you Natalie for your persistence and an excellent, well researched article. 

Timely too as Members Council meets tonight for their “deep dive” on the new proposal for the CCPG (action point 16.1.3) which was presented by Paul at the last meeting* without the benefit of the report into the CCPG from which the proposals were derived!

I hope that the proposals are shared widely when agreed and solve the many and varied issue currently blighting GBClimbing and ultimately the BMC.

* last Council minutes: https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=2262

Intentionally or not, he seems to have dodged the very first question about what the Board knew. The article says they were aware of a £38k shortfall in GB Climbing, but the 2022 Annual Report shows an actual shortfall of £180k, and that's without Ratho. How was it allowed to get so big? Did the Board know, and if not was it concealed from them or were they asleep on the job?

I don't know whether it was hopelessly optimistic to expect that additional funding would somehow materialise to pay for Ratho or whether they were just unlucky, but when that is added in the total cost to the BMC (which means to its members) of supporting competition climbing accounts for almost all the total shortfall of £270k. We have been told that it is more complicated than this because competition climbing somehow pulls in funding for other areas, which I admit I don't entirely understand. 

Nevertheless the simple reading is that the BMC's current financial situation can be almost entirely attributed to its support for competition climbing. In principle I agree it should be doing so, but where are the controls, and in particular is the Board now giving this the attention it requires?

We were assured that this would not affect the BMC's core activities, and at the time the main concern was access work which apparently has been safeguarded. Instead we are now told that in-person Area Meetings are to be stopped in order to save money. The insurance website was offline for several weeks. What will be next?

Yes, but it's also used as a convenient excuse to hide behind

My understanding is that the underwriter raised a concern that prevented the BMC from selling insurance temporarily, the cost savings sought by putting area meetings online were an attempt to mitigate the loss associated with that happening at the worst time of year possible.

Hence my view that the BMC should be more open about what it does, the questions asked when issuing a document should be "Can this document cause any harm if publicly released? Is the document of any value to members?" If the answers are no and yes, they should be issued.

My 'gloss' on that would be that as a Sports NGB we are able to access funding for things that have wider benefits. You get in a bid to enhance 'safeguarding' and the resultant staff can sit outside of GBClimbing and advise clubs, walls etc. Similarly a bid around 'diversity and Inclusion' can fund staff who work with under-represented groups to just get them climbing/Hillwalking.

So Sport England funding, in particular, can percolate out into the wider BMC 'world'. The BMC on its own wouldn't be able to afford those things.

It's also the situation that as the 'funded Body' the BMC can make bids that fund projects/work undertaken by partners like Mountain Training and the Association of British Climbing Walls. Back in the day, for example, I got funding for a Mountain Training 'disability in Climbing' booklet via the BMC bid.

what was the concern?  How was it resolved?

What is commercially sensitive for a non-profit members' organisation? The mere names of "partners" according to one answer. This is completely implausible, nobody is giving cash to the BMC on the condition their name isn't mentioned. 

"We also declined an opportunity to meet in person for a one-to-one discussion with Paul this week."

^^^why?^^^

The £38k cited in the Q3 Board minutes was an overspend (against budget). This isn’t the same metric as the £180k contribution by the BMC to GBC to make up the difference between what they spent and what they received in grants and other income. 

Always getting stuff in writing would be my guess.

Ok, I was hopeful for a while that the BMC would get its s**t together but I'm losing more confidence every day. Clearly many of the members share this view and aren't happy with how things are. The organisation can't carry on like this. 

It's ultimately on us as the members to make the decisions on how this organisation is run. Principally by choosing our representatives, but it doesn't look like that's given enough of a steer for it to end up going in the direction of our wishes. 

It would be easy for a lot of us not to care about a large part of the BMC disintegrating; a lot of its functions could be replaced by some other follow-on organisation if needed. But whatever happens we need to remember that the BMC owns a good number of our crags. We're not there yet, but a lot of the roads it could go down from here end with that being at risk, and the ultimate responsibility lies with the members to get it back on the rails. The question needs to pivot to what do we do?

Replace the leaders?

