GMC AGM – CHAIRMAN’S REPORT 2019 – Paul Seabrook

As a start to the Chairman’s Report it’s Traditional to review the year’s meets, so I’ll do that…..

The club tries to offer a wide range of meets throughout the year, combining a mix of pure rock climbing, mountaineering & mountain walking both in the UK and overseas. Martin (Meets Secretary) is working hard to ensure that these offerings meet the needs of the club – if they don’t, or you want to focus on other areas of interest, PLEASE feel free to suggest these changes to Martin – we’re not mind readers. To that end, the club had trips in 2019 to:

• Scotland in Feb and March (limited success and the March trip cancelled due to no snow!)
• N Wales in February – lovely sunshine and snow
• Members went on a ‘Hot Rock’ spring trip to the Costa Blanca in March
• April saw day meets in the Wye Valley and a local walk in the Surrey hills, a return to N Wales and some members visiting ex members on the Isle of Skye

Curly Rich in N Wales

Ruth on Skye

• In May the club visited North Pembroke to sample the local sandstone by the sea followed with the ever successful Wye Valley BBQ meet later that month.
• In June a visit to the Gower peninsular in S Wales saw more seaside rock climbing and costal walking.

Sun and Sand in the Gower

• July saw another trip to North Pembrokeshire including some newer members
• August it was back to the limestone sea cliffs of S Pembrokeshire
• The Tremadog meet in September saw good climbing conditions on the Saturday flowed by us dodging inclement weather but we still had an entertaining time, especially sharing the BBQ food and beers on the Saturday night.

Kevin on Vector at Tremadog

• Kalymnos in October, a mix of GMC’rs old and new plus friends and acquaintances was probably the best attended trip I’ve been on this year apart from
• the Christmas Dinner meet in early December, once again based at the Chamois hut in Snowdonia. The meet which saw limited climbing but a great day out in the hills for some, and some ‘adventure’ escapades for some on ‘Snakes & Ladders’ the slate quarries above Diniolen. Obviously this was followed once again by a lovely meal prepared by Martin and his helpers….. my contribution was to eat and eat and eat

Quite a varied program but I know 2020 has more to offer – all YOU need to do is sign up and go – and suggest ideas if you have them!

So, now a quick review of some other activities from 2019

• The GMC Photo Comp again attracted strong competition and opinion, note the 2019 version is currently running – I hope you’ve entered and it’s now time to vote.
• Bring and Buy Sale(s) – we’ve had several of these with I think limited success – perhaps we need to look at this format and consider if they’re interesting enough for members
• Members Slide show from Tara and Andrej about their Canadian Ice climbing trips
• Curry night in Guildford – thanks Paul N for organising
• Banff film Festival at G-Live

I’d like to thank everyone involved in organising and planning any and all of these activities, the club is run by its members for its members and it is only through this community volunteer activity that things get done!

So with that in mind – an appeal……..

We as a committee really need feedback and ideas for socials, trips, meets, more photos for web, more trip reports for web etc etc. I think we’re no longer doing enough to look like a we are a successful and active club. We can make ourselves stand out a bit more, with a bit of effort.

As I hope you’ve noticed, we are trying to solicit feedback from the membership on their attitude to the club and seek feedback on deficiencies etc that the committee can address in 2020. If you haven’t, please do complete the survey you were all sent in your email with WhatsApp reminders – if you didn’t get these please review your online contact information and perhaps un mute or un block the GMC channels of communication.

We have already had some very interesting comments and survey replies so please keep them coming – get your opinion heard. Some of the survey feedback related to the need for informal training and education and the success of the “How to” / “how not to” evenings we ran in the spring, not “official training“ but knowledge sharing. I suggest we do more of these where we can focus on the needs of members as we approach certain types of meet. I noticed for example we do seem to do a lot of sea cliff meets!

Thanks bar staff:

Running the bar on our social evenings is a great help, and helps create a welcoming atmosphere for newer or less frequent attendees at club social gatherings. So Id like to thank Richard Spencer (Curly Rich) for his help in managing that for us for many years – Richard is choosing to step back from this role so once again our thanks go to him and the team who have served us so well this last year.

Andy

Dave

Mark

KJ – who is standing down in this role

Curley Rich – who is standing down in this role

Thanks to the committee

Firstly for those standing down at the AGM I’d like to express my thanks for their contributions throughout their time in office:

• Tara as Membership Sec has done a great job keeping us on top of our BMC communications to this point – we need a replacement for her for the 2020 year.
• Amanda as general commentator on things – she is now a remote Lakes based member so not practical to remain on the committee.

Those remaining available for re-election are:

Jonathan as Treasurer

Martin as Meets Secretary

Geoff as Secretary

Paul Nichols and Lee Atwater

Thanks again to Paul Davies for supporting the Web platform which remains a key facility of the club and also remains our face to the prospective membership.

PLEASE PLEASE NOTE…. Many of the current committee are unable to continue in post beyond 2020 so the club will be actively looking for members to fulfil these roles – it really isn’t too hard – I mean I’ve just about carried it off so you can do it I’m certain!