UNB Halloween Comp results

[Nihoa]

The results from the fall comp have finally been posted on the Rock & Ice club website http://www.unbf.ca/clubs/climb/

For those that are not on the Rock & Ice listserve and did not recieve my email regarding the comp results I have pasted it below:

An open letter to the UNB Rock & Ice Membership from Mark MacDonald.

Hello,

For those that do not know me, my name is Mark and I served as the Vice President External on the club executive for the three years previous to this one and I have been responsible for theroute setting for our last three local competitions. I apologise in advance for the length of this email and for taking up space in your inbox should you decide it does not concern you.

I want to address the elephant in the room concerning the results from the last competition and offer some explanation as to why it took us so long to post them. I need to be perfectly clear that I write this as the route setter and as a concerned club member with no permissions or endorsements from the executive whatsoever. The executive this year is composed of a near total turnover and have performed well in dealing with this issue but their hands are tied in addressing it further. As a private member, however, I am not as constrained.

For context, UNB Rock & Ice puts two of these local comps on every year with a third Tour de Bloc comp geared towards advanced climbers. The club has always had a very grassroots, laid back vibe and these local comps, with their friendly format, feel more like climbathons with prizes than formal competition. As the primary route setter it was my responsibility to ensure quality routes at a variety of difficulties in a variety of styles. This takes a tremendous amount of work and without the help of Philip Shay (PES) and Chris Norfolk I wouldn’t have been able to pull it off. Between the three of us there were countless hours invested over a few days in preparing the routes not to mention thought and sweat.

With that said, cheating in one of these competitions flies in the face of both what our club is all about and insults the efforts of those who put it on. Regrettably, this year we found ourselves precisely in this situation and as unfortunate as that may be, it has been in trying to deal with this individual that the circumstances have become truly sad.

During the competition I had the pleasure to cruise around watching climbers enjoying the routes. In the process of doing so I got a pretty good idea of where people would stand in the results and was surprised by a major upset in the Women`s Open category. Following the prize ceremony, I reviewed the score sheets to find serious discrepancies in what I had observed the first place climber complete and what was recorded on the score sheet. With my own two eyes I watched this person fall from routes multiple times yet the routes were marked as completed in far less attempts. In speaking with several other people my observations and suspicions were consistently supported by what they had seen as well. Also of suspect was the fact that the witness signatures appeared to have all been made at once with one signature at the top and a line of ``ditto`` marks down the sheet which were then signed again overtop.

I left all this evidence with the executive to deal with and when they confronted the individual in question she denied everything and assured the exec the score sheet was accurate. Things quickly spiralled out of control with the UNB recreation people becoming involved and even the UNB human rights watchdogs if you can believe it. Our poor exec! An open-shut case turned into a mess of he said, she said silliness with continued denials and accusations that my eye witness account was a conflict of interest as my partner was competing in the same category. Unbelievable.

For those that do not know, it is written into our club constitution that in order for the executive to dole out discipline to a member they need support from 2/3 of our membership. This conflicts with UNB’s policy that individuals have the right to be dealt with in a confidential manner which, after this incident, clearly needs to be addressed. The hands of the executive were tied. In the end, as far as I know, the prize has been returned to the club after it was finally admitted that the witness signatures on the score sheet were indeed all signed just before handing it in which is grounds enough for disqualification. It is still maintained that no cheating took place despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Finally I want to say that I have been involved in this club a long time and have put far too much of myself into it to stand by and see it abused. When I served on the executive we had issues with this same individual and I can’t help but feel that there is an attempt here to take advantage of a crew of new faces. I am satisfied with the efforts of the executive in dealing with this issue but am not comfortable with the broader membership not being informed. When you walk into our gym everything you see is built, purchased and maintained by us, the members, and it is absolutely unacceptable for anyone to come into our community and abuse our good nature. The club has grown incredibly over the last five years yet seems to have maintained its grassroots vibe. I know some of the folks who have been around as long or longer as I have are with me on this issue but it is my sincere hope that for those of you new to Rock & Ice you recognise what a wicked thing we have here and value it enough to find this sort of behaviour incredibly offensive.

Thanks for your time (if you read all this) and should any of you wish to discuss this further don’t hesitate to drop me a line tokyotrainstyle at yahoo.com

Mark

[Adam]

good on ya Mark. one bad apple is not going to ruin this bunch. thanks for route setting and for calling this person out. it baaaaaadly needed doing.

climb on.

[Fred]

Human rights??!!! What does that have to do with being a compulsive liar? And this goes way beyond the UNB climbing gym... Playing that card is as lame as cheating your way to victory.

Nice work calling them out. Paint a red target on them.

Peace out.

Disclaimer: I recognize this post is infringing on the Terms Of Use of this site so if the other moderators feel this message is inappropriate they can edit accordingly.

[chossmonkey]

Human CONTENT MODERATED rights??!!! What CONTENT MODERATED does that CONTENT MODERATED have to do with being a CONTENT MODERATED compulsive liar? And thisCONTENT MODERATED goes way beyond the UNB climbing gym... Playing that CONTENT MODERATED card is as CONTENT MODERATED lame as cheating your way CONTENT MODERATED to victory.

Nice CONTENT MODERATED work calling them out. Paint a CONTENT MODERATED red target on them.

Peace out.

Disclaimer: I recognize this post is infringing on the Terms Of Use of this site so if the other moderators feel this message is inappropriate they can edit accordingly.

Holy cow Fred!!


Good job Mark, there is no room in the climbing community for people who want to screw others over.

[granite_grrl]

Wow, looks like a game of madlibs gone terribly wrong!

[Nihoa]

To be clear, the end result was disqualification for this individual and those listed on the UNB Rock n Ice page are all fine, upstanding ladies

[*Chris*]

To be clear, the end result was disqualification for this individual and those listed on the UNB Rock n Ice page are all fine, upstanding ladies ;)

Says who?