Might make us feel better but seems spiteful, ungrateful and unlikely to be a quick fix, if a fix at all. Who do you replace them with?

Split off GB climbing?

This one's easy to argue for while it's a net drain. Will it always be that way? Not for me to say. We'd have to be prepared to swallow our pride and not expect a slice of the pie if GBclimbing becomes a huge success and is somehow one day rolling in cash.

Personally I don't care about comp climbing and would be happy to let it sink or swim on its own. No idea how practicable that is though. And there's still a long-term danger in one of the remotely possible futures that it becomes much bigger than the BMC and supplants it on the important matters anyway. And does a split even solve the underlying problem of making bad choices and then bullshitting when called out?

Petition our clubs to mass-disaffiliate?

Seems spiteful and self-harming. Leaving the BMC to die isn't an option until there's a plan to recover the assets (i.e. the crags it owns) into the ownership of the members, and to carry on the work of the staff and parts we do still want to fund.

Petition our clubs to mass-disaffiliate but switch affiliation to Mountaineering Scotland?

Not quite as self-defeating because we'd get to keep the liability insurance, which if we're honest is pretty much the only reason we're all still members. And presumably the resulting uplift there could be used to take on some of the work we want done. But then still what happens to the crags...

Do nothing?

The BMC will presumably carry on making stupid decisions until it disintegrates and/or implodes and has to sell the family silver. Not great.

Something else?

Answers on a postcard, please.

Does that mean they had already budgeted for a £142k shortfall? Either way, it is a substantial overspend, and overall it has meant the BMC has had to make a substantial contribution, well above the 15% it is required to make as a condition of funding. That's without Ratho.  So where were the controls?

If something in the policies caused concern, surely that was the responsibility of the BMC's insurance professionals who designed the policies? Shouldn't they be compensating the BMC for the lost business?

Paul's comment in relation to RED-S/eating disorders is, unfortunately, simply untrue. To be fair HE may take this very seriously but GB Climbing has not. The comment below by Qwerty2019 from the thread discussing this issue sums up GB Climbings approach perfectly.

I was at the recent Youth Climbing champs in IMST.  I was actually quite impressed with how the young athletes looked.  The podiums and especially the winners were all very healthy looking.  Strong, athletic and powerful.  I would say in the Janja mould.  Some were obviously slight in build but not unhealthy looking.  Unfortunately the most strikingly obvious worrying athletes belonged to team GB.  The same GB team who do not have their own facilities/arrangements for BMI measurement and rely on a piece of paper from the competitor saying they are of appropriate BMI.  It could be written in crayon for all they care.  Its a box ticking exercise done at the last minute before a comp.

1st step for Team GB should be affiliation with a healthcare practice that can independently asses an athletes fitness to perform and meet the minimum requirements set by the IFSC.  This should be paid for by the athlete/parents and should have zero input from coach or parent or team GB.

It is also incorrect to state that Sport England funding cannot be used to fund athletes travel expenses etc (we're not talking about 'paying' athletes but facilitating their attendance at competitions). If you look at other 'breakthrough' Olympic sports (eg 'breaking') the GB bodies are using their considerably smaller funding allocations to facilitate their athletes to attend competitions. 

Frankly, having worked with sports federations in my professional life, the current issues that we're seeing are all to familiar - a federation gets in some professional administrators with lots of experience from other sports, they arrive with much fanfare and ambitious proposals - then follows a period of increasing alarm as they fail to secure revenue growth they promised due to larger than anticipated budgets and failure to secure the sponsorship and broadcast deals they promised, alarm turns to out and out panic, the leadership leave and the people who were there in the first place who have a passion for the sport are left to pick up the pieces.

The leadership who were dismissed then pitch up at various other minority sports and the dance begins again.

I can name a couple of sports I've personally seen this happen to, both Olympic, and higher profile than ours.

Given that UK Sport didn’t fund the Ratho comp as there was no direct benefit to Olympic qualification it seems unlikely they are going to be happy if funding bleeds out into hillwalking! UK Sport provide 3x the funding Sport England. 
As I’ve said before, if Olympic qualification is their only concern then speed climbing is just as important as combined lead and boulder so 50% of matched funding will go towards stuff no members have an interest in, not even those of us who follow comps. 

