Mountain Training staff leave the office!

Staff from Mountain Training ran two pilot outreach events this winter. The events were part of a new strategy to engage with people who may be thinking about training or a qualification. Our aim was to provide information about what we can offer and the support that is available. This came from our belief that we are very well-connected to the people that we know but not very well-connected to people that aren’t already involved with our qualifications. Climbing walls in the winter seemed like a good place to start, so we visited Beacon Climbing Centre on 20 February, combining our talk with women’s climbing night and a bake off. The cakes were well-received, as was the talk and people asked questions about the walking and climbing qualifications, about the DLOG and about overseas experience and where that fits in.

On 27 March we visited The Boardroom Climbing centre and spoke to a packed room, again combining it with their women’s coaching evening. Prosecco was served and the Boardroom put on their first ever all-women bouldering competition with prizes.

Feedback about Mountain Training as an organisation was very positive with glowing comments about our integrity and the good work we are doing of administering the qualifications. Our website was described as, ‘clear, lots of relevant information, and easy to find the information you need.’ The Mountain Training Association also received praise for its good communications with members via the e-newsletter and the magazine.

The attendees said that the information we gave was useful and they saw the talk as a worthwhile use of their time. They appreciated the effort we had made to go to them to talk about our qualifications.

Although we had planned to join in with the climbing we spent our time after both talks answering questions and chatting to people about their experiences, their aspirations and their concerns. People were very keen to talk to us about their specific needs and to identify support that they would like to empower them to attend the training and progress to assessment. There was an equal mix of people interested in and enquiring about the walking as well as the climbing qualifications.

Following the success of these two pilot events we are scheduling more in other parts of the UK for later this year. Climbing walls are an obvious venue and we would like to deliver similar sessions to university students and groups of walkers.

Feedback from the first outreach event at Beacon Climbing Centre

“I started climbing at Awesome Walls and have been climbing on and off ever since at various indoor walls in the UK and have 'dabbled' in a bit of outdoor climbing. I'm at a point now where I want to get somewhere with my climbing. After having attended Mountain Training's talk on Monday 20 February 2017 at Beacon Climbing Centre in Caernarfon, I feel empowered to do the Climbing Wall Award as a starting point. So watch this space.....”

Feedback after the talk at The Boardroom

“Proud to be part of the 18% & working my way towards the 10% and 22%. What can we do to get more women involved and up those percentages? ? Really interesting attending the Women in Mountain Training talk at The Boardroom last night. Thank you for coming to see us Libby & Cath.”