What a year it's been. As the year draws to a close, we look back at some of the BMC's most significant achievements of 2013.
1. Our work in parliament has included publication of the BMC Access Manifesto to coincide with party conferences and a successful day on the Yorkshire hills with the All Party Parliamentary Group for Mountaineering.
2. Our Access & Conservation team has published a BMC Landscape Charter which sets out BMC policy on specific landscape and biodiversity issues including wind farms to help local area committees respond to developments in our wild spaces.
3. We welcomed international guests to a fantastic BMC International Sea Cliff Climbing Meet in Cornwall. BMC volunteers organised six successful climbing and walking festivals: Lakes Mountaineering Festival, TremFest, Cornish Climbing Festival, Gower Climbing Festival, Crag Lough Clean-up Festival and WiltonFest.
4. In Wales, the BMC has been representing climbers and walkers as a key stakeholder in the Welsh Government’s access review of the whole way access to the countryside for informal recreation is managed and legislated.
5. We’ve campaigned on the future of Stanage through our Stand up for Stanage campaign. The BMC met with Peak Park officials in October following the Park Authority’s decision to keep Stanage in-house.
6. The Regional Access Database (RAD) app has been made available for iPhone as well as Android.to make it even easier to get up-to-date access information.
7. We supported the IFSC’s bid for climbing to become an Olympic sport in 2020. Despite climbing not being chosen for the Olympics, our media work helped raise the profile of British climbing in the national media.
8. The GB junior bouldering team is ranked fourth in the world, just a year since its creation. The GB junior lead team also had an unbelievable season and end the year ranked fifth in the world. The GB senior bouldering team is now ranked sixth in the world after improving its ranking by one place in each of the last four years.
9. Our Regional Development Team expanded to three, with officers appointed in April for England East and West. The team is supporting the transition from indoors to outdoors and into clubs. We've had over 200 participants on our Ready to Rock courses at Plas y Brrenin. We also introduced Rock Out courses in conjunction with climbing walls.
10. Carey Davies was appointed as the BMC’s first dedicated Hill Walking Officer in April and has been promoting the work of the BMC to hill walkers as well as finding out what hill walkers want from the BMC. Web articles in our BMC on Foot media campiagn received over 100,000 views (July-Sept).
11. We’ve supported the Britain on Foot (BoF) campaign, which launched in May to get more people active outdoors.
12. Hill walking, scrambling, and winter skills courses were added to our existing subsidised rock climbing courses at Plas y Brenin, as well as courses for students.
13. The BMC Ambassadors scheme got underway in November to encourage more young people to join the BMC.
14. Regional Academies have been introduced to help talented climbers develop. We supported the development of Mountain Training’s new coaching scheme which launched in October.
15. The George Band Award for exceptional volunteer contribution was awarded to former honorary treasurer Gordon Adshead and climbing competitions volunteer Mark Alderson. Nominations are now open for the 2014 award.
16. We launched BMC TV, our new online video channel which brings together exciting walking, climbing and mountain content with essential skills and safety advice.
17. We’ve extended our use of social media, to connect with younger climbers and hill walkers. Our Facebook ‘likes’ have doubled in the past year to over 39,000. We’ve started two new Twitter feeds – @BMC_Walk and @BMC_Rocks to accompany @BMC_Comps, @Access_BMC and our main feed @Team_BMC.
18. We’ve employed a part-time specialist to promote the regeneration of hardrock quarries for climbing.
19. The BMC’s Access & Conservation Trust (ACT) supported projects including the continued improvements at Avon Gorge and the Fix the Fells work on Scafell.
20. We supported the publication of Peak Rock, a celebration of a century of cutting edge rock climbing in the Peak District, published by Vertebrate this November.
21. We made students a media priority and ran BMC Student Season this autumn to help students get the most out of climbing and walking.
22. We helped to host the UK’s first international paraclimbing competition held at the Westway Centre, London in September. Also that month, Awesome Walls Sheffield became the first BMC National Performance Centre.
23. The BMC’s first Expedition Planning Seminar was held in January at Plas y Brenin.
24. In November, we ran the first ever BMC disability symposium in Keswick in conjunction with the Calvert Trust.
Summit magazine has also been getting nostalgic and looking back at the top 10 moments of 2013: from The Indian Face turning into a trade route to Alex Megos climbing an unthinkable 9a onsight; from Findlay Wild blasting the Cuillin Ridge to Kenton Cool's ultimate three peak challenge (see Summit 72, page 28).
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