Plas y Brenin.Just don't ask if they do 'Just Desserts' in the bar when certain people are around!
‘Once
upon a time’ (anonymous
1595)
Post
a bruising experience at a recent Alpine Club AGM when a motion I had
put to the meeting (seconded by Stephen Venables) was roundly
defeated, I visited the next day, two of my oldest friends Val and Joe
Brown. The latter is now like myself; old and infirm, but we swapped
memories and talked of absent friends (alive and dead) for some
hours. By the time I departed his company, the doubts that had
overtaken my thinking about how stupid I had been to ignore the pleas
of the Alpine Club Committee to withdraw my motion, these were
dissipated by a dose of common sense from Joe, and I realise that it
is so right to try to defend the basic tenets developed over the two
centuries of our sport.
It is derisory to now dismiss the climbers of
our generation, active in the immediate post war years, and the
1950’s /1960’s as ‘Dirt Bag Climbers’, sorry participants in
a ‘dark age’ of climbing, when there were just a few simplistic
indoor walls, no organised competitions and no olympic recognition.
As I left Joe we both agreed how lucky we had been to be active in
that period.
Labour’s
‘1949 Access to the Countryside Act’ had allowed for the first
time the freedom to climb undisturbed at some of the finest outcrops
and mountain crags in the country, and Joe who was at his commanding
best as a new route pioneer in those decades, enjoyed this on a scale
not previously seen in British climbing. Do not misunderstand, some
of my friends continued to climb and explore for all of their
physically able lives, I am not sure the last time Joe climbed but my
own was in the Fuling mountains of Yunnan, China and I ‘discovered?’
at the age of 74, Keketuohai, the Yosemite of that country in North
East Xinjiang in 2009. So I think we maybe have earned a right to
offer a view on Quo Vadis British climbing?
There
are influences at play now that there never was previously, one is an
unbridled commercialisation leading to unalloyed vested interests,
and another is an assertive new style Sports Council, which has
morphed into Sport England. The Sports Council/s were set up in 1972
with Royal Charters to enable government to have a role in the
funding and development of sport, (there are such for each GB
country, plus a UK one to meet the demands for Olympic and International
participation) brought about mainly through the initiative of the
first Minister of Sport Denis Howell (a former senior football
referee). It took us time when I was at the BMC to convince the
officers of those new bodies that rock climbing and mountaineering
were unique, they were not games like netball or football and that
our participants were taking part in a high risk activity. This was
evidenced by an independent voluntary Mountain Rescue Service,
providing help and support for free to anyone in distress or injured
in our hills, which originated historically and is still administered
and operated by members from within our sport.
We were lucky that in
the early years of The Sports Council/s we could call on the advice
and standing of Alan Blackshaw, an Under Secretary in the Civil
Service. It was a joy to go to meetings with officials alongside him,
for he out ranked them in the peculiar grading system they work under
(EO, HEO, SEO etc). And so we built up mutual confidence and personal
contact, and thus what has happened in recent years liaising with
Sport England, their actions would have been both unthinkable and
unacceptable in the 1970’s/ 1990’s. Using funding via grant aid
they are forcing National bodies to do their bidding in relation to
constitutions that meet their criteria, which is about having
influence on how sports organisations are administered in this
country. The intention is for them to become business orientated, and
administered as market dependant bodies, an ideology that has caused
decline in some of the UK’s most essential services?
At
the setting up of The Sports Council it was constrained by the body
which pre-dated it, the Central Council of Physical Recreation. This
a none governmental organisation, was the initiative of a Physical
Educationist Phyllis Colson, which at the inauguration of the Sport
Council/s by agreement, handed over its staff and hard won properties
which had been set up for individual sports to use such as Bisham
Abbey, Lilleshall, the Crystal Palace, Holme Pierrepoint and Plas y
Brenin. These were handed over to the Sports Council to further
develop and administer, whilst the CCPR became the forum for the
National bodies of sport. At this event in 1972 the CCPR was written
into an agreement that it was to be the consultative body to The
Sports Council, and as it had surrendered properties worth millions
of pounds, each year this body had to agree a level of funding for
the former to help support its work representing the National bodies
of sport. The CCPR has now been superseded by a new body, the Sport
and Recreation Alliance which as someone who used to be a member of
the formers Executive Committee seems to be less of a force in its
dealings with Sport England and Sport UK. The CCPR was not just a
London based operation, for it had regional offices including one in
Leeds, who in cooperation with the Yorkshire Mountaineering Club
organised beginner’s rock climbing courses at Ilkley.