May I use my Dictaphone?

But Sport England, who are concerned with increasing participation across the board might be OK.  I believe that, at one stage, they were funding the BMC's Hillwalking Officer. If you look at respective staffing levels it is clear that GB Climbing gets the biggest share of funding. 

If the BMC through competitions becomes so successful that it raises enough income through grants and partners they could sideline those troublesome members and concentrate on competition climbing. I suspect most of the Board would welcome this.

I can't get too worked up about this. Whilst it may not harm the BMC to name potential partners, the parties they are negotiating with are unlikely to take the same view until the deal is done. They'll be forming a partnership to gain commercial/competitive advantage. If I were, say, Berghaus, I wouldn't want my competitors such as Mountain Equipment to know that I'm in negotiation with the BMC (or any other organisation/business) until everything is finalised and I'm in a position to communicate and maximise upon that deal.

I was going to write a response to your lengthier post above, but your last 5 words of this one sum the answer up nicely.

I would just add that I wouldn't necessarily jump on GB Climbing for this, it could be any area of operation / business unit; if the controls aren't there, nasty "surprises" will always appear.

Exactly. It has been pointed out to me by an ex team member that best way for athletes to perform well in comps is…drum roll…to do more comps!

Paying athlete expenses allows them to attend more comps and get more experience. This has a more direct effect on performance than paying for a facilitating coaching/pathway network run by a team of salaried employees that frankly smacks of empire building.

Yes, have that sort of infrastructure and those sort of commitments if the athletes are already fully funded and you have money to spare but not before - surely?

Agreed. I think the BMCs support of GB Climbing is being blamed for these issues. I think the real issue is poor budgeting, financial forecasting and controls, and over ambitious targets that didn’t have a cat’s chance in hell of being met.

The BMCs support of GB climbing isn’t the issue though how that has been managed is part of it.

Why can't you dial with your finger like everyone else?

Lovely stuff

I think it was  brought up a few years ago that the BMC deserved no confidence,  but the machine, including some UKC people took umbridge at this and defeated the vote, I wonder if in retrospect they regret this?

The problem with the motion of no confidence is that it was based upon so many falsehoods, personal gripes and misunderstandings of the impact that competition climbing would have on the rest of the sport. With that in mind, it was hard to take the motion seriously.

Please don’t. You’ll just set Offwidth off. 

Less seriously that MoNC was misconceived and opportunistic looking to ride on the back of Climb Britain rebrand climb down and give Sir Bob Pettigrew a platform to air some strange and historic grievances. 

Not for one second, the goals that Bob and co sought to achieve with the MoNC would have put the BMC in an even worse position than it is now. The majority of voting members (certainly the majority in the room on the day of the MoNC after the really weird stuff which Bob came out with during his introductory speech) voted against the MoNC, not because of a "Machine", but because they recognised it as being complete nonsense.

"Do the BMC/GB Climbing have any frameworks in place for identifying and supporting climbers with eating disorders/RED-S — a current topic of concern on the IFSC circuit and the wider climbing community?

Yes, this is something that we take very seriously. We'd love the opportunity to share with UKC readers the work that we are doing in this area"

Er, go on then...

I cannot overstate the problems that eating disorders can cause. My daughter has suffered for nearly 20 years and will have to live with it for the rest of her life. There is a high mortality rate associated with this problem. IMHO this issue needs to be very high priority before it blights or ends young people’s lives. It should not be an afterthought 

TBH, it is all so complicated I doubt very few truly understand what is going on.

But when I watched all the threads about it, I sensed there was a lot of personal in fighting going on, but deep down something was wrong with the BMC, and this new thing just strengthens that opinion.

The CEO has been interviewed, who heads the executive (?), but where is the President in all this, the non executive (?).

Possibly MONC was ill conceived, but rather than so viciously attacking, perhaps if people had said well, actually there are issues, but this is not the way. 

