CWA Blog Archive-2024 CWA Summit Session Spotlight Allies, Not Adversaries (Routesetting)

2024 CWA Summit Session Spotlight Allies, Not Adversaries (Routesetting)

Pdf Summary

This session spotlight previews Allies, Not Adversaries: Navigating the Routesetting vs. Management Quagmire, a discussion-based session at the 2024 CWA Summit in Portland led by Foxman McCarthy-James and Justin Wright of Vortex Routesetting. The framing addresses a tension as old as climbing gyms themselves: friction between management and routesetting teams. Both sides want an inspiring facility full of compelling routes that serve their clientele, but each has its own priorities, and those priorities can seem to conflict. The session's premise is that good communication, empathy, and an open mind are usually the keys to resolving these conflicts, and it aims to create space for practicing exactly those skills. The presenters bring firsthand credibility. In an interview excerpt, Justin Wright describes nearly 20 years setting in gyms across the country, working with many owners and even more managers, and explains that in his roles as Director of Routesetting he's often the one bridging the gap between setters and management. He calls himself the filter that catches frustration coming from both directions, regularly interpreting and translating between the two groups. That lived experience as an intermediary is what qualifies him and McCarthy-James to lead the discussion. Aimed at both managers and routesetters, the session promises ideas for bridging the management-setting divide through communication and a focus on mutual goals. The throughline is that the routesetting-management conflict isn't inevitable warfare but a communication problem with solutions. By reframing the two groups as allies with shared aims rather than adversaries with opposing ones, and by giving both sides tools to understand each other, the session seeks to defuse a chronic source of gym dysfunction. The spotlight positions it as valuable precisely because it puts managers and setters in the same room to work on the relationship directly.

Asset Caption

A 2024 Summit session preview: Allies, Not Adversaries, led by Vortex Routesetting's Foxman McCarthy-James and Justin Wright, tackles the chronic management-versus-setting tension. Both sides want great routes but have competing priorities. Drawing on Wright's 20 years bridging the two, the session offers communication tools to reframe adversaries as allies.