A
first future policy review of the BMC was held in 1974 under the
Chairmanship of Alan Blackshaw and it was of a different order than
the present Organisational review, and it was subsequently updated on
two more occasions. Furthermore in 1974 there was no direction to
follow via the Sports Council as there is for the present BMC Org
review by Sport England, who have demanded that National bodies of
sport who wish to be recognised by government and receive grant aid
have to meet their demands as spelled out in a Tier 1, Tier 2 or Tier
3 format. These are designed so that bodies can be delineated between
the ones that merely seek recognition (Tier 1) and those that wish to
apply for large sums of taxpayer support (Tier 3). The latter is what
the BMC has now decided to become and which to qualify for it has
transformed itself from a body, totally answerable for its actions to
elected representatives, into an organisation administered by a
mainly none elected Board of a Company Limited by Guarantee. Sport
England even required for one of the Directors to be an independent
(not a climber) and for the Chairperson of the Board not to be the
elected President but a separate appointment. This has been agreed
and achieved by a new set of Articles, which are actually the
Constitution of the BMC. And this will mean a down grading of the
role of the National Council; in the past (in my day it’s
Management Committee) this has been its democratic forum made up from
the Areas.
So
why bother, just let Sport England and the new style BMC get on with
it, but historical contacts will not allow me to. My own rebirth of
interest began in 2014, when arriving home from China my house ‘phone
rang as I walked through the front door; it was a long time climbing
acquaintance, a Harrison’s Rocks legend Malcolm ‘The Wizard’
McPherson. ‘Did I know what was happening at the Harrison’s
complex?’ ‘No’ I responded. ‘There has been a total break
down with no maintenance for months, the ablution block has been
closed and that means the Julie Tullis camp site is also shut, and
the Car Park is breaking up’. This was disturbing news to me for
besides being a past member of the Harrison’s Rocks Committee, I
had also been a member of the Julie Tullis memorial appeal, and it
had taken us ten years to obtain planning permission for a campsite
alongside the Car Park. (We also set up and funded the Julie Tullis
award, which is handed over each year to a pioneering female
climber). The Officers of this appeal, its Chair Barney Lewis and its
Secretary Doug Stone had found that their most difficult task had not
been in dealing with such as the local Groombridge Council,
surprisingly it had been in attempting to work with our own support
body the BMC. I listened in disbelief when they confessed this to me;
they had found trying to liaise with the Manchester Office,
inefficient and time consuming.
To
understand why this was so shocking you have need to understand the
modern history of Harrison’s Rocks. They were purchased in 1958 by
Nea Morin, Ted Pyatt, and Dennis Kemp and handed over to the BMC. But
the Council as an unincorporated body could not then own land so a
solution to this was found by the CCPR holding the outcrop in trust
and a joint Management Committee was formed to administer the crag.
This may seem bureaucratic to those who have never visited
‘Harrison’s’, but probably only Stanage can be compared in
terms of popularity. Funds were obtained for both a car park and an
ablution block which became necessary as parking in the nearby
Groombridge village became a serious problem due to a growth in car
ownership, and an ever increasing number of climbers visiting the
outcrop. At the setting up of the Sports Council in 1972, that body
became responsible for the funding of the Harrison’s complex, a
task they inherited from the CCPR and from there on its Management
Committee was extended to include their representative/s.
At
the ‘phone call from ‘The Wizard’ I advised him to contact Bob
Pettigrew, a former BMC President and Chair of the CCPR, who unlike
me had kept close contact with the hierarchies of those bodies. Bob
picked up on this Harrison’s Rocks problem and travelled to meet
the CEO of the BMC in Manchester. He was surprised by the information
he received at this for he was informed that as the land on which the
complex stood was held under lease by Sport England from The Forestry
Commission, and as the date for renewal was approaching, they had
taken the decision not to do this and to pull out of their financial
commitment to fund the facilities.
