A new, exciting idea for your Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) days with the BMC

Mend Our Mountains Articles
17 Oct
5 min read

Do you have Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) days to fill or is your company looking for new and exciting CSR days for your staff? The British Mountaineering Council (BMC) has the answers.

The British Mountaineering Council (BMC) is the national representative body that champions the interests of climbers, hill walkers, mountaineers and ski mountaineers in England and Wales.

Part of that work involves 'Get Stuck In' volunteer days out in the hills and mountains to carry out vital conservation and path repair work as part of the Mend Our Mountains campaign from our charity, the Access & Conservation Trust (ACT).

It's these Get Stuck In events that you and/or your company can get involved with to fulfil your CSR days, either as an individual, signing up to an existing event, or a whole group takeover for your staff.

The latest Get Stuck In takeover saw 12 staff members from the London office of insurance provider the Lancashire Group tackle the invasive rhododendron in the Peak District with the BMC and the National Trust.

Jelena Bjelanovic, Head of Investor Relations and Chair of the ESG (Environment Social & Governance) Committee at the Lancashire Group says, "Day one started by meeting Mark, Miles and Gavin, as well as three wonderful dogs - Willow, Elsa and Murphy. It’s fair to say some of us got very excited about the prospect of working with our new canine friends! We then set off for Park Hall Moor to help with rhododendron clearance. Whilst hard work, we quickly found our rhythm in cutting down and pulling out roots of this highly invasive species that prevents native plants from growing.

"An impressive amount of teamwork, hard work, efficiency and good humour(!) saw us get through to our first tea break in record time. Our colleague Natalie Kershaw got us through it by plying us with awesome snacks, whilst Mark and Miles set the fires to ensure the pesky plant didn’t grow back. We got so efficient at tackling the rhododendrons we were nicknamed the locusts!

"Meanwhile, BMC Chief Commercial Officer, Gavin Finch, kindly gave us the background to the incredible work of the BMC, which spans everything required to champion the interests of climbers, hill walkers, mountaineers and ski mountaineers in England and Wales. Did you know they have sports in both the Winter AND Summer Olympics?"

Jelena continues, "Day two saw us set off for Kinder Reservoir, where we worked to clear bracken to allow recently planted trees to thrive. During this, Josh Harris, BMC Membership and Clubs Co-ordinator, told us about the social hill walks that the BMC organise – I’ll certainly be signing up and we may well look to do something together via the Lancashire Employee Network.

"We had lots of fun hacking away at these ferns, whilst standing at a sharp incline and trying to stay upright (we didn’t always manage it!). But once the sun came out and we could appreciate the stunning nature all around us, it made it all the more worthwhile. The pictures we took tell only half the story and don’t fully convey how rewarding we’ve all found the experience."

What’s Mend Our Mountains?

Mend Our Mountains (MOM) is an award-winning, headline-grabbing campaign, which has raised a total of £1.4 million since its creation in 2016, to repair Britain’s hills and mountains. Since then, over 50 miles of fragile footpath has been restored for future generations and 1,000 miles of upland has been repaired - the equivalent length of over 130,000 double decker buses!

Mend Our Mountains has seven incredible access and conservation projects across England and Wales for 2024. This project is funded by the BMC’s Access and Conservation Trust charity (ACT) and we would like to thank all our members, supporters and volunteers for making vital work like this possible. Here’s what is happening this year as a result of your funding, including volunteering events you can get involved with. Please donate to this cause now!

Support the BMC ACT Mend Our Mountains campaign

Path repair is a surprisingly costly business. Working in remote locations with complex equipment and adverse weather conditions makes rebuilding trails an enormous and expensive challenge.

With your support:

  • £5 buys a pair of work gloves
  • £10 buys a replacement handle for a mattock
  • £25 buys a shovel or sun cream & midge repellent for a ranger team
  • £50 buys five garden skips for moving soil
  • £150 buys protective clothing for path repairers
  • £250 fixes approximately one metre of footpath
  • £1000 flies ten bags of stone to an inaccessible mountain location

You don't get a cuddly toy or a fancy welcome pack, but what you do get is the satisfaction of being able to walk on your donation, and secure these paths for future generations to enjoy for many years to come.

BMC Get Stuck In volunteers have repaired 580m of Lake District path over the last two years, funded by Mend Our Mountains - this could be you!

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