The competition thing takes up far too much bandwidth, and as an outdoor climber, trad, sport and bouldering, I feel competition gets too much attention, and as a hill walker I feel gets very much sidelined by all things climbing.

Especially when this guy thinks none of the membership are clever enough to understand it. He's let his ego get in the way of highlighting their own managerial and financial incompetence. 

There must be hundreds of people on ukc who know that this kind of management and lack of financial scrutiny would never be accepted in 99% of private industry.

This current release isn't much better than the first one and I get no sense that the leadership knows it's core members or what the membership would like from the bmc.  

As I see it I’d substitute ‘wrong’ for ‘problematic’ insofar as it has structural problems from being a broad church representing quite different activities and group which makes it impossible to have a unified mission and priorities although having a unified body covering everything has the advantage of additional weight, influence and clout.

The challenge therefore is to balance priorities and resources so no group is disadvantaged or worse disaffected. 

Things have changed markedly since, and partly because of, the MoNC. We have moved from a position where the BMC office was run by committed outdoor climbers who weren’t professional managers and GB Climbing was under supported to now where it is run by non-climbing* professionals where GB Climbing is over supported (yet somehow badly run)
 

Well done UKC on pursuing these issues. Not that the answers have produced much clarity.

The organisational review process happened after the MoNC, there was an acknowledgement of there being issues with how the BMC worked and a lot of good work was done to try and address this.

Competition has had a lot of attention in the last few years as it has been recognised that the BMC wasn't doing a very good job of looking after it. Unfortunately there are still significant improvements to be made and until they have been made it will either keep causing problems and take a disproportionate amount of focus.

What do you feel the BMC should be doing for outdoor Climbing/ hillwalking that it isn't already doing? The access apparatus is still in place and working effectively (even if I disagree with their approach on a particular crag), equipment safety is dealt with effectively from what I have seen in committee meetings. 

That's actually quite a good question.

Personally I would prefer it if clubs found new insurers, then I would not be forced to be a member.

I would like the BMC to push harder on right to roam.

I also think it a good thing if the CEO is not a climber, as climbers wil have biases vis a bis bolting or competitions, which purely subjective.

Good question though, I shall give it some thought 🤔

have any clubs found different insurers for club officers?  Affiliation to Mountaineering Scotland has been mentioned.  Has anyone else found any alternatives?

If you want your club to investigate other insurers submit a proposal to the committee and get approval to do some research yourself, possibly go and speak to the Achille Ratti (almost definitely misspelled) club as I understand they aren't affiliated. From what I understand the club's associated with the armed forces all self insure and aren't affiliated. It was discussed at a CC committee meeting several years ago and a bit of research was done but the committee (rightly in my view) decided that it wanted to continue supporting the BMC at the time.

Good news on pushing for right to roam, Cath Flitcroft (staff member who represents the BMC to government and the opposition about access stuff) is pushing for this, there is an ongoing survey on the subject of members views here:

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/extending-access-rights--opportunities-in-england

People will piss and moan if the CEO is not a climber, or if they are the wrong kind of climber, or if they are a punter/ wad etc etc. Ideally they would do a bit of most areas the BMC covers in my view.

If you don't want your club to be affiliated then take it up with its committee or find a different club. As a club committee member, the last thing I want to be doing is trying to arrange insurance, and I doubt we could get it any cheaper. Being affiliated also gives access to other club's huts, as well as other benefits.  And for all its faults, the BMC does important work on our behalf which is worth supporting.

Personally, I and I suspect many others, couldn’t give a monkeys if the CEO is a climber or not as long as they’re doing a good job.

However, of course this will be used as a stick to beat them with if they’re not.  

I do think having at least some understanding of the activities the BMC supports should help them do a good job, but as long as they are doing a genuinely good job in an ethical fashion I don't see a need for them to be a climber.

What would make a refreshing change would be a CEO who communicates using standard English, as opposed to serving up waffle with a side of word salad.

