I started alpinism in 1962 during 2 weeks of training by Austrian guides in the Ötztal, during which I bagged 7 of Austria’s 10 highest summits. In the following summer I enjoyed a 2 week continuation training course in the Sonnblick/Grossglocker region which consolidated everything learnt the previous year and added 2 more of Austria’s 10 highest summits, leaving only the Grosvenediger to complete my tally of all of Austria's highest 10. The full account of my debt to the ÖAV for turning me into an accomplished alpine leader was documented in an article published in our quarterly Newsletter, Edition 218 .
After a gap of 49 years, I joined Mike Garrett’s hut tour of the Venediger in 2012, principally to climb the Grosvenediger. When Mike had to back out of attending, I gladly accepted his kind invitation to take over the leadership role, which enabled me to complete my tally of the 10 highest tops in Austria. This was not much of a challenge since I had almost half a century of regular alpine experience behind me. This included leading an unguided party up Mont Blanc on the 31st July 1980, before relegating it to become merely my 13th highest summit, the 12 higher ones being climbed as one of an unguided equal pair in the Bolivian Andes in 1992, two of them having summits at over 21,000 ft.
In an email to (the then Chairman) Mike Garrett in early 2017, I politely questioned him about the Club's incorporation on the 11th of September 2015 behind the backs of the members in contravention of both our Constitution and the legal requirements laid down by Companies House. Mike angrily denied the evidence but made no attempt to disprove it, untruthfully flannelling that we had incorporated a year later, and that Companies House had got it wrong, thereby successfully destroying his credibility.
This was an 'Own-Goal', since it led to my investigation of everything else the Club did, which for a retired successful (self-employed personally-VAT-registered) management consultant was very easy. It quickly became apparent that the Club was evading the legal requirement for all Companies marketing insurance products to have their accounts annually audited. I drew this to the attention of Chairman Mike in late 2017, but he hotly denied the claims of illegality and refused to challenge the evidence, sinking his credibility still further into the mire. Had he thought the evidence even possibly untrue he would surely not have missed such a heaven-sent opportunity to ridicule me for being wrong. His failure to do so suggests that he must have been already well-aware of our Club’s illegalities. His actions lost him all credibility.
My best course of action was to take up these issues with the Directors privately, but we were at that time denied contact details for anyone other than Chairman Diana Rayner, and communicating with her was a waste of time as you can see here
The next most obvious ploy was to join the Board, so I was elected as a Director at the 7th October 2017 AGM. At my first (and only) Board meeting on the 24th March 2018, the Directors had obviously been pre-briefed with lies by Mike, since they unanimously and very angrily rounded on me for holding unacceptable views, forcing my immediate resignation. To prove that you have read this webpage, please be able to quote the name 'Bardolf'.
Had Mike thought that he could challenge and overturn the evidence, he would most certainly have done so, forcing me to apologetically withdraw it. Since he knew that he stood no chance of winning the argument, he set out to destroy my reputation in the eyes of the members, hoping to drive me out of the Club. This was tantamount to an open admission that he knew I was right. We retired Senior Military Officers always stand up to bullying and refuse to be intimidated. I am digging my heels in. Furthermore, if I ever did remove this evidence it woud be taken as an admission that it was unsound, which is very definitely not the case. It stays here indefinitely.
Mike published to our membership behind my back a whole string of lies about my proposed resolutions made at the 2019 AGM, where he refused to allow any challenge to them, so the members believed them. Here is some solid evidence from our 2019 AGM, randomly picking just one example, namely Mike's published case against my proposed resolution to add Phil Nixon's compilations of Photo Competition entries to our website, and taking each of his counterarguments in turn:
This is just one random example of the blatant lies published behind my back to the membership before the AGM about each of my proposed resolutions. Since Chairman Mike denied me any opportunity to challenge and overturn these lies at the meeting, insisting that they be put to the vote promptly and only allowing questions from the floor to be answered, I was left with no alternative but to withdraw the proposed resolutions, in a triumph of autocracy over democracy.
An inevitable consequence was that since the members at the 2019 AGM were denied hearing Chairman Mike's lies repudiated, they all believed them, trampling my reputation firmly into the ground, and thus meeting Mike's key objective.
The meets planning team had fully accepted and approved as Official Club Meets three that I had proposed and set in motion, and which they had happily promoted in our newsletters and on the Club website. Without notice and without a word of explanation, they were all subsequently downgraded behind my back at exactly the same instant in time, to become merely "Members' Events Not Organised by the Club", even though one of them was already fully booked and shortly to take place. No explanation was forthcoming from the UK Meet Coordinator however hard one was sought. This has never happened to anyone else's Official Club Meets. They must have been just following orders from Mike.
The demoted meet shortly to take place was a one-day ramble I organised and coordinated over the 14 Welsh Three Thousands, which was completed in one day in 2019 by 39 AAC(UK) members, split into several groups. I can find no record of any other AAC(UK) serious mountaineering excursions carried out by as many as 39 members, almost certainly making it a club record. It should obviously become an annual event, undoubtedly attracting far more participants than the annual Coniston event. One of the groups wrote this Newsletter Article describing her own group's day.
(The other two demoted meets were scheduled to take place in 2020 and had to be cancelled due to the covid lockdown.)
Once I approached my 80’s, I was forced to give up the challenge of serious mountaineering, so I resorted instead to organizing and supporting popular mountaineering meets for our younger active members, like that described above. I am still capable and willing to continue, and I know quite a few excellent mountain choices. There is obviously a strong demand for challenging mountain excursions, if my first one attracted 39 participants. However, since taking part in them is well beyond the capabilities of our ruling elite, they are unwelcome.
Other senior members have started focusing instead on promoting easy meets for themselves and fellow ‘has-beens’. Which do you think is in the best long-term interests of our Club?
Decades ago (in the early 1960s), I attended the launch of the Walking Group Leader Award at Plas-y-Brenin. (I was invited to attend since I was a Director of The Countrywide Holidays Association at the time). During the coffee break I engaged in conversation with the General Secretary of the BMC, who confirmed that all mountaineering clubs are founded by relatively young mountaineers, but by the time that these clubs have been around for a decade or two, their membership consists mainly of seniors, the only exceptions being the 3 military mountaineering clubs. This came as no surprise.
When my later meet proposals were emailed to the Club Office, as requested in the Club Website, the Office confirmed to me by email that they had forwarded them to the relevant meet planning official. Since no such official would fail to open and read emails from our own Office, they cannot have inadvertently ended up in their junk email folder. However, they were never even acknowledged, ensuring that the proposed events were successfully prevented, presumably because Mike did not want me to have any further involvement with the Club, supporting his requirement to drive me out for drawing attention to his deliberate non-compliance with Club Rules.
The proof that our Board of Directors are choosing to turn a blind eye to all of this evidence is clearly documented in the Email Correspondence between me and Chairman Diana Rayner.
Since Mike had failed to force me to leave the Club of my own accord, he successfully persuaded the Board of Directors to permanently terminate my membrship for using this website to blow the whistle on Mike, even though none of them had read it. Mike had won.
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