AORE News

Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education Releases “The Future of Indoor Rock Climbing: a White Paper”

The Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education (AORE) has released a significant White Paper addressing the future of indoor rock climbing and manufactured climbing wall standards of practice. The AORE membership comprises a large portion of the collegiate artificial climbing facility market in America. As such, AORE views the release of the White Paper as an opportunity to bring the industry into alignment and to set a baseline for what are acceptable practices in the management and operation of artificial climbing structures.
The AORE recognizes, and has endorsed, The Climbing Wall Association’s “Industry Practices: A Sourcebook for the Operation of Manufactured Climbing Wall 3rd Edition” as the contemporary published standards of practice documenting the operation and management of indoor and manufactured climbing walls. The “Industry Practices” provide a framework to assist climbing wall operators in developing responsible policy and practices in the management of their facilities, and to promote sound risk management practices.
The AORE Board of Director’s decision comes after the acceptance of a White Paper produced by The Association’s Climbing Wall Committee which called for the endorsement of the CWA’s Industry Practices. Jason Kurten, Guy deBrun, Dan Turner and the AORE’s Climbing Wall Committee, with contributions from Bill Zimmerman, have researched and endorsed published industry standards of practice necessary to the operation and management of indoor and manufactured rock climbing walls.
The AORE endorses the Climbing Wall Association’s (CWA) Industry Practices and suggests maintaining the integrity of the document. AORE reserves the right to retract the support of any standards that deviate from the original purpose or that become so prescriptive that the operations of AORE member schools are severely constrained.
The Climbing Wall Committee will formally present and discuss the White Paper at the Annual AORE Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Saturday November 7, 2009.
The White paper as approved can be viewed here.

Call for Papers & How to Subscribe

The Journal of Outdoor Recreation, Education, and Leadership www.ejorel.com publishes quality manuscripts to disseminate the latest knowledge related to outdoor recreation, education, and leadership to help develop theory and practice. The journal seeks quantitative and/or qualitative research findings; conceptual or theoretical discussions; or program practices.

For information on how to submit an article go to: www.ejorel.com and click “Author Instructions.”  All manuscripts will be submitted electronically through the Manuscript Submission Portal found on the www.ejorel.com website.

Subscriptions are available to AORE members at a significant discount and can be obtained by logging into the members area of the AORE website. Non-AORE members, libraries, and organizations can subscribe at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/jorel/subscribe.html

Any questions re: submitting paper should be directed to:

Dr. Aram Attarian
JOREL Editor in Chief
aram_attarian@ncsu.edu