Of course, I don't doubt that there are similar issues right across the organisation, and not just with GB Climbing.  It's ringfenced, so it's possible to compare costs v income in a way which isn't so easy for other areas of work. However the cost does represent about 22% of the BMC's total expenditure, and whilst much of that is covered by grants the BMC has to pick up any overspend. £38k over budget is not an insignificant amount. We are told that this will be repaid through this year's budget, but the issue is why was there insufficient oversight to prevent the bad spending decisions?

It appears to be a self-contained unit with its own leadership team, which perhaps makes it harder for the Board to monitor but which makes it all the more important that proper controls are in place.  There is some waffle about the need to "evolve and continually improve our policies", and at least he says that new finance and budgeting processes have been introduced, so let's hope these are effective. 

What we can expect is that when the next AGM comes around members will be paying more attention and the figures should come under a lot more scrutiny.

This is what they teach you when you do an MBA... How to talk at length using clever sounding words whilst actually saying absolutely nothing at all.

That's an odd one. Would've thought those running the organisation should be a microcosm of the membership, i.e. preferably be into both walking and climbing.

Yes, well....you may well ask. I would also say that the CCPG / GBC levels of expenditure vs budget aren't that difficult to break down just because the numbers are higher. Much of the larger number is due to the expanded admin / coaching team, the costs of which are known in advance, hence any variation should be

a. minimal

b. easy to spot.

c. easy to correct / explain.

The remaining expenditure is therefore more visible, and more open to scrutiny.

This has been lacking for years. I had a "frank and open" discussion with the treasurer at my first Nat Council meeting in 2012, at which I expressed disappointment at the poor level of forecasting within the BMC. He was quite receptive to looking at alternatives, but in the intervening years, there doesn't seem to have been too much progress, although i have been very much out of the loop for the last 3 / 4 years. Hopefully now changed. I know its all grey suited accounting stuff, and therefore deeply boring, but its amazing how much easier it is to run a business properly when you have a decent grasp of whats going on. I would suggest that the huge majority on this thread and in other places having a pop at Paul D et al wouldn't be so exercised about it if we were confident that those at the wheel knew the basics and could communicate them.

And rightly so. You can't improve what you dont measure.

I know of a climber being removed from GB Climbing until they gained weight. There are definitely things in place. I don't know how robust they are but they definitely exist. 

This was a few years ago also, before all those articles and films came out and raising further awareness of disordered eating in climbing. 

Well done to UKC and Natalie for putting the effort into this; keep at it.

Overseeing BMC/GB Climbing is not an easy job and Covid created unique challenges at a time of change. Sadly the tone of the responses from the CEO in this article are regrettable, and defensive and dismissive of the those that support the organisation. We need better than this, or new leadership.

You mean like Brexit.

I prefer to stay in and tweak their tale as I see fit.

Committees, been their done that. 

A committed Back Bencher.

Maybe you should step up to the front bench?

Tweaking tails anonymously is a bit 'easy'.

Like I said, done it. 

Resigned after I saw money being spaffed for no reason.

Been to BMC area meetings, and you impressed, but in the main, the others left me underwhelmed.

Trouble with committees is half the people are there because they were to nice/slow to say no, and the other half like being on committee's, it's a bad mix, IMHO.

Anyway, Backbenchers play a useful role, and the fact committees do not like them shows their worth

An excellent and professionally done job. Thanks UKC

However, I realise the crux of the financial problem is Ratho and budgets etc, it's a bit hollow...

For many of us the underlying friction is the BMC's balance between growing comps and supporting and developing grass roots climbing including outdoor climbing and access in all its forms. Perhaps the BMC should directly poll every individual member to establish members' priorities and try to split its effort roughly along those proportions 

There was no questioning  in the Q and A on how the BMC determined its balance between indoor comps and say rock climbing and mountaineering, or how these redundancies are expected to impact the BMC's work

I would not suggest modelling your ideas of an effective backbencher on current MPs, many of whom are inept, arrogant cowards whose only purpose for existence is to vote on party lines. Committees DO welcome constructive criticism and absolutely draw on the knowledge of past members. They don't tend to welcome input from anonymous cowards.