There was nothing that could be
done to change this situation. When Bob reported this to me I could
not believe how such an outcome had been allowed to develop by the
BMC, and Malcolm was not appeased when he learnt the news. I pointed
out to him that The Forestry Commission also had a brief to support
access and countryside recreation, so maybe he should contact them to
try to involve that body in solving the Harrison’s difficulties.
Which he did, supported by another local climber Sarah Cullen. Malcolm
is an impressive persuader, and soon he and Sarah had the ear of the
concerned officials at the Forestry Commission, and they agreed with
some caveats, e.g. over Parking charges, that they would take on the
Management of the Harrison’s complex. At which point the BMC became
back and a new Committee was set up to administer the
facilities which is now being run to local climber and visitor’s
satisfaction.
However one wonders at what might have been the outcome
without the intervention of two locally committed activists? This
Harrison’s development should have been a warning as to the
changing nature of the administration and funding of sport in this
country. It seems that elite participation has become paramount, and
medal chasing is more important to the politicians than the
encouragement of grass roots sport, despite health problems due to
the large increase in overweight children and adults, as a result of
poor diet and lack of exercise. Leading on to a massive increase in
the NHS needing to deal with the results of this; namely an alarming
growth in the cases of diabetes and cancers. Some Local Authority
leisure centres and swimming pools have been closing or their access
limited, yet £345 million’s is being made available by UK Sport to
fund the living/training/coaching costs of participants who might win
medals at the Tokyo Olympics or show a potential to do so in future.
Do not misread me here, I am a supporter of the Olympic movement and
have attended at a Games. I founded the Chevin Chase fell race in
1979 (in which Olympic medallists and many climbers have taken part),
I was one of the originators of The Leeds Wall, and I am a former
Board member of the Association of British Sport Psychologists. But
what is under debate here is it a mistake to allow grass root sports
facilities to decline, while generously funding elite participants,
which surely poses a question as to what should be the priority in
view of the above?
I
brought the problems of the events at Harrison’s to the notice of
an Alpine Club AGM held in November 2014, maybe that seems a
surprising action to take, but the AC founded the BMC and in fact
some of its past Presidents began their climbing careers at the
outcrop, so there was an interest in my report. I suggested that in
view of the way these difficulties had developed that a new future
policy review of the Council was needed? The meeting agreed that this
was so and invited its President Lindsay Griffin to discuss this with
the Officers of the BMC. Which he did, but the response by them was
that such a review was not needed! Fast
forward to 2016 and the failed attempt by the BMC to rebrand and name
change which resulted in further criticism, as to how policy was
being formed at the Council. A large grant to facilitate this had
been obtained from Sport England (£75,420) and this had resulted in
a serious breakdown in relations, as this money was now seen to have
been ill used. Once again some members of the Alpine Club were
involved in this criticism, and so the Officers of that organisation
decided to circulate the membership to ascertain their views on the
matter. It being mid-summer 2016 when this occurred many of the
members were away climbing in the Alps and Greater ranges, but over
300 replies were received and overwhelmingly they were unreservedly
critical. This very much worried the Officers of the Club and I was
invited to write a short paper to go to the membership at the
November 2016 AGM, and having outlined the difficulties, seconded by
Bob Pettigrew, we recommended the Alpine Club request once again a
BMC future policy review.
A
new Alpine Club President John Porter was elected at that AGM and he
took part in the discussions re the need for a review, which involved
several other interested bodies and included the BMC Officers; it was
subsequently agreed by the National Council that an Organisational
Review would be held during 2017/18. I believe that this was a
mistake and it was a Future Policy review that was needed, for under
the cloak of the former, major areas have either been passed over or
ignored; particularly staffing which is the largest cost centre
within the Council’s budget, research into the possible effects of
Olympic recognition, the best geographic location for the Council,
the future of the relations with Sport England and Sport UK, and a
long term view of financing.
However
over that period of time more information spilled out about the
failed name change. The grant aid to carry this out had been received
from Sport England in February 2016, and as someone who had
negotiated such grants for special projects from The Sports Council/s
for many years I noted this must have been applied for quite some
weeks previous? Yet at the BMC AGM in March 2016 no attempt was made
to seek approval for such a fundamental decision as a possible name
change. Subsequently once this proposed action had become wider known
it was overwhelmingly rejected by the membership.
