Thursday 1 December 7.00 - 8.00 pm
(Please note date change from earlier announcement)
ACCVI trip leaders are our essential workers, and this rewarding role is open to all - there are no specific qualifications needed. Whether you are an old hand at leading trips or interested in finding out more, we would love to see you at this open discussion and information-sharing meeting.
Attached is the agenda for the meeting. We can spend time on the second part step-by-step guide to leading a trip according to interest. Please use this forum to raise any questions, ideas, concerns you may wish to share before the meeting. Thanks.
Im excited to join this meeting tonight and thought I’d drop a few discussion points I had. Maybe if there are a few items that stand out we could take a couple of minutes to discuss if there is time:
Holding more existing gear at the north island location in Courtenay as most touring and good mountaineering locations are north island anyways.
Investment into a few key items to make planning and leading winter trips more realistic:
Expendition Tent
Expendition Stove
First Aid Kits
Ropes and Climbing Gear
Avi kits
More frequent updating of cumulative and yearly leadership points. Knowing the standings will help motivate people in the running to lead and put more trips in the schedule.
More available or subsidized courses put on the ACC schedule. (Wilderness First Aid, Aid Climbing and Rope Management Skills, Rope Rescue Skills, and Placing traditional protection). The ownis is currently on leaders to find and schedule their own courses and then apply for reimbursement. If there is a bit of prework done and courses are added to the trip schedule, more trip leaders will be inclined to complete important courses.
Listing polls or surveys on courses people are interested in
Taking on experienced people to teach courses such as Chris Barner who is a frequent aid climbing and mountaineering mentor who has taught most of the islands top climbers and mountaineers. Or subsidizing IGA courses exclusively for trip leaders
Create ways to incentivize trip leaders to meet each other. Often more complex and technical trips are ran with close knit groups where there is better understanding of individuals safety skills, group dynamics, risk thresholds, and ability levels. Bringing more of the ACCVI leaders together will promote knowledge and experience sharing as well as spur more interesting objectives and activities.
Promoting cross section trips on an annual or semi annual basis will help trip leaders gain climbing and leadership experience in different environments. Holding a zoom meeting with members of different sections will help expand off island knowledge of climbing as well as give island trip leader experience on bigger off island objectives. It will also help widen the ACC community.
Percentage of funding that goes to island bolt funds such as the crest creek bolt fund, island climbing association bolt funds, or van isle climbs bolt fund. Creating applications processes for funding on large alpine bolting projects, as well as funding, crowd sources donation ability and encouragement through social media will help increase donations. Funding for trail building and maintenance days, possible grading of the ACCVI 5040 access road, and route cleaning through purchasing and access to wire brushes.
Expansion of VI mountain GPS tracks for new leaders or members who want GPS tracks when going to new areas.
Having a directory listing of ACCVI trip leaders so members have easier access to communicate with one another, and easier ability to get beta on routes and required equipment in order to promote safer trips with more efficient trip preparation.
Re-creation of the trip report steps for our discourse will improve year end efficiency of editing and work involved around putting together the IBA. This could include the ability to upload high definition pictures separately alongside trip reports, or written best practices for trip report submissions for leaders.
More communication around involvement and ability to submit articles for the CAJ, Gazelle and other larger publications.
Another interesting discussion topic could be skill progression after completing IQ9s. I see lots of people put a lot of effort into completing IQ9s but once complete, transitioning to the following island 6000er list almost seems to stunt skill development as the 6000er list in many ways doesn’t promote skill growth as most 6000ers are less technical and more hiking dependant. Creating a list of more difficult classic routes such as:
Septer on Victoria Peak
Newman-Foweraker on Arrowsmith, Boston Falls at Becher
West Ridge of Rambler Peak
Including climbing specific objectives such as lines on nomash, time machine, thunderbird, or multiday alpine climbing trips like routes on Comox Glacier east face or tom Taylor.
I think the list of trip put together but if the goal is to progress skills and abilities of members maybe they can be organized based on skill development? For example, recommending trips based on alpine grading and types of trips recommended to gain new and important skills.
Highlighting individual classic routes on the island in the island gazelle publication to expand people knowledge of new and exciting climbs.
Informing members of pro deals and discounts they qualify for through being an ACC member. This includes access to sites such as expert voice where members get 50% off many ski brands, mammut, OR, and others.
Training or incentive for cross posting trips to the ACCVI Facebook page. In 2022 there were 7 events posting on Facebook but over 100 events posted to the ACCVI site. Including an additional .5 point for trips posted on both ACCVI event schedule and Facebook is an idea to improve the level of trips being posted in both areas, or requiring trips being posted in both areas in order to gain full points. I would guess our signups would be a two fold increases minimum if trips were posted to the Facebook page.
Wow, this is terrific John - thank you! Time is short now, but I’ve gone over your points and hope we can touch on at least some tonight. Thanks again.