Being a relative newcomer to tree climbing I missed the contentious stuff that happened on the TCI message board last year. I don't really know the history but apparently it's enough to prevent some of the leaders in the rec climbing community from participating or at least make them wary of being involved in a guidelines creation process.

Check out this thread on TCC to get an idea of where people are coming from. Joe Maher has published some good comments in the TCC blog pages.

What can be done to bring more of the tree climbing community leaders into working on the guidelines? Have they been invited or is it assumed that they have to speak up if they want to contribute?

Signed,
Admittedly naive on the background politics
a.k.a -moss

That thread you refer to at TCC was well worth the read. The pro & con issues all have merit.
The guidelines for our sport are understood. The shape of the package we put them in is the question.

As long as we are small, their is no enforcement other than common sense & courtesy. When RTC becomes popular “big money” will get their hands on it no matter how gentle we try to be with our standards. I have a feeling that day is still a long, long way off.

Additionally…
The attitude that TCI, (specifically referred to as Peter Jenkins in other posts) will morph into The Darth Vader of Recreational Tree Climbing is where we “derailed” a year ago.

Their concerns for loss of freedom are certainly understood.
But yes, a bit of a hornets nest and understandably so. No one wants to lose their freedom. Its anti-tree-ish!

Hey,

I never heard Peter say, "(hooo-pahhh) Icabod, I am your (hooo-pahhh) father"


Too funny EJ, too funny

Icabod

We were asked at the 2005 Rendezvous to start this discussion on climbing standards and ethics and we said we would. These discussions have now been presented to the tree climbing community here. It’s time to move forward. We ask all of the community to READ ALL of the threads first that have been posted here. Let’s not take the time to repeat ourselves on matters already discussed here to someone that did not take the time to do their homework and read previous postings on this forum FIRST.

This discussion will not sit well with everybody. That is for sure. The individualist climbers that only want to climb on their own will find this subject boring and possibly threatening. Some people even think we are assembling a “tree police” enforcement unit (great for joking purposes but not so great if you are trying to have a coherent conversation). For those that just want to climb, I say CLIMB ON BROTHERS AND SISTERS (so what if I was raised in the 60’s and 70’s!). Have a good day. And may the force be with you. For those of you that are interested in the discussion at hand, participate.

I think that it is important for us to decide what our goals are. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? How will we go about it.

FWIW, I'd like to see the Appectable Practice standard available to everyone in our community-without copyright. It could easily be published on an Open-Source Internet library, such as Wikisource. We all work on it. It's ours.

I'd like it to be simple enough, that a climber with the Basic Tree Climbing Course level of experience could read it. All of us could use the document to look at what we are doing. Instructors could use it.

I'd like to see TCI use it to maintain the high level of standards that I have come to expect from them. I would like to see TCI produce a certifications program-where they could make a few bucks. When I go climbing in the park, this card would be handy to pull out to show the Ranger. This card would have value as we climb away from home. It could have BTCC, SRT, Rigging, Rescue, Instructor, etcetera. People who didin't get their instruction from TCI could still be certified by a TCI Examiner.

These are a couple goals I think merit discussion. Please tell me what you think.

The idea of using a wiki to create/hold the guidelines occured to me. Then I thought that would be a whole 'nother education process getting people used to working in a wiki. Something to think about once the guidelines become more substantial.