To: BMC affiliated clubs
BMC to change name to ‘Climb Britain’
Climb hills / Climb mountains / Climb rocks / Climb ice / Climb indoors
This email is to let you know that later the BMC will be making an announcement that we are changing our name to ‘Climb Britain’ (and ‘Climb Cymru’ in Wales); the new names will be gradually rolled out over the next 12 months starting from today.
The name change was agreed by BMC National Council on 18 June and is the culmination of a nine month Sports Council funded consultancy project which concluded that the term, ‘Mountaineering Council’ doesn’t really cut it these days and that if we want to modernise and connect with new people coming into climbing and hill walking we need to reposition ourselves. Our consultants also concluded that the one word that binds all BMC members together is ‘Climb’ i.e. in their words – ‘we all climb stuff’ – be it hills, mountains, rocks, ice or indoor walls. The change comes at a time when the Mountaineering Council of Scotland has also announced its intention to change to Mountaineering Scotland.
Changing name is a major decision for a historic organisation like the BMC and I would like to reassure you that our core values, and essential work on access, conservation and environment matters will remain unchanged under our new identity. Clubs will remain central to our operations and we will continue to provide services and advice on insurance, safety, heritage, mountain training and a range of other issues which will be seamlessly transferred to the new-look organisation. Climb Britain will become the BMC’s registered trading name and our formal legal name (Companies House etc.) will remain the British Mountaineering Council (BMC), so in many respects it will be very much a case of business-as-usual.
As well as continuing to serve existing members, the hope is that Climb Britain will chime with new and younger people who will see us as being more relevant to them. Ultimately the more members we have, the stronger we will become, and the stronger we become the better placed we will be to serve the needs of this very broad and expanding church of ours.
Please note that in the short term no particular action is required by club officials. The roll-out of Climb Britain will be gradual, specific guidance will be issued to clubs over the coming weeks and a graphics package (final versions of the new logos) will be also circulated for use on your website and media.
I would very much welcome your support in spreading the word about Climb Britain, interesting times.
Best regards
Dave Turnbull
Chief Executive
