Summer is Over; Back to School !

[Today's post is from Shaun Hunter, who heads up our Youth programmes. We are launching our Fall programmes, which begin the week of September 13th. For full details of each of the programmes, download the Youth Programme flyer.]

Well here goes my first blog post…

A lot of you may not know me. You’ve probably seen me at True North Climbing or another gym for a competition. I’m pretty easy to recognize because well most of the time I have a bunch of youth climbers around me. My name is Shaun Hunter and I’ve been coaching and training youth for a couple of years now. The summer is slow for me because most of the youth I train go away on vacation.

Although I was childless this summer I still had a bunch of fun times. My summer was always bright, I had cool temperatures for sending projects, and it never rained on me. I went to many different climbing crags through the summer. All were filled with many people who were very friendly and very enjoyable to climb with. I also got to see a lot of my buddies who I don’t get the chance to see that often. As I reflect on the awesome summer I just had I can only think “Wow, I really did go on many trips to the gym”. This brings me to my reasons why I love the gym,

10. A place to stretch
9. Bathrooms (as a guy this is pretty low on the list)
8. Meeting new people
7. Friendly Staff
6. I don’t have to drive out of Toronto to get there, or drive at all
5. Nice safe landings
4. Good old water fountain
3. New Boulder Problems and Routes
2. The A/C
1. Did I mention the A/C?

(I love count downs)

The gym is just such a great environment to learn, train, and have lots of fun, especially if you’re a youth climber. Youth climbers have so much potential and here at True North Climbing we're very dedicated to fulfilling that potential. I do believe we held the only two Summer Sweat Fest Competitions with youth only Problems. That may not mean so much to parents and adult competitors but for youth climbers it means they have problems where their height won't determine if they send the problem or not; their strength, technique, and climbing ability will. For youth setters it’s awesome to see youth climbers learning and climbing to their full potential on problems set for them. Here at True North Climbing, we have the best youth setter in Canada (my boss) Dustin Curtis, and a very dedicated youth coach (me).

This September we are launching our True North Climbing Youth Programs for children from ages 5+. We have a bunch of recreational programs and competitive programs. Children will learn the fundamentals of climbing working with experienced coaches and being with other kids at their skill level in programs designed to bring out the best in them. This brings me to my reasons why I love coaching and training youth climbers:

10. I can push them around because they're smaller than me
9. Kids just say the darnedest things
8. Kids don’t yell back
7. They agree that climbing is more fun than homework
6. Watching them grow taller than me
5. Realizing that they can love something that isn’t that mainstream or ordinary
4. Eager to learn and absorb everything you teach them
3. Watching them push past and realizing that they are without limits
2. Seeing them grow into strong climbers (mentally and physically)
1. Seeing the look on their face when they accomplish something they never thought they could do

(GO COUNT DOWNS)

So if you're young and you think climbing could be for you come check it out. We want to turn you in to the climber you want to be, whether that’s climbing for the love of the movement or becoming the strongest climber in the world and crushing every one in your path (other than your coach, I'll always be stronger). Most of all I want you guys to have fun because that’s what climbing should be about. So I hope to see you guys at the gym this September and hopefully I’ll be coaching you.

We're Growing; Come Join Our team!

The summer vacation is almost over, and at True North Climbing we are getting back to work at recruiting more staff! While summer is typically the slow time of year for climbing gyms, our business has grown month by month. Our membership keeps going up, we have now taught over 1,000 Introductory lessons (that's a lot of new climbers!), and recently we had our 10,000th visit to the gym, all in less than 5 months. We have also run several sessions of our lead climbing class, and had a bunch of kids come enjoy our summer day camp programme. Stay tuned for news of our Fall Youth programmes, for both Recreational and Competitive sessions.

As the business grows, we need to expand our staff to keep up. We are currently looking for part-time employees in the following roles (click on each link to see the full job description):

Climbing Instructor

Routesetter

The work is mostly evenings and weekends, though there is some weekday daytime work as well, especially for routesetters. If you are interested, drop your resume at the gym, or email us at jobs@truenorthclimbing.com.

Bouldering Competition, or Bouldering "Festival"?

We have another bouldering event coming up next Thursday, our second SummerSweatFest event of the season. We've been calling these events "competitions", and indeed there is a competitive element to them for some people. Each participant keeps score, and there are awards for the top finishers in each category.

The down side of using the word "competition" is that it seems to keep some people from participating, because they think they aren't good enough. That's nonsense. I'm participating, and I'm really not very good. Really, I'm not. Ask any of my staff! But I "compete" because it's fun, and so see whether I can improve from event to event.

So this time I'm going to call next Thursday's event a "Bouldering Festival" instead. Yes, there will still be a scorecard for each participant to keep track of how they're doing. But think of it like a mini-golf scorecard. You keep score, but you don't have to take it very seriously if you don't want to.

We kept the problems from our last event up on the walls for a few weeks, to give everyone a chance to try them out (they're being taken down this week as we move ahead on our routesetting). Hopefully some of you took the opportunity to try out the problems to see how many you could do. If you were able to get at least a handful of them, it's worth coming out to next Thursday evening's SummerSweatFest Bouldering Festival, for 3 hours of bouldering fun with a great bunch of people. We had 79 competitors - er, participants - at our last SummerSweatFest in July, and hope to grow that number this time around. There will be some raffle prizes again, so no matter how you do at the problems, there's a chance to go home with a prize!

So come join us Thursday August 19th!