Inside the BMC Future Policy Review with Tony Halliwell.

It’s no secret that the BMC has been going through a period of self-examination. And when Mark Vallance, the BMC President, was interviewed recently he particularly stressed the importance of consulting all members for their views on the organisation's priorities.

So I got in touch, offering my market research experience to aid this project, and faster than I could say “climbing!” I found myself attending a Future Policy Review meeting to discuss how this process could be managed. The consultation was expected to take place in at least two distinct parts; first there was the already scheduled series of regional open meetings and second, a possible membership survey. Although expecting to be involved only in the latter stage, I was also grilled for any techniques which could be helpful in extracting information from the open meetings.

My experience centres around group discussions, or focus groups as they’re now called. But these usually consist of eight participants; not 80, as experienced at the open meetings. Furthermore, we faced a number of conflicting demands. It was desirable that the open meeting agendas should be as wide ranging as possible and driven by the participants, with everyone, rather than a possible vocal minority, able to have their say. But we also wanted the meetings to be focused, forward-looking and to last only a couple of hours. All meetings were to be attended by Mark Vallance, Dave Turnbull and Bob Moulton who had been appointed independant chair of the Future Policy Review process. Oh, and whatever technique identified needed to be usable by people who, understandably, didn’t have market research experience. Not the easiest task

So we came up with a simplified version of a “syndicate groups” technique. For half an hour or so, this gets people into smaller groups in which they identify the six or seven most important areas which they feel the BMC should concentrate on in the future. These lists were then compiled in order to create an agenda for discussion of the most commonly recurring. It could be argued that this process is reductive, limiting the discussions only to the most populist and ignoring the margins. The counter argument is that if you are going to review and renew your activities, first you cover your bases. Once you’ve got these sorted, then you can look at the extras. This seems to have worked pretty well and the top hits for what the BMC should be focusing on are shown to the left.

On the face of it, it could be said that there were few surprises here, with perhaps the exception of Finance only getting one mention. Although we did ask attendees to be forward thinking, you could fall into the trap of thinking that the meetings only provided confirmation that the current emphasis is correct.

But a recurring theme was a desire of the large majority of the participants that the BMC should be doing more in key areas, especially Access, Representation and Communication. Illustrating this last point, a common finding in the meetings was that BMC members just don’t know what the BMC does! In fact some of the meetings turned into road shows rather than consultation exercises, with more time spent educating people about the BMC or correcting their misconceptions, than on actually consulting them about future policies. And if this was with the people interested enough to turn up, what chance is there that the majority have any notion of the BMC’s activities?

Overall however, whilst there was general praise for the work already being done, the BMC got clear direction from this series of meetings that Access must continue to be its top priority. A clear picture also emerged that members want the BMC to be higher profile and become noticeably more effective in lobbying, not only on Access, but also on any other issues which affect us and our activities, such as the Working at Heights directive and personal freedoms.

Better communications, on the other hand, is not so much a policy; it is a means to an end. This issue seems crucial. Some of the meetings were attended by well informed individuals with detailed ideas on policies, whilst others just didn’t possess the necessary information to formulate anything other than vague suggestions. Perhaps it needs to be the other way around. If the BMC can succeed in communicating its activities better, we will then be able to react in favour of these - or against them. After all, if we don’t know what the policies and activities are, how can we ever let the BMC know what we think?

But achieving the golden goal of better communications is easier said than done, and a number of paradoxes emerged from these meetings. First, Dave Turnbull has described the BMC as “bad news for forests” in that it already produces tons of literature and yet members were saying that they don’t get to hear enough about what the BMC does. Second, participants at the meetings showed a genuine interest in finding out more about what the BMC does. Yet there is also a perception that much of the BMC’s news is not that sexy and most climbers and hill walkers would prefer to let the BMC get on with things whilst they go out to the crags and hills! A reflection perhaps that most of us will only ever react to the BMC’s policies and not help set them?

Few solutions emerged from the meetings on how to engage members more effectively. The web was mentioned repeatedly, as was better use of Summit. The new IT project will certainly help with this, but the BMC also appears to be considering ways in which it can get out more to have a presence in places where climbers and mountaineers congregate, such as climbing walls and popular climbing venues. A good tactic, but how can you adapt that to meeting hill-walkers?

One possible barrier to engagement, and a topic which did emerge strongly during the meetings, is that of democracy, with all its attendant issues of membership structures and subscriptions. Feelings about this have also been aired vocally on the web, with long threads appearing on ukclimbing.com. There seems to have been consensus, including agreement from senior club representatives, that the block vote is unsustainable in this day and age and that there needs to be a move to one member, one vote. How it moves forward to achieve that is a different matter, but as we do so, we need to lay to rest the picture of victims and villains that has sometimes been painted. It emerged in one meeting that your average Alpine Club member is a member of 2.4 clubs, with the huge majority not bothering to claim back the multiple affiliation fees they pay and therefore contributing considerably more to the BMC than might be assumed to be the case. Across the meetings however, a clear message was given that the membership and voting structure needs to be changed.

The BMC has emerged from a couple of difficult years during which it has come in for a fair amount of flak. These criticisms have led to some inner torment and the Council re-examining itself and its priorities. What emerges from the first stage of this exercise is that the BMC is already mostly doing what we want it to do and, so long as it continues to manage its financial affairs more effectively, shouldn’t beat itself up too much about whether or not it is doing a good job. The main lessons that it should take from these meetings are firstly that it needs to do more on lobbying and maintaining a high profile and secondly that it’s time for a more democratic structure. Beyond these, the challenge facing the BMC is not so much re-establishing policies, but rather working out how to engage and interest us enough to participate.

But here’s the crux - do you agree? Here’s your opportunity. Is there more that you’d like to add? Most importantly, have you got any ideas on how the BMC can get you more interested in, and aware of, what it does? Right from the start of my involvement I was impressed by how seriously the people at the BMC were taking this review and how thorough they want it to be. Why not put pen to paper, send an email, or start a thread on the BMC discussion boards on ukclimbing. Now is the time to make your views known.;

Tony Halliwell has 25 years market research experience with major household brand names and established his own research business in the North West in 1990. He was, until recently, a trustee of the Bremex Trust and is an MIC holder and a member of AMI. An individual member of the BMC, he’s also an affiliated member via AMI, The Alpine Club, FRCC, North London MC and Clitheroe MC.

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