UKC

On recent BMC-related threads, UKC posters have asked where Members’ Council vacancies are advertised. The BMC website isn't always the easiest to navigate (there's a complete re-launch due over the summer) and roles are advertised at  https://thebmc.co.uk/bmc-jobs even for voluntary vacancies.  Here are the current vacancies (and I plan to make sure such roles are flagged up more clearly in future.)

• Councillor – Hillwalking
• Councillor – Club Members
• Councillor – Mountain Training Candidates

See https://thebmc.co.uk/bmc-jobs for role descriptions, or contact me at [email protected] for more information.

There are also vacancies for Area Representatives for the following BMC Areas (there are two representatives for each area, and one of these is currently vacant in each). 

• Cymru North Wales
• Cymru South Wales
• Lakes
• Midlands
• London & SE

To find out more, please email [email protected] and ask to be put in contact with your local Area Chair.

Members’ Council acts as the representative body of the members, consulting with and constructively challenging the Board, and holding the Board to account on behalf of the members. To be effective, MC aspires to be both diverse and inclusive; encompassing a wide range of perspectives, approaches and experiences, which we believe are essential to driving further innovation, challenge and creativity within our sporting environment – mountain, crag and indoor. In line with this we are keen to achieve a more diverse Members’ Council and we encourage applications from under-represented groups, in particular people from ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and women. Get in touch - Have your say - It’s OUR BMC!

Cheers, Dom [email protected]

I am ambivalent about the BMC, but you do seem to be making the right noises.

An area of diversity not acknowledged in climbing and in the ramblers, of which I am also a member, is that these activities seem to be being taken over by the middle classes, and to be honest a working class person can feel rather uncomfortable in certain situations in the climbing and walking world. I have had personal experience of this.

However, you seem to be making a good effort, but I suspect you are trying to steer an oil tanker.

Thanks for the post, and for the information - I appreciate the effort.

I am confused about the MC vacancies though. As far as I understand it, all such positions need to be voted for by the membership - and I guess the natural time for such votes to be taken is the AGM. So how is voting for vacancies handled outside of the AGM?

My suggestion is that nominations for candidates for all such vacant positions should be solicited by email, well in advance of each AGM.

Absolutely agree about making more effort to publicise vacancies BEFORE the next AGM. I'm only just on board, so I'm playing catch up.

You're right about these three roles normally being subject to votes at the AGM, but as there were no applicants, Members' Council can co-opt people on a temporary basis up until the next AGM. Hence the "shout out" for volunteers to come forwards. I'm very much hoping we can turn this into an opportunity to get some new voices and fresh perspectives

Cheers, Dom 

Thanks for the reply.

Well, thanks - but I am not sure that I am right!

All I can figure out from the articles so far is that these positions need to be voted for - and that all such voting has - until now, anyway - been coupled in to the AGM.

Is that right?

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=2145

Read 20.3.

Fairly standard practice among local council committees(and others) if there are no other volunteers, the committee decides, by vote if needed, then it's put to members /public at the next agm. The only other way is calling an EO AGM, but when it's just to appoint somebody temporarily until the next agm that would be over kill. It's one of points of a committee is for them to make these decisions on the memberships behalf when needed. 

I think the other aspect is that if you objected to people being co-opted, and you actually wanted to try and stop/reverse it, you'd have to do whatever's necessary to call an EGM anyway.

True, but an organisation needs these posts occupied to function properly, most of the posts are all about representing the membership, it's in the memberships interest to have them filled as quickly as possible, and that's ignoring the recent events. Likening it back to councils, there will be people who'll complain regardless of who is co opted into these posts.

Council is definitely empowered to co-opt into casual vacancies. This has been the case through Members Council, National Council before it, and even back 20+ years to the old Committee of Management.

Absolutely agree with Exiled Scot that the organisation needs these posts occupied to function properly. The output (and breadth of representation!) of Council is very much constrained by the number of able and willing volunteers that we have - sharing the workload helps all of us and improves what we do.

Most of the details relating to Areas were moved out of the Articles into the Area Terms of Reference in 2021, and other Council co-options are covered by Council procedures (all of which need to be made more visible/accessible to Members). In summary, Area reps are proposed by the Area (ideally at an Area Meeting, and if that's between Area AGMs then endorsed by Council), and co-options into vacant Nationally Elected Councillor roles are made directly by Council.

The only controversial bit has been the occasional application of the need for unanimous Council approval, which some of us find uncomfortably 'top down' for a primarily representitive organisation. In addition, unanimity could be a tall order for almost anyone, as (shock horror), none of us are universally popular...

To be clear that's unanimous approval required for co-option (I'm not happy with this either). This won't ever apply for formally elected members from a constituency (eg from a Local Area meeting vote).

I know exactly what you mean.

Once, in a posh hut of a certain posh club,  tired of having to listen to diners comparing fine wines, cheese and how rare  they liked their  meat presented, I concocted a plan.

Next night we ate our fish and chips out of the plastic box, shame they stopped using newspaper, with beer straight out of the can. Sensing glares of distain across the dining table was brilliant.

Edit, might have been scotch pie haggis and chips, my usual order north of the border, the pie ideally in a bap.

