April is here and that means it is time for our stewardship season to launch. I am thrilled about what we have planned and the amazing new staff we have to achieve these goals.
As always, our superpower that will allow us to meet our goals this year is our cadre of committed volunteers, who were also critical to our successful stewardship in 2021. Take Jon Cheifitz, for example.
In December, I had the chance to meet with Jon, a key rebolting volunteer and nominee for our Stewardship Award. We chatted about rebolting, ideas for future fundraising, and how to deal with the turbulent hiring landscape. During the conversation Jon casually mentioned he planned to replace 100+ bolts single-handedly in 2022 and told me to bump up my rebolting goal based on his plans. This blew my mind. To put it in perspective, this number represents almost one-fifth our rebolting goal for the year. When Jon’s house burned down during the Marshall Fire, I expected him to call me up and let me know that just wasn’t in the cards anymore. Instead they called us up to let us know that they couldn’t wait to get to work rebolting. He also applied for, and was elected to, the BCC board.
Meaningful work brings folks like Jon, and numerous other volunteers, back time and time again. It’s what fulfills them. In fact, routinely our volunteer opportunities fill up within minutes. That is why we are committed to increasing our volunteer opportunities by at least 20% in 2022.
BCC volunteers accomplished huge things in 2021. We want to continue that momentum and level of work in 2022, and grow in a couple of key ways. Before we launch into what the future holds, let's briefly revisit the accomplishments that made 2021 an amazing year for Front Range Climbing stewardship because of the BCC and its volunteers.
We added 5 miles of primarily climber approach trails to the Boulder Canyon Trail system.
We undertook 7,429+ hours of volunteer work valued at $212,000.
The BCC replaced 522 bolts along the Front Range, which equals 80 routes, 700 volunteer hours, and 40 newly trained volunteers.
We also completed 13 gym kiosks to distribute wags bags and to educate climbers on gym-to-crag principles.
Speaking of wag bags, we distributed 3,000 last year.
Our trail crew put in 33 weeks of work.
This work is a true community collaboration. We have hundreds of volunteers, some of whom volunteer 100+ hours annually. We absolutely cannot do what we do without support from our community.
In 2022, we plan to match these accomplishments and grow in a few strategic areas:
We plan to increase our bolt replacement by 20%.
In June we will start work on a 5-Year Strategic Plan: We know that good stewardship of our organization means good long-term planning.
Increase our volunteer capacity by 20%.
To make these goals a reality and continue at the same level as before, the BCC has added two new roles: a seasonal Anchor Replacement Contractor, which will be filled by long-time volunteer Peter Thomas, and a part-time Operations and Volunteer Coordinator, which will be filled by Alissa Orgel.
Our veteran trail leader, Ryan Kuehn, will also be stepping into our retooled Stewardship Director role. Frank Barton will be our new Crew Lead and Austin Shaw will be returning in a new role as our Field Coordinator. Dayton Bieber has joined our team as our talented new Marketing Director.
Our ability to grow in these strategic areas also means ensuring a healthy revenue stream for the BCC. Our Stewardship Kick-Off Campaign, which launches on April 11, is one of three campaigns we run annually to raise critical community-supported funding. This campaign exists for the community to show its support for our organization: 47% of our funding comes directly from the community via donations, events, and memberships.
The BCC benefits from the support of local businesses, national and regional grants, local funding, and individual donations. A donation will be put towards buying supplies and tools to start our season of stewardship, and funding our new Anchor Replacement Coordination and Volunteer Coordinator roles.
Support our Stewardship Campaign today so that Front Range crags continue to be the best cared for crags in the nation.