At which some
former BMC senior members decided to take action and openly
demonstrate their criticism of how the Council was being
administered, and two ex-Presidents Bob Pettigrew and Mark Vallance
agreed that they would do this by putting a motion of No Confidence
in the Executive at the BMC AGM of April 2017, which was signed by 30
members. I was one of the signatures and had no thought that this
motion would be successful, but following on from what had happened
at Harrison’s and contradictions in the few other areas in which I
still kept an interest, namely the Constitution of the International
Federation of Sport Climbing which the BMC had acceded to, which
includes the possibility of competitions being held on outdoor crags,
this in direct contradiction to the long agreed policy of the Council
in opposing any such action. And at the first suggestion that
climbing might be recognised by the IOC as an Olympic sport, I had
contacted the BMC and advised this might be a game changer. Believing
it needed a full investigation of how it might impact our sport for
good or bad? I was assured that this would be forthcoming, and a
paper prepared which would be widely circulated. That was some years
ago now and nothing as yet appeared. So I felt justified in signing
the motion and like the others involved believed that this was a plea
for properly functioning AGM’s, where all important developments
and proposals are put before the membership.
Author Dennis Gray and Pete Boardman: Photo DG
Unfortunately
in this age of instant report, and social media the reaction to the
Motion of No Confidence put to the BMC AGM held at Plas y Brenin in
April 2017 was argued about completely out of hand. At least it
assured a large turnout, but in the fog of a badly structured debate
fences were not mended. I was sorry this led on to the President
Rehan Siddiqui resigning. Someone I had known as a friend since he
and his brother started to climb; and their father likewise who
faithfully attended at the National Mountaineering Conferences in
Buxton when I was at the BMC. An
event that happened that evening in the PyB bar is without precedent
in my own association with the Council, for Bob Pettigrew was
physically assaulted by the Hon Secretary of one of the BMC Areas who
believed that this was his just desserts for his part in the Motion of
No Confidence!
Subsequently the police were involved and the woman
carrying out the attack was interviewed and then apologised. However
she was not the only person who should have been brought to book over
this, for it had been pre-planned earlier that day by a group which
surprisingly included several persons who held positions of
influence. Equally to be criticised is the social media activity of
those with close connections at the Council, trolling and attacking
those they disagree with, hiding under pseudonyms from which they
were subsequently ‘outed’ by other computer geeks, confirming
their insider positions. From which a picture emerges of an
organisation that in the recent past has not been efficiently
administered or monitored, particularly the senior staff and some of
the elected officers. At least Management by a Board of Directors
might be expected to make sure that best practice now ensues over
such matters as process and organisational procedures.
Peter
Boardman warned when he was the National Officer of the BMC that ‘we
were creating a monster!’ And once again long term friendships
involved me getting embroiled in a manner I had not intended. I was
copied into correspondence by a Climbers’ Club member, for worried
by the recent data protection legislation he was not willing for his
personal details to be sent on to the BMC, fearing that with its new
market philosophy his data might be misused? Currently within the
Council’s Articles, each club must pay and affiliate all its UK
members at a cost of £14.25 each. The response of the CC President
and Treasurer to their member’s refusal to do this surprised me,
they declared that the BMC ‘is our governing body and there is no
alternative to not affiliating’. So the climber involved found
himself parting from a Club he had been a member of for many years.
It is not true that the BMC is a governing body in such matters (it
is only so for its competition activities), it is a representative
body.
There
had been previous debate about the need or not for Clubs to affiliate
all their UK members. And in 2008/9 this was discussed within the
then recently formed Clubs Committee but ended by not resolving the
issue to everyone’s satisfaction. An amount of the £14.25
affiliation fee is handed over to its Brokers by the BMC to provide
each Club member with Public Liability insurance. Over the last five
years £1.25 million in premiums has been so handed over for the
whole Council membership (currently 85,000 approximately), but
Individuals who pay more than Club members are also covered for
accidents. The claims for these in the last five years amounted to
£86,500. There have been no (so far) Public Liability ones.
