ORKNEY CLIMBING CLUB

The club recently recieved a grant from awards for all.£6,000 to-wards consultancy fees for alan jones associates to carry out a feasability study for the proposed wall at picky,and for consultancy fees for taking the wall project  forward. 

  We also got £4,000 to replace out of date gear in the four spa kits owned by the club (which are used regularly for club meets each week and include harnesses and helmets for use by new club members).                                              Some new items for use by club members,including 2 general purpose 3 person tents, 1 / 3 person hilleberg expedition tent,  gas stoves for camping,    2 bouldering mats,we also got 2 sets of, wall friendly, dry tooling axes which should prove popular for the indoor season.         We will organise a list of gear that is available for club members to borrow(on a return in good condition or replace basis).

hi, sarah reports that the area on the headland south of yesnaby (can be seen from the main climbing area) is fantastic ,she has taken loads of photos ,and will hopefully do a report for the web site.

If we are successfull with the picky wall fundraising project the club needs to register as a company limited by guarantee,this means that ,on a very simple level ,if the club runs into financial difficulties,then the individual members liability will be ltd to a token amount e.g £1.If we do not do this each member could be liable do be bankrupted by any claim against the club.Greg and Sarah are looking in to the financial and legal implications for the club,

at least one of the potential funders require the club to be registered for ltd liability ,before they will consider our grant application.

Once we know all the details etc we will let everyone know exactly what is involved,but it does seem a good move for both the club and individual members.

bobby and ian are contacting wall manufacturers for designs and prices,once they have all the info,hopefully the providers will come up to orkney to showcase their products,and everyone in the club can be involved in the final choice of design,alan jones is still working on funding and getting quotes/design for the external wall,so far everything seems very positive,and if/when the funding and everything else comes to-gether ,we will have a custom built wall in orkney.

31/3/2010  The club have engaged a professional consultant and fund raiser to do a feasibility study and raise the funding for the wall.Alan Jones Associates.He is well qualified for the job as he has previously worked for awards for all and sports scotland,he raised the funding for the inverness liesure centre/(wall/pool/sports stadium etc) and other projects.He is an agent for extreme dream climbing walls.

The initial bid for funding to pay for his services was thro the lottery" investing in ideas" fund,unfortunately we were not succesfull,but they suggested that the "awards for all "would be a more suitable source of funding ,given the type of project involved. we have applied for this with a request for £6,000 to cover Alan's initial professional fees,given that we need to raise £400,000 plus for the wall build and for the external wall that is required to enclose the space,this seems reasonable, as £500 a day is the going rate for a professional consultant/fund raiser.

We have also applied for £4,000 to replace out of date/unsafe gear in the 4 spa kits,and also to get gear such as bouldering mats,and tents that members can use for meets furth of Orkney,we should know in 6-8 weeks time if the application was successfull.

 It is possible that Sports Scotland will consider 75% funding,which would still leave £100,000 plus to be raised.

Alan was in Orkney the other week and we had a very positive meeting with him and mark harrison;,tim, bobby,sarah, ian and don,from the clubs committee were all  in attendance,and we were all impressed by alan's proffessional and informed input.

so watch this space!

the club held it,s first ever climbing competition on sat 12th dec 09

we had two categories 9yrs and under and 10 yrs and over.

winners in the 9/under were 1st hannah peace,2nd sarah harper 3rd tia whitton.

the winners in 10yrs/over were  1st laura cogle,2nd kara griffith,3rd kelly marwick.

the competition highlighted the enthusiasm of the junior members,about 15 of them took part.

if there is enough interest this could become a regular event,and we will introduce coaching sessions for them, as with a little bit of help we could end up with an extremely talented bunch of junior climbers in orkney.

there is then the possibility of them being involved in the national junior indoor competitions in scotland.

please let ian/don/bobby/tim know if you are a junior member and are interested in coaching to improve your ability/performance.

hi folks ,thanks to alan for the great photos.

many routes were climbed at both places by mick tighe and the marines in the 70's but were never recorded and then again in the 80's alan and friends did many routes as well which they never recorded either.it would be respectfull to mention this if recording any" new" routes as they have probably already been climbed.