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General Climbing Discussion

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Uni outdoors clubs 17-May-2007 At 12:18:27 PM take!

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Clubs I knew were full of people who meant well but were often bogged down with getting newbies interested and keen to help out with club whilst also spending time on the parasitic types who used the clubs conveniences but never wanted to chip in. This is why the clubs would have problems growing into something that could draw in high level climbers.
That's cool though, as uni life is transient and perhaps the club role is as a springboard for people to get into climbing. My experience was that being involved was a lot of work for not a lot of benefit/thanks or actual climbing that YOU wanted to do. Meaning, you could spend a lot of time (and your own money now I think of it) doing club work or you could use it to do a lot of your own climbing. The clubs tended to wax and wane depending on numbers and interest and budget and personalities.

That said i'm glad that there was a uni club and glad to have been involved, it did act as the springboard for my climbing life and many social connections.
I don't know what it would be like now with VSU, budget cuts and uni's becoming more right wing and private business like - probably no money for climbing ropes and no want to stick their neck out to be sued if people get hurt.

Speaking to the romance aspect of uni climbing, I do know two couples who have met their 'life partner' through uni climbing clubs, now married.

Note: This is only MY experience of it, back before the outdoors boom, when Boreal Aces and L/S Mythos were the shoes to climb in and Mikl had just publicised the Freezer...