Once
again I felt I had to act, I do not believe that Club members should
be forced into affiliation of the BMC, it should be by choice. The
majority will, but a sizeable minority for various reasons do not
wish to do so! I decided to put forward a motion to that effect at
the Alpine Club AGM held this last November, but because the
Committee felt that Public Liability insurance for its members is
important, they decided to oppose this and advised the members to
vote against my motion claiming that if any UK members were allowed
to do this it would undermine the PL insurance for all the other
members. Frankly that is not true, as the person who with Fred Smith
set up the original BMC insurance scheme in 1975/6 and who attended
subsequently many meetings with the brokers and on occasion
underwriters over the years, I know that such schemes are not so
inflexible. Interestingly Mountaineering Scotland Clubs do have the
ability to do as I was requesting, namely if any member moves away or
becomes inactive in their Club, they can keep up their membership
without affiliating to that representative body. I have already
reported my motion was roundly outvoted, despite it being seconded by
a former President, Stephen Venables and supported by a roll call of
distinguished climbers, including an honorary member and former
President of the BMC.
So
the moving finger writes and moves on! The problems as I see them at
the BMC are not going away; an indicator of this is that fewer active
climbers with good organisational skill and experience are coming
forward to take up the vacant positions of Area Secretaries and
Chairs. A list was recently circulated of these, and I have never
previously seen so many vacancies. It is also difficult to persuade
nationally known figures to take on such as the Presidency. In
passing I have spoken to some of these and they are not willing to
take on this task, for they realise it has now become the kind of
commitment that would be too demanding of their time. However Alan
Blackshaw could do this whilst master minding an answer to the
countries energy crisis in 1973/4 and he was later in charge of the
Offshore, North Sea Operations. In between times he was writing the
Penguin Guide to Mountaineering. Something that Alan noted on several
occasions, warning his successors to BMC Honorary Office, is that if
you professionalise too much of the Council’s operation, and maybe
with a staff of 30+ this is now the case, it will become ever harder
to recruit qualified volunteers, who will not be willing to take on
tasks that lie within the job description of the Pros?
A
final word, I believe the danger now facing the BMC (and
Mountaineering Scotland) is that a large tail is wagging what is in
reality a much smaller body. Many thousands of people, including
children on a basis similar to gymnastics, are now taking part in
indoor climbing, and sport climbing is now more popular than trad and
bouldering is more so than both of these two activities. Competition
climbing I believe will enjoy a massive fillip from the 2020 Tokyo
Olympics, and noting current developments where in my own City Leeds
we now have seven indoor walls, four of which are bouldering only, a
phenomena that is happening UK wide; many of these developments
having occurred in recent years. It might make sense to these
innovators to break away and form a new National body, covering
competitions and sport climbing. This is what happened at the UIAA
(the world representative body of mountaineering), where the IFSC
broke away and is now recognised by the IOC as the world body of
Competition Climbing. I do not wish for this to happen, but when I
note how the BMC is currently promoting itself, I have just watched
their Christmas TV YouTube, and as Phil Bartlett has previously
observed, their presentation is child like (cbeebies comes to mind?),
it may be inevitable?
A
major new indoor climbing centre is a big bucks operation, and those
behind these developments are no longer just amateur climbers turning
their hands into something new, they are now in most cases seriously
involved investors and entrepreneurs. I know some of these
personally, and they are acting in a separate parallel universe.
There is a lack of updated BMC policy guidelines and no overview of
where these developments are leading? I was once Chair of the British
Administrators of Sport, and at that time climbing unlike most other
sports had only a single national body in England and Wales.
Some
sports like Martial Arts had many, and unless the BMC appropriately
covers, and administers efficiently all the present activities under
the umbrella of ‘Climbing’ it may suffer the same fate? It is up
to a new generation of climbers to organise a body that meets these
criteria whilst preserving the long standing traditions/history of
our sport, so widely admired by other countries activists, whilst not
being so cowed as to disagree with Sport England about their
undemocratic modus operandi. Who at the end of the day are answerable
to politicians, and they are more interested in the views of their
constituents and preserving their seats, than if the BMC President
chairs the Council’s management board or not!
Dennis Gray: 2019
