Everyone’s Welcome in Climbing
Is your climbing wall accessible? Could it be more so?
You may already have seen our ‘Everyone’s Welcome in Climbing’ document. If you attended our partners’ seminar on Climbing and Neurodiversity you’ll have heard it referenced.
The document lays out a series of steps that can be taken to increase accessibility and break down barriers to participation in climbing walls.
The document is broken down into Quick Wins, Longer Term solutions, and Good Practice Case Studies. At each stage, communication, provision, physical space, and most importantly – the people – are discussed and considered.
The Everyone’s Welcome in Climbing pack aims to provide an easy to access list of measures a wall can take to make more people feel welcome in their facility.
This means that whatever someone’s gender, size, race, age, religion, sexual orientation, disability or socio-economic background they will be able to enjoy indoor climbing and all it has to offer.
We strongly believe that this is not only the right thing to do, but that it will be good for business too if it encourages your whole community to participate.
We also understand that this pack likely won’t contain every answer to every participation barrier. Rather, we hope that this will provide a solid base to grow from.
Thank you to all who joined us and participated in the recent partners’ seminar on Climbing & Neurodiversity.
We received loads of great questions during the seminar and weren’t able to get to them all at the time. We have since collaborated on a question and answer document covering all of these outstanding questions.
At the bottom of the document there is also a list of resources which were shared by attendees in the chat during the seminar.
If you weren’t able to attend, you can still watch the seminar here.
We will be creating a similar document to answer the remaining questions from the Mountain Training Bouldering Qualification seminar. The recording for this will also be available soon.
Join us for the next instalment of our 2023 Partners’ Seminar Series. This one will be delivered by Mountain Training and hosted by Robert MacKenzie of Climb Scotland and will cover the content and pathway of Mountain Training’s upcoming bouldering qualification.
When? Thursday 4th May, 10am – 11:30am
Where? Zoom
No advance booking necessary, simply click on the ‘Join’ link below, or on any of our socials at 09:50 on the 4th. For those not able to make it live, the seminar will be recorded and available on YouTube.
Agenda
- Welcome
- Introduction to Guy Jarvis and Mountain Training
- Overview of the rationale behind the National Bouldering Wall Instructor (BWI) qualification
- A summary of the national consultation survey results
- Development pathways for instructors and coaches
Questions for Attendees
- What would you consider a useful job description for the BWI?
- What knowledge, skills, and behaviours would you find valuable in a BWI?
- How easily should the qualification be accessible?
- What advantages do you see for yourself, your business, staff, customers, or participants?
- Does the coaching scheme address your development needs?
- Do you foresee any issues?
If you have any questions about the seminar, or you’re wondering whether it’s right for you, please do get in touch with us or one of our partners.
We’re excited to announce the ABC’s upcoming Accreditation Scheme and with it the new, Sport England funded, role of Accreditation Manager who will be responsible for developing and piloting the programme.
The Accreditation Scheme is an important tool to support the industry in following good practice, maintaining high safety standards and striving for excellence to keep the sector and those participating in it safe and free to enjoy the sport of climbing.
This is a full time role combining desk-based research with site visits and audits. We anticipate that up to half of the working time will be on the road.
We are hiring!
The ABC is hiring for one Equality, Diversity & Inclusion specialist and two more general positions to join our voluntary board as Independent Board Directors.
To complement and build on the existing skills we have represented on our fantastic board, we are looking for people with some or all of the following interests (as we are hiring for two similar roles, each person need not fulfil the entire desired criteria).
- A strong interest in and experience with safety pertaining to the running of a climbing wall.
- Current experience of running or being involved in the running of an independent or small climbing wall.
- Experiencing with safeguarding children and vulnerable adults in a climbing or sporting environment.
- Interest in or experience with NICAS.
We particularly encourage applications from groups and communities currently underrepresented in climbing. All applicants must work at an ABC member wall.
The job descriptions and application forms can be found here;
Deadline: April 11th
EQUALITY, DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
Deadline: April 6th
Please email your completed application form, along with your CV, to [email protected]. Questions about the available roles and the application process should also be sent to this email address.
Exhibitor Bookings now LIVE!
We are excited to announce that we are now taking exhibitor bookings for the 2023 Conference & AGM.
This year the conference will be focusing on a theme of Growth by exploring the challenges and opportunities faced by walls around staffing, safety, financing and gaining and retaining new audiences.
More information about exhibiting can be found here, and the booking form is available here.
Please note, spaces are allocated on a first come first served basis, and may be affected by the purchase of sponsorship packages, a couple of which are still available.
If you are interested in sponsorship, more information is available here and bookings are here.
Spaces highlighted in red and pink are no longer available as they have been reserved by sponsors & partners.
This floor plan is a working document and is subject to change.
Autobelay Safety
As you will be aware, the use of auto belay devices has grown in the last few years and accelerated during the pandemic. We have been seeing an increasing number of accidents on auto belay lines which are gaining the attention of H&S and Environmental Health.
We at the ABC, and our partners in the UK and beyond, have seen developing evidence that climbers (often but not exclusively experienced ones) are at risk of not clipping in on auto belays and causing themselves severe injury when they fail to do so.
We have collaborated with a number of key partners both here and in the US to create a consolidated set of new and specific guidelines for auto belay usage which you can download below. We feel it is important that walls roll out these upgraded guidelines as soon as possible.
Mountain Training works in partnership with the indoor climbing industry to produce the instructors and coaches of the future. In order to do this our candidates need to gain experience in managing and assisting group sessions in walls as a crucial part of their training.
Trainees can also be very useful. They can act as an extra pair of hands and eyes, even if this is only to fit a harnesses, hold a rope or manage a simple warm up. They can provide some useful feedback for the instructor even though they are there to learn themselves (some come with a lot of experience from other sports or teaching for example). Best of all it is an excellent staff recruitment tool with in-built observation, induction and site-specific assessment.
Managing trainees requires special operating procedures and some basic administration, but this is relatively easy to set up and advice is easily sought. Mountain Training has published its own ‘Guidance for managing assistants during climbing activities’ here: https://www.mountain-training.org/help/downloads
We would ask climbing wall managers that use Mountain Training qualified instructors and coaches to please work with us, and thereby support the indoor climbing industry, by offering these experiences that trainees need to develop their skills – where possible. If there are any concerns or difficulties we would be only too eager to learn about these and to help you with these if we can.
Many thanks.
Guy Jarvis, Exec Officer, MTE
Market Research 2021
This year’s survey was an online survey of 89 ABC member walls.
This is the 3rd bi-annual survey of climbing walls sponsored by the ABC
The purpose of this longitudinal research is to provide a regular update on the state of the climbing wall industry
Previous surveys were conducted by phone with climbing walls in the UK – both ABC member and non-member walls: 36 walls in 2019, 27 in 2017
This year’s survey was conducted on-line, using Survey Monkey, with ABC member walls only
If your wall participated in the market research you will receive a free copy of the research there will be a discounted price for members if they would like a copy.
Non members can also purchase a copy by selecting the correct link below.
Following the press release on the 24th July 2020, the ABC and DMU would like to clarify that whilst the initial results are extremely exciting, the research is not yet complete and the full report will be published next week. Dr Katie Laird confirmed the research does show some promising results but firm conclusions should wait until the research is complete. The ABC were keen to issue the interim results to offer some reassurance to the climbing community but as already stated have not changed the advice to climbing centres who are planning to reopen this weekend.
At the start of the Corona Virus Crisis, the ABC (Association of British Climbing Walls) set up working groups to support climbing walls through the crisis. David and Robert Stevens from The Warehouse Climbing Wall, Gloucester approached Rich Emerson, ABC Chair as they had a relationship with a world-leading research team in De Montfort University. Rich spoke with Jeremy Wilson from The Lakeland Climbing Centre, leader of one of the ABC working group responsible for researching the science behind the virus and climbing. We needed to understand the potential impact of chalk on the virus as there were some concerns within the climbing community around how chalk on holds may act as a reservoir of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. Between us, we commissioned the team at De Montfort University to undertake the research, led by Dr Katie Laird (Head of the Infectious Disease Research Group), Dr Maitreyi Shivkumar (Virologist) and Dr Lucy Owen (Postdoctoral Researcher). The team admit it was novel research and it took some time to set up the test method protocols.
For further information please download the link press release below:
Corona Virus and Chalk – Press-release v2