Are you sure the glares of disdain weren't in your head? Or generated by something other than fish and chip boxes and beer? 

I'm very much on board with any drive to broaden the climbing demographic, in whatever terms you want to look at it (race, gender, class etc.). Personally, I certainly have a moderately-sized chip on my shoulder about posh private schoolboys and their commonly entitled attitude to life. But I still find it really hard to imagine anyone in a climbing hut sneering at fish and chips or beer!

We tried to engage in conversation but seemed not to be considered worthy.

I am not naming the club, 99 plus % of members are fine.

Edit, hi Luke , just worked out who you are.

Sorry to hear of your experience with this stuff! I’m working class and from Liverpool…when myself and a couple of friends got in to hills/climbing when we were young we were seen as very odd!! The only trouble we had as young adults was with a couple of pubs refusing to serve us because of our accents….we just went to a different pub but I can recall being angry at the time…

Interestingly though I’ve found the outdoor community to be very welcoming, not class/gender/ethnicity based at all in my experience…I’ve been lucky to meet and climb with a diverse set of people over the years.

l do think it highlights though that there are many ‘groups’ of people who can feel a bit separate or marginalised for whatever reason and often how they identify themselves doesn’t necessarily fit in to the more commonly used terms…often gender, sexuality or ethnicity based.

Some clubs seem to have had a very stuffy attitude at points in the past, however nothing I have seen of the Oread, CC, FRCC, MAM, NMC, or London Mountaineering Club (clubs I have been part of, or attended joint meets with) over the last 8 years has suggested that this was an issue. Much more likely you would have had someone offer you something tasty (although I have admittedly not done much mass catering in the last few years due to going on less meets).

Hello my friend.

You may recall we were on the same committee on a zoom meeting, and just this issue was addressed, and acknowledged that my journey could have been more difficult than for others.

For me I have also been shown much kindness and have personally developed, however the barrier does exist.

Some routes into climbing/ mountaineering are definitely easier and less costly than others (cadets/ scouts/ D of E for basic camping and hillwalking stuff, university clubs and local clubs) with some being more accessible to people with more privileged upbringings. I enjoyed the benefit of some of those which probably weren't open to you (cadets/ D of E at school, having time to be a scout leader for a bit of my adult life and a university club).

The basic kit is accessible if you want to try it out (i.e. hiring from a wall) but there are spikes in cost when you decide to keep climbing (buying boots, chalk bag, harness and belay plate), progress outdoors and start leading independently. Those focused on walking have similar spikes in cost too (progressing into the mountains, starting winter stuff and starting in multi day stuff). There is also the cost of learning how to do those things from someone else unless you are in a club or have a friend willing to teach you and being able to access places you can do your bits of climbing/ mountaineering.

Discrimination on class based grounds includes high costs (kit, training, travel and accommodation if travelling a long way) and social barriers (attitudes including the ones mentioned by Rick Graham, not knowing people who can advise you on getting started, difficulties committing to regular participation if working shifts). The issue of cost is relevant to most diversity related stuff given the existence of gender/ race/ sexuality pay gaps, underemployment of disabled people, and so on, social barriers apply to all of them too, but with different aspects applying to each. 

Mountaineering clubs can make a massive contribution to the accessibility of the hobby (and in the past did so very successfully, as can indoor walls by being close to where people live). There is some stuff around reducing training cost with the Ready to Rock courses and the Conville courses etc, however this could go further, more formal training of novices by club members could also contribute as it does with clubs in many other sports, but that needs funding to train people willing to act as voluntary instructors.

I doubt that the routes into climbing used by Brown and Whillans would look the same now as they did back in the 50s.

Hi Dominic

I'm curious to know what actual powers the members council has, when holding the board to account. For instance, can they sack a board member? 

TIA

The relationship between board and council is outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding, I think this is the most recently issued version: 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&a...

Thanks.

There's nothing in there about what powers the MC actually have though (although I may have missed something reading on a phone)

They don't have an enormous amount of power, if they could force the board to act in a specific way this would risk them acting as shadow directors (i.e. unintentionally taking on the responsibilities and liabilities of a director and producing conflict between the two groups if authority becomes unclear).

Their main power is in terms of communicating information between members and the BMC staff/ board, but that requires the relationship between council and board to be working well (which it wasn't at points last year, but apparently is doing better at now with the new CEO and a hopefully positive influence from Dominic.

They can also decide which members' resolutions are put forward to an AGM if they have between 25 (I think) signatories and 0.5% of the membership as signatories (above 0.5% goes straight through) so they could force an issue on behalf of the membership if they believed it reasonable to do so (i.e. if they believed that the board were acting against the interests of members on a reserved matter such as the name of the BMC).

Hi Andy - Spenser has given a more knowledgeable answer than I would manage (thanks Spenser!) but I'd just add a couple of points:

• The President and three Council Members (Council Nominated Directors) also sit on the Board, so that's 4 out of 12 the Directors, which is quite a strong voice
• There are a number of issues or "Reserved Matters" where Members' Council have to approve any changes. You can find these in the Articles of Association https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=2145

However, I think it's a mistake to get overly focused on the constitution. Any successful organisation operates by building consensus and harnessing the views and experience of all - digging into the "rulebook" is a last resort!

Cheers, Dom