Newsletter #1 - April 2026
Welcome to our first ever newsletter! We don’t want anyone to miss out so have shared this with everyone we know - if you don’t wish to be on our mailing list please let us know on info@climbcio.org.uk
The plan is to give an update every quarter, so here goes, Q1 2026.
While the weather at this time of year isn’t great for rock climbing outdoors, we’re kept busy reflecting and reporting on the prior year, and planning for the year ahead.
2025 stats
We will share our full 2025 Impact Report at a later date, but in summary, last year we delivered 125 sessions to 65 climbers, with 244 contacts. 47% of contacts were with people with a disability, impairment or health condition. We ran 8 Mountain Training courses, 6 Community Outreach projects and supported 10 mentees. 50% of participants accessed our concessionary rates for our Mountain Training courses.
2026 prep
As part of our preparation, in Q1 we always review and update our Risk Assessments and Operating Procedures. These get signed off by Mike Rosser, our technical advisor. All our kit gets inspected and replaced where necessary. After mountains of paperwork and an inspection, we’ve just had notification that our AALA licence has been renewed for the forthcoming year - yay! Both Chris and Nicky have been on outdoor first aid courses, and Chris has attended a one day Mountain Training provider workshop, and the two day Mountain Training bi-annual conference.
Community Outreach
We also review our budgets, plan what projects we would like to run and apply for funding. We are super grateful for the grants we received in January from Lisia Digital and the Austrian Alpine Club (UK). This year we will continue running our Climb Eyam group, Climb Mentors, our Sheffield VI group, our Sheffield adult group and our SEND project. We are also about to start a project with Walthew House, a charity based in Stockport that supports people living with sight or hearing loss.
Fundraising Events
All of this will take some funding so we have a couple of fundraising events scheduled for Saturday 2 May - a climbing challenge in the morning for our Climb Eyam group and a talk in the evening. The talk, ‘The Spine Race: 268 miles of endurance’ promises to be an insightful, honest account of what it’s like to push body and mind to the limit. Tickets are available on Eventbrite, go to our Facebook page for the link, get one before they sell out!
Mountain Training courses
We have been successful in expanding our range of Mountain Training courses. In addition to the ones we already run, we are now a provider of the Rock Skills Learn to Lead Sport, the Rock Skills Learn to Lead Trad and the Mountain Skills. This means that we now provide the full suite of Rock Skills, Hill Skills and Mountain Skills, and the Indoor Climbing Assistant qualification. Our Mountain Training courses are growing in popularity as we reduce financial barriers to participation. If you are interested in finding out more about these, please visit our Mountain Training courses page.
Q1 Stats
As well as all the admin, in Q1 we ran 25 sessions (2025: 32 sessions) with 76 contacts (2025: 73 contacts). Slightly fewer sessions but with more climbers!
Personal climbing
We even got a little bit, a very little bit, of our own climbing done - the photo is of Nicky leading the lovely Right Twin Crack, VS 4c, at Stanage Popular on the first sunny day of the year.
Very much looking forward to being outside more in Q2!
Did you know, since we started Climb has run 287 sessions in the UK and 825 sessions in Guernsey - totaling 1,112!