General membership information

See the following pages:

  • Joining or renewing page for:
    • how to join (or, for current members, how to renew your membership);
    • the current annual subscription, and how to pay it;
    • the club treasurer's contact details.
  • FAQ page for:
    • answers to some 'frequently asked questions'!
  • Contact details: form
    • this is for members to send/update their contact details
    • (NB this form simply updates the membership details of people who are already members, (i.e., who have paid the subs). It is not designed to contact us.
    • To contact us, see below or email the .

The following sections give some more information about the club:

Meeting us

The best way to find out about us, and decide if you want to join, is to come along and meet us, and the easiest way to do that is to come to one of our regular climbing sessions. These are described in the next section, which gives a general view of what we are likely to be doing.

Before you come along email the to find out exactly where we will be and how to meet us.
We have an email list to coordinate plans on any given evening — the latest emails can be seen here. These give an up-to-date idea of where we are likely to be.

Climbing sessions

Winter:   on Monday and Wednesday evenings we usually go to the EICA near Ratho, or sometimes Alien Rock 1.

Summer:   on Wednesday evenings we either go to the regular weekly evening meet if the weather is nice, or to the EICA if it is raining.
On Monday evenings we either go to an ad hoc outdoor venue if the weather is nice, or one of the walls if it is raining.

Email list

We have an email list to coordinate plans on any given evening:   latest emails.
This shows a list of our recent emails, which should give an up-to-date idea of where we are likely to be.

Who can join?

The club welcomes individuals over the age of 18, of all levels of experience and ability.
However, before you consider joining the JMCS or any other climbing club, please consider the following.

Disclaimers

  • To climb with us you must be able to belay safely. None of us have any formal guiding or training qualifications to teach this, so if you can't do this we recommend you go on one of the introductory rope-work sessions at either Alien Rock 1 or EICA, Ratho.
    We will usually climb as a threesome with a newcomer until we are sure that they can belay safely - anyone who does not appear to be able to belay safely will not be allowed to join until they convince us that they have learnt.
  • Since club members do not have formal guiding qualifications, you should consider the following Mountaineering Scotland 'Participation Statement'
    (this is at the foot of every page on their web-site).
    Mountaineering Scotland recognises that climbing and mountaineering are activities with a danger of personal injury or death. Participants in these activities should be aware of and accept these risks and be responsible for their own actions and involvement
  • Be aware that mountaineering and climbing are high risk activities with the potential for injury and death.
    Every member of the Edinburgh JMCS is entirely responsible for their own safety and no member of the club, nor the club itself, is responsible or liable for the safety or welfare of either fellow members or aspirant members of the club at any time.

Why join?

Probably the two main groups of people who join are:

  • experienced climbers who want to meet new climbing partners
  • people who have climbed in indoor walls and want to move into the outside world.
    If you have some experience of climbing in indoor walls we can introduce you to outdoor, so called 'trad' climbing (although no-one in their right minds uses traditional equipment like chock-stones or hemp ropes nowadays), and 'show you the ropes'. Joining a club, and thereby meeting experienced outdoor climbers is a standard way of moving from indoor walls to outdoor climbing. A not-insignificant corollary of this is that you can often tag along with someone who has a full rack of gear — thereby putting off the moment when you have to start spending hundreds of pounds on jangly bits of metal.

Other significant membership benefits

Links to other climbing clubs:

  • access to the Edinburgh JMCS club huts; we also have 'reciprocal' arrangements with the SMC, Fell and Rock and Oread clubs so that JMCS members can use their huts (not for free though!);
  • the club is affiliated to Mountaineering Scotland, which provides a range of benefits, see below for some of these

Discounts from certain retailers:

(some of these discounts require a JMCS membership card - if required, this is noted below; a membership card can be obtained by sending an SAE to the Secretary)

  • free Tiso discount card, which gives a 10% discount in Tiso (JMCS membership card)
  • 15% off at Cotswold (JMCS membership card)
  • 20% off RRP (not any sale price) online at   Elite Mountain Supplies   (JMCS discount code)

Subscription

The club year runs from 1 November to 31 October, and the annual subscription is reviewed annually at the club AGM in the middle of November
(admittedly, that is a couple of weeks after the club year starts, but this time is needed to get the previous year's accounts audited in order to be presented and ratified at the AGM).
See the joining or renewing page for the current subscription, and how to pay.
The subscription includes the affiliation fee to Mountaineering Scotland (see below).

Mountaineering Scotland

The club is affiliated to Mountaineering Scotland (formerly known as 'Mountaineering Council of Scotland'), the Scottish national representative body for mountaineering activities. As a result of this, club members receive the following:

  • third party civil liability insurance (see the Mountaineering Scotland website for more details)
  • the quarterly Mountaineering Scotland magazine The Scottish Mountaineer

They also get access to:

  • BMC climbing and travel insurance. This is only available to members of clubs affiliated to the BMC or Mountaineering Scotland, or to individual members of the BMC or Mountaineering Scotland
  • subsidised training courses, including winter skills, navigation and first aid
  • various discount schemes

Other benefits of affiliation to Mountaineering Scotland are briefly described here, and more fully on the Mountaineering Scotland website.
The club subscriptions also help support Mountaineering Scotland's work on behalf of climbers, and mountaineers in general.

Other club information

There are links to more information, for example club meet reports and newsletters, and some historical information about the club on the library page.