Membership Benefits
Note: Membership is now £18 until the end of 2013
* BMC membership starts 01/01/2013
There are a number of benefits to joining the club:
- Regular trips to upland areas of England, Scotland and Wales (and the odd trip abroad)
- Regular email communications to keep members informed of trips and events and use of our website and forum
- Affiliation to the BMC providing Civil Liability Insurance*
- Membership of the YHA
- Membership of the SYHA
- Affiliation to the Mountain Bothies Association
- Access to the BMC Discount Scheme
- Discounts at Lost Earth Adventures, Nevisport, Fulford Cycles, Trailblazer Outdoors (Pickering) and Cotswold
- Discounts at Harrogate Wall, Leeds Wall and The Foundry (Sheffield)
- Access to the club ice axes
As well as affiliation to the organisations listed above, the club also makes some charitable donations each year. For 2013, the club will be donating money to the MBA, the John Muir Trust and the HEAT Fund, and will be donating clothing to Share The Load.
* All members of York Mountaineering Club currently receive public liability insurance. It is possible to upgrade to individual membership to the BMC for a reduced fee if you have paid your membership for York Mountaineering Club.
Meetings & Joining
We hold climbing sessions at least every Thursday evening. In the summer at local crags and in the winter at local climbing walls. Afterwards we meet up at the Fox Inn on Holgate Road, York, from 10pm onwards for a few drinks. The pub meeting is open to everyone, it is informal and often used as a springboard for arranging trips and events.
In the past there have been trips organised to Scotland for winter mountaineering, hill walking or rock climbing; and mountaineering expeditions to the Alps and the Himalayas. There are also lots of day trips to the Lakes, Dales, Moors or Peak District. Our club is very informal in nature and trips are frequently arranged on Thursdays without there being any written program. Check out our trip reports – on the left – to see what a typical trip is like.
The club is open to anyone above 18 years of age, who has a basic competence in either hill walking or rock climbing.
Annual membership costs £18 per calendar year. You can join now for 2013.
To join the club complete this application form, you will be redirected to PayPal for instant signup.
If you would prefer to come along to the pub and join or just to have a casual chat (and a pint), you are more than welcome to.
Beginners
The club welcomes new members. We cannot ourselves provide complete training to beginners but are able to advise on training courses by organisations that specialise in formal training. We can advise on a range of courses available in all kinds of mountain activity. However, for those with some hill walking or indoor climbing experience that are keen to progress we can offer you plenty of opportunities to get out and develop your skills.
Members should also read and understand the York MC Participation Statement and the BMC participation statement:
York Mountaineering Club welcomes all new members, whether you are a relative beginner or already highly experienced, or somewhere in between. Perhaps you may have done a good deal of hill walking but wish to move on to winter mountaineering, or into rock climbing. The Club tries to create opportunities for members to improve their experience at all levels. Whatever the activity, Members are expected to be responsible for their own safety, and to contribute to the safety of others. If you are new to an activity, you are asked to gain experience in stages; to learn appropriate skills, and to understand any risks involved. This is because the Club is an association of friends rather than a training organisation or a commercial “adventure-provider”. For these reasons, some of our more “serious” trips may only be suitable for people with a certain amount of previous experience, and those for whom the trip may be a “next step”. You should check this out with the event organiser.