In reply to UKB Shark:

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/celebrating-success-and-progress-at-bmc-company-up... 

This and the accompanying video by Andy Syme, the President does not fill me with confidence.

The financial situation is glossed over with lightening speed in the video. 

Think the Board are still in the denial phase. 

Out of interest, why do consider yourself less anonymous than me? 

Personally on open forums I consider a degree of anonymity wise, but in closed group's I am quite happy to hold forth, where every one knows who I am.

Not sure if that was a personal attack by you, but if it was, it was not nice.

My username is my first name which has an unusual spelling and I have been quite active within the BMC (locally, at AGMs and as a member of technical committee), I have also been an active member of several different clubs within the last decade due to moving around for university, placements and work. My username affords me a degree of anonymity from someone who I don't want to find me while being straightforward for those climbers who I have previously interacted with to figure out the identity of. I am also not unhelpfully having a go at the BMC from the sidelines.

I was unfortunately subjected to mistreatment by people making an anonymous and amorphous complaint about my work as meet secretary of my local club a few years ago. I would have happily sat down and talked through the issues with them but instead they chose to hide behind someone else who refused to express what the issues were, all it did was cause upset and contribute to me stepping down from a role that none of them were willing to step into. So it was an attack on people hiding behind anonymity to avoid accountability for their remarks and actions as I consider this to be an ineffective and needlessly destructive way of addressing concerns.

I suspect some parents aren't that thrilled with some elements of gb climbing management, but don't wish to jeopardise their child's place or risk them being sideline by speaking out against recent mismanagement and fiscal incompetence. 

That would be particularly vindictive and thoroughly inappropriate, I also would hope that UK Sport would not appreciate a governing body displaying that kind of behaviour.

At least I've learnt a new word: 'podiuming.'

F ucking hell.

So no less anonymous than me.

If you paid attention you will have noticed I have attended BMC area meetings.

My personal experience of the BMC has been very poor and l was let down very badly, twice, and I do not give third chances. I have not just got some insane grudge.

Possibly next time we meet in person I will tell you exactly what happened.

When an organisation trys to hide behind the "commercial confidentiality" phrase, is there anyway around it.

I have come across this before, another they use is Data Protection or GDPR is popular, and very difficult to challenge.

I have met a couple of Derek's, how many "SpenSers" have you met?

Sorry to hear that they let you down, if we do meet in person I am happy to listen. 

I can understand financial details of sponsorship etc being held back because of "commercial confidentiality", but keeping the identity secret seems mighty strange unless you say "we not releasing details until <date>".

Link changed to:

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/celebrating-success-and-progress-at-bmc-company-up...

I prefer medalling kids

One too many 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😜

Cant you get done for that?

Oh. Sorry. 'Medalling' NOT 'Meddling'.  As you were.

I think it was a Scooby Doo reference (if so, quite funny) rather than what you are suggesting (much less funny).

I'm afraid that you've lost me with Scooby-Doo references, Spenser.

I'm old.

Sounds a bit of a shaggy dog story to me.

But he almost got away with it.......

At the end of every episode once the villain is caught they would say "I'd have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids!", it was the catchphrase of the series.

I had a good read of things when this overspend on GB Climbing and redundancies issue first came up. I've not looked at subsequent "material" in quite such detail but trying to stand back from the detail, the overall impression I get is...

1. The BMC is behaving more and more like a corporate organisation where the first "law" is "protect the corporate organisation".
2. It feels like the BMC is losing touch with its base membership.
3. It feels like the "corporate" parts of the BMC consider the base membership as at best, something to be tolerated but otherwise of little importance.

If this is correct, then the "corporate" BMC has forgotten that it's there to serve the base membership and without that base membership it has no raison d'etre.

Or:
"I'd have gotten away with it if it weren't for you Blasted Meddling Climbers!"

Interesting response. In reply to me on an earlier thread (see https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/crag_access/trouble_at_the_bmc_again-7617...), you wrote:

"The problem with the motion of no confidence is that it was based upon so many falsehoods, personal gripes and misunderstandings of the impact that competition climbing would have on the rest of the sport. With that in mind, it was hard to take the motion seriously."

