Summary of the meeting of Mountain Training United Kingdom & Ireland

held on Saturday 29th June 2019 at Tollymore National Outdoor Centre

Eleven representatives from the mountaineering councils and national Mountain Training organisations met for their second meeting of 2019. They were supported by nine advisers and four members of MTUKI’s Executive Board.

Notable decisions and actions are as follows:

• It was agreed in support of the full membership by the Mountain Training Board of Ireland that the organisation should forthwith be known as Mountain Training United Kingdom & Ireland (MTUKI).
• 2018 Annual Report and Accounts were approved. Dan Downes, Roger Ward, Emily Thompson, Adge Last and Steve Saddler were all re-elected as Directors of MTUKI.
• Recruitment will now begin to fill the sixth, vacant MTUKI Director position.
• The avalanche in May on Nanda Devi that resulted in the loss of eight mountaineers meant a crisis team from British Mountain Guides, including MTUKI’s Chief Executive, dealt with the immediate aftermath. MTUKI Council felt this response exemplified the professionalism that our organisations seek to promote.
• The health and well-being of our candidates, alongside post-incident trauma risk management, was discussed. A web page will now be developed listing available references and resources and through the membership associations further relevant CPD opportunities and a conference is being planned for 2020.
• For the first time Mountain Training now seeks the direct feedback of its trainees and the meeting heard of the very positive first three month summary e.g. of those who answered the question about how satisfied they were with their training course 88% chose the top category of ‘extremely satisfied’ with almost every other response choosing the second category of ‘somewhat satisfied’.
• Our finances were more certain with regard to development funding from Sport England and positive sales of our textbooks and continued growth within the Mountain Training Association were also encouraging.
• Our four year climbing scheme review is now complete, symbolised by the first two Rock Climbing Development Instructors taking their assessments in the days leading up to this meeting.
• A working party was convened to begin a review of Mountain Training’s suite of Walking Schemes.
• A second working party was formed with the aim of simplifying the registration process with respect to the link to the mountaineering councils.
• Initial work was carried out to develop MTUKI’s strategy for the next five years and there were also side meetings on ‘finance planning’ and the ‘Associations Collaboration Working Group’.
• Date and place of next meeting: 9th November at Plas y Brenin National Outdoor Centre.