1. Jim is offering his National Outdoor Top Rope Instructor Certification
Course that requires a six day outdoor top rope training and certification
itinerary that is mandatory for everyone to take.
2. Jim offers his course to everyone seeking National Outdoor Top Rope
Instructor Certification in order to make sure that everyone has the same in
depth exposure to everything that is necessary and important for each certified
outdoor top rope instructor to know.
3. Everyone will be able to progress at their own rate. Participants of similar
abilities will be able to work together.
4. Jim feels that everything that he covers in his Six Day National Outdoor Top
Rope Instructor Certification Course is vitally important especially for any
certified top rope instructor who wishes to continue offering safe top rope
experiences to others for a lifetime.
5. Jim's philosophy has always been, and always will be, that he can not assume
that anyone knows everything about top rope climbing until he first teaches it
to them and then actually checks them out. Jim can not certify a top rope
instructor if he does not personally know what each and every individual does or
does not actually know as it pertains to setting up solid equalized top rope
anchor systems, managing a safe top rope site, protecting the environment,
properly and safely managing a top rope group, and the ability to immediately
recognize and eliminate every possible risk to their top rope group. Until Jim
is able to first teach this information to each course participant, and is then
able to check each and everyone out to make sure that they know and understand
their responsibilities as a top rope instructor, Jim can not assume anyone's
prior background knowledge.
6. Each Certified Top Rope Instructor, following the completion of Jim's six day
National Outdoor Top Rope Instructor Certification Course, will be required to
attend one weekend Re-Certification Course Review Training Session every two
years in order to retain their National Outdoor Top Rope Instructor
Certification Status. These review Top Rope Instructor Re-Certification weekend
courses will be fun and everyone will actually begin looking forward to
attending them. All of the other National Outdoor Top Rope Certified Instructors
will soon become your close friends. This Re-Certification Course weekend,
required ever 2 years, will cost $275.
7. Each of Jim's National Outdoor Top Rope Certified Instructors must document a
minimum of five weekends or ten days of group instruction per year. No one
should ever have to re-take the six day National Outdoor Top Rope Instructor
Certification Course, but certified top rope instructors may need to take a
Re-Certification Weekend Course prior to resuming "Certified" status if they
have failed to meet the yearly minimum top rope group management of clients that
requires at least five weekends or ten days of actual top rope group management.
A group should consist of at least 6 or more