You are ChatGPT, and I claim my five quid.

More pertinently: while I agree that the motion of no confidence as finally presented was a mess, the issues underlying it were exactly the ones which have come to the fore now - which is why it garnered support from some very high-profile mountaineers. I remember Doug Scott (of all people) getting vilified on this forum for raising the same general concerns when he was running (I think) for presidency of the BMC.

Anyway: the warnings were well-and-truly there. Now look where we are.

The current organisational structure was implemented to try and address the issues cited in the motion of no confidence and improve the governance of the organisation.

If anyone wants to delve back into the MoNC stuff (not suggesting this is a useful exercise btw) a good starting point is the AGM paper with the text of the motion and Martin Wragg’s response - he was a volunteer legal adviser to the BMC and involved in writing the constitution as it then was.

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=1441 

My impression of the underlying issue, from what Bob said at the meeting, was that international sport climbing was controlled by a foreign man with a girl’s name.  

That, and a hankering for the days when the BMC was run by a cosy cabal of the senior clubs run by men who climbed in tweed.

"International competition climbing" surely?

 I seem to recall that was one of his grouches.

Yes, my mistake.  I do remember that was the moment he completely lost the room.  
 

Anyway, the objections then were ones of principle (however out of touch), the problem now is financial control, transparency, and priority.

That's an appealing parody Dave - but still just a parody.

The points being made now are completely separate from those being made back then. For instance, Doug Scott told a National Council meeting that competition climbing would lead to all crags being bolted.

The tweed maybe.

i don't recall that. When did Doug attend National Council?

FWIW the AGM minutes for Bob Pettigrew’s speech are as follows:

Robert Pettigrew MBE and others will request the AGM to pass a resolution in the following terms:

‘That this motion of No Confidence is brought against the Executive Committee of the BMC and in particular because of the wilful and deliberate withholding of future policy decisions from the members in attendance at the Annual General Meeting held at Lhosehill Hall, Castleton, Derbyshire, on Saturday 16th April 2016’.

9.1 Mr Pettigrew outlined why members should support his no-confidence motion, noting that AGMs must fulfil two functions – accountability and transparency. He went on to discuss the inclusion of sport climbing in the 2020 Olympics and queried why the BMC’s decision to back Olympic inclusion was taken by the National Council in 2008 rather than an AGM. He described the Olympics as a ‘disease’ and went on to say that the President of the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC), Marco Scolaris, had written to all member federations including the BMC requesting them to change their names to include ‘sport climbing’ in their titles.

Mr Pettigrew then moved onto the re-brand, noting his view that £75k of tax payers’ money had been spent on the exercise; that the re-branding had been dishonest as the Executive and key figures within the BMC had already made decisions about it prior to the 2016 AGM, his evidence being that the BMC had registered several ‘Climb Britain’ URLs in March 2016.

Mr Pettigrew rounded off by stating that it had been a failure of the Executive not to obtain membership approval for 2020 Olympic inclusion at the 2016 AGM. He added that he did not have sufficient time to properly finish his speech but that his text was available on request“

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

I well remember back then a senior member of the BMC in conversation with myself calling Doug an “evil man” for his stance.

You might not have wanted to play rugby against him, or got into a Llanberis fight on the other side, but "evil"; the man who set up Community Action Nepal? The guy who contributed to school building in Pakistan?

I think that senior member of the BMC was talking over-excitable bollocks.

He was invited to speak at a NC meeting held at Derwent Hill in IIRC 2015. Doug is brilliantly entertaining, but made a bit of an arse of himself by "revisiting", shall we say, the supposed issues when he insisted on passing me (as Comps chair) the dossier prepared by Pettigrew et al on the takeover of sport climbing by the IFSC. Anyway, I had a less than deferential pop at him (which he seemed to appreciate), and that led afterwards to a decent chat at the bar on comp development etc, which he was actually interested in how new branches of the sport could develop, and of course he loved an open exchange of views! We parted that evening on good terms, despite our differing views, mainly because we had more in common than we had differences.