Calling time

A final trip down to Manchester for an Association of British Climbing Walls(ABC) management meeting today. I've been the ABC Development Officer for a week shy of three years, and I'm really proud of the work I've done - but for a while now it's not felt like quite as good a fit as it used to be, and when climbing became an Olympic sport, marvellous as that potentially is, I started to have doubts. Ive worked to raise safety standards and increase participation, Im not sure i want to represent commercial interests, important though they are. The Olympics brings money, and that brings the type of politics I chose to walk away from when I sold my own business. I've quietly finished the projects I feel matter, and at the end of last year I told our Board I wouldn't be continuing my role after January.

I worked really hard and made difficult sacrifices to put myself in the (very) fortunate position of being able to choose what I do, to do the things I enjoy and that I can feel invested in, but it is still a wrench to leave, I've made good friends and had a lot of laughs, but now it also feels right.

There could be a lot more playing out in my blips for a while - there might even be a different sort of politics.

Top Tips Tuesday
Today's tip is ostensibly about avalanche awareness and mountaineering safety, but seems oddly apt today.
Never be afraid or ashamed to turn back, to change the goal, to make a new plan. Stubbornness is not mountaineering virtue, it is the start of the bad decisions that lead to disaster. The mountains will still be there the next time, the real skill is in making sure you are too.