A simpler Crag Crux Climbers
Posted May 10th, 2010 by shawn
It's been a good year for Crag Crux Climbers. We accomplished a fair bit for a small amature athletic association. We held three outdoor events in association with the Alpine Club of Canada, continued our monthly climbing nights, introduced ourselves to the wider LGBT sporting community, and launched our own, CCC-branded website.
Xiaoping and I have had a few discussions over the past several months as to where the club should go from here. One of the things that is key to me is to make sure the club remains relevant to its members. A year ago a group of members had a number of asperations for the club that required a more formal organisation. We have not been able to realise that structure for a variety of reasons. As a result, Xiaoping and I feel it is best for us to proceed more as an association of climbers, without the construct of an operating committee and committee positions. I will continue to volunteer for the club as a web master, continuing to host and maintian our site, and as our liaison to OutSport Toronto, and Xiaoping will take on the overall responsibility for running the club including organizing events and exploring new directions.
I will be changing some of the "About" pages over the next couple of days to reflect this new direction.
I also want to thank the club and its members for providing me with the opportunity to act as Chair over this past year. I had the pleasure of working with a great group of folks, and representing Crag Crux Climbers to other LGBT sporting organisations. I look forward to continuing to support the club.
Now, let's climb!
Shawn, you have done so much for the club in the past year:
The web site alone -- its design, maintenance and recent host migration -- is hundreds hours of work and worth thousands of dollars! This web site, with its newly found high speed in browsing, offers the club the most powerful tool it has ever had and provides a solid technical launch pad for the club to launch new initiatives.
Under your rein, we had the most consistent monthly climbing event with meaningful participation from old and new members for each event. The event with the Downtown Swim Club had the number of queer participants ever. For sure we reached out to a lot of people in our LGBT community.
Last year also marked the beginning and the success of our club moving towards mainstream through joint ACC - CCC events. What we have done, I believe, have certainly contributed to the completing of the establishment of objective, fair, equal and positive image of gays and lesbians in the mainstream climbing community. Much credit also goes to ACC, for the acceptance, respect and camaraderie they have extended to us. In this beautiful land of Canada, we have all contributed to building a fair and equal society that is the envy of many countries.
Kudos to all CCC members and volunteers. Your love for climbing, your active presence in the climbing community and your musles and beautiful moves on the walls and cliffs all contributed to establishing such a positive image. We did it together and achieved none of us could have achieved alone.
Shawn, you have helped to write a chapter in the CCC's history that is unmatched so far. Writing the next chapter will certainly be a challenging one!