Update

Crispin, our creative inspiration has returned from a trip to the imposing cliffs of Inishmore in Ireland and he brought back a design for the bouldering wall too! Its only a prelim design so I wont be going out on the web just yet, but when we are happy with it, I will post it as a video file.

Those of you who sent in support letters - thank you soooo much! I was chatting to our planning case officer the other day and he was overwhelmed by the support - this doesn't mean you shouldn't get others to send some in mind! More cannot hurt!!!!

Planning is ticking along,but we have to resubmit some drawings showing where the car parking is going to be. If this is the biggest hurdle we face, then hopefully nothing should really hold us up.

I am currently spending my bank holiday creating the coaching programmes for everyone from beginners to seasoned individuals looking to really give their climbing a boost. I hope there are some real training monkeys out there who fancy a drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket type training session!!! All good fun!

That is it for now - hope everyone is getting out and getting some action in, please do the odd problem on my behalf, I would appreciate that. I am just grateful I have a training board in my loft - without it I would be lost!!!!

Controvesy!

Seems I accidentally started a forum discussion on UKC last week by asking about for female boulderers! Rest assured people, there will be no preferential or discriminatory practices taking place - just when you are thinking ahead about how you might like to construct your staff team, you put the feelers out there to see what the chances are of being able to make it so! Nothing untoward!

Anyway, we are in some mystical stage of box ticking and sort of feeling like being in a slight limbo as we await planning permission, we have had to respond to some minor issues, but mainly on how we intend to divide up the car parking area. This has caused a slight delay, but way less than some walls have experienced getting permission so no complaints from us.

I am pouring over some product catalogues currently, pondering what holds to buy, what kind of staff uniform shall we have, I even printed off some little fashion drawing templates to sketch on some designs, but then it turned out that i cannot draw, so i quickly stopped what had clearly become a displacement activity!

By mid September the plan is to produce a 3D walk around video of our digital model of the site to get everyone all excited. Job adverts should be made public in September too which is very exciting as for me it is the people I am going to be spending a significant portion of my life with for the next year. Who will those 'lucky' people be?

Has anybody seen E9 climbing gear? It is sold in Climb Newcastle and I reckon it looks great but thought I would ask the people for some thoughts. Andy Earl seems to have no issues crushing stuff wearing their climbing pants and he is very flexible so they must pass the highstep test!

Also still looking for climbing tradesmen willing to do an exchange - if you know anyone - point them in our direction!

Tara for now!

Hard bouldering women required, GSOH....

No not a lonely hearts ad, but a quick search to see if there are ladies out there to fulfill a job or two I have lined up for later this year. Now lads, don't get disgruntled yet. I have already had four or five male job applicants despite not advertising any jobs yet! I will be advertising formally soon - so patience!

I am going to need a part time and full time female boulderer for coaching and general duties. I am looking for someone who is bouldering around V6/7 or above and is super interested in climbing movement and training. Your knowledge base doesn't have to be huge, but the enthusiasm to learn about it is critical. The jobs are not available yet, this is just a preliminary search to see if there is anybody out there interested and to chat.

Contact me at boulderliverpool@googlemail.com

Not many hoops left to go...

Morning all! We had an engineer visit our site yesterday and check out our proposed designs and building - we now have what appears to be the verbal green light on our ideas! We are just waiting on the written report coming back to confirm the details, so this is brilliant progress and we all went out for a fried breakfast to celebrate, I know, totally unhinged party animals

As such, we are now looking around to make arrangements with people for help. We would like to find keen bouldering tradespeople who can exchange a few days work for passes, so i you know anyone or are anyone in the trades who would like to be involved, then fire off an email to boulderliverpool@googlemail.com so we can work something out.

I was also at the Kendal Outdoor Retail Show on Thursday looking to find us the very finest rock climbing products available to humankind and I was really pleased with the responses of some companies in offering to helping us get off the ground with a decent range of bouldering gubbins. A nod is due to Evolve and Scarpa and new kids on the block (at least in shoes) Edelrid for their patience in dealing with my questions. More news there as it happens.

If I can apologise for the delay in posting, I took the opportunity of there being a pause in the workload to go climbing, sorry to say folks, but it was roped, 7 days on at Kilnsey, with the overhang providing shelter so that despite there being some rain every day, I got to climb everyday. That said, after day three, the recovery function failed to kick in and my climbing became hopelessly feeble, enough excuses! I am re-chained to the computer and will not be leaving unless it is to t-nut a board or something!

A dedication to all sons out there

Good evening all!

I thought I would share some musings with you and ask for an opinion. Like most men who have lived away from home for over a decade, I get regular calls from my mother who makes helpful suggestions about things I am doing wrong. The latest in the installment was the colour of the blog, the yellow background, with the yellow writing was unreadable apparently. So in haste I have transformed the background to something much more adventurous and rock climby and readable (using the template editor - I didn't actually make any real choices, but rather selected from options)

So how do you rate the new look? This is live market research! I am not too proud to have my mother be proven right! Have no fear however, after having been top roping twice, she suggested a Beastmaker board, a filthy cave with potential for thirty move problems, Sumatran monsoon malabar coffee and a DWS wall above a jacuzzi. The directors are considering her advice very seriously....

The middle of next week should see more news worthy of posting. For now hilarious Mum/Dad stories would be great, lets celebrate our shared experiences!!!

Ged

Swimming along...

Not huge amounts to report today other than things are moving along well, obviously still waiting to hear back form the planners, but as we submitted online they do get back to you as problems arise to speed things up - so in this respect no word is good word!

It would appear that the proposed coalition between us and our potential competition that was mentioned on UKBouldering will go ahead, giving the project more money and more talent to draw on in our board of directors adds up to a better wall - so really excited currently.

It looks like the talented and ubiquitous Andy Long will be adding his distinct stylish flavour to our wall design in addition to the inspired designs of Crispin Waddy. So two styles of wall in one build, now if that doesn't have hungry boulder bunnies salivating then goodness gracious you don't know when you're being spoilt!!!

Also if anyone sends in a letter of support to the planners - ask for a letter of confirmation and we will exchange one of these for a free climb, the karmic roundabout turns on goodwill!

A little 3D projection of our building that we made recently - thought it looked nice and I would share it with you all. Has anybody sent a letter yet - sure I can reward your support - how would you prove you had sent a letter to the planners? Any suggestions n how to do that? I'm sure they could be exchanged for a sumptuous coffee or the like - shall we do something like this?