Following the largest turnout to a UK Climbing Series event on record we thought it important to respond to the feedback given. The purpose of this article is to feedback the common themes that were recognised at the event and how we will action these at future events

A Survey Monkey was sent to all participants, volunteers, spectators and event staff. The engagement was excellent with representation from all areas, so a big thankyou to everyone for inputting as it allows us to improve future events. Overall there was a hugely encouraging response with 85% of people rating the event as a positive experience. There were some key themes identified as areas to be improved which are addressed below.

Route setting: it was identified that the route setting, particularly for youth D, was hard and we have passed this information onto route setters. This is the first time that Youth D were included meaning that route setters were setting for a new category that they have not seem climb for over two years. Finally, this event was not advertised as similar level to the Youth Climbing Series meaning that the level was set harder. We have actioned this feedback by adding information regarding the level of competition to the Welsh and Junior British Bouldering Championship articles.

In addition, we have shared the feedback received with both Mountaineering Scotland and Ireland to help with the planning of their upcoming events.

T-shirts: there was a large amount of feedback stating that T-shirts should be provided at the event. We have made the conscious decision to not provide T-shirts at our Championship events. The environmental cost of making a T-shirt is larger than you may think. It takes the same amount of drinking water one person would consume in 2.5 years and over 2kg of eCO2 to make one single cotton T-Shirt. Currently 5% of carbon and water wastage in the UK is a result of clothing consumption. Alongside this a third of clothes in UK wardrobes have not been worn within the last year, this equates to a huge £30 billion of unused clothing. With an estimated 300,000 tonnes of used clothing going to landfill in the UK every year, this is the same as 544,311,000 Olympic gold medals being thrown away.

Cost: Please see below the breakdown of costs demonstrating where the cost of an entry fee goes when organising these events. The BMC do not make any significant profit from these events and if we had reduced entry fees by £1 for every participant the event would have run at a loss. The small amount of profit made is carried over to the Welsh Bouldering Championships. This budget does not take into account volunteer or staff time, without the work that these people put in, these events would not be possible. We would like to pass on our gratitude and a large thank you to all our volunteers and those who put time into making these events run smoothly. 

Pre-event information: Only 7.5% of people thought that they had none of the information before the event with more of the concern around information needing to be made available sooner. We have already actioned this by publishing the provisional timetable for the Welsh Bouldering Championships and Junior British Bouldering Championships. We will continue to strive to make information available as soon as possible.

Coaching: Every athlete is entitled to have a coach attend the event unless there are restrictions on spectators at the venue. To be clear, GB coaches are there to support the event and are not there to coach every competitor. Please understand, if the GB Coach is not in team kit, it is likely they are not representing GB Climbing and will therefore be working with private clients.

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GB Climbing is supported by the BMC, Mountaineering Scotland and Secur-it. Many UK walls also support the GB Climbing team through free or subsidised entry.

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