Connected by the Outdoors

This month, co-organiser Phil Young introduces The Summit: an annual event for People of Colour working to improve access and representation in the outdoors.

The Summit:
More than existing

I was motivated to create The Summit because I kept seeing the same pattern. POC (People of Colour) groups across the UK outdoors were growing, runners, climbers, hikers and more.

All were facing similar barriers, but staying siloed. Runners talked to runners. Climbers talked to climbers. Everyone was operating in the same landscapes, dealing with the same problems, but nobody was talking to each other about it. It felt like a missed opportunity.

If a running community had already worked through a particular barrier, perhaps a climbing community was still stuck on it, with no idea the answer already existed. I brought the idea to a co-founder, and together we built The Summit.

It was a chance to put some of those groups in the same room and share what each had already figured out. A runner may never have crossed paths with a climbing group in the same town. A swimming collective could have no idea a paddle group had already solved the exact access problem they were up against. It was also a chance for delegates to see how other people interpreted the outdoors entirely on their own terms, several of whom went on to become some of the most recognised names in their field doing exactly that.

Six years on and the conversation has changed. In the early years, most of what was said publicly and to each other amounted to "We exist." That mattered, and still does. Visibility and representation is still a fight, but the language and discussion has moved on. It's now "This is what we're doing." People aren't just owning their place in the outdoors; they're describing the work, the projects and the outcomes.

Nobody's convincing anyone anymore. They're just doing the work and letting it speak for itself.

It's empowering for the cohort, of course. But it's just as striking for the sector organisations who join us for a day, often finding themselves for the first time as the minority white faces in the room or on the trail. No report or diversity panel can do that. Spend an afternoon on a hill or in a room full of people who don't need you to explain the outdoors to them, and it changes how you show up afterwards - that matters.

None of this happened just because of an annual event. It's happened because groups that used to be siloed are finding each other in the gaps between Summits as much as during them, sharing what worked and building on each other's projects.

The Summit didn't create this community. It was already there, slowly growing on its own, in places that couldn't see each other. What it gave those groups was a reason to stop operating alone and a place to find out who else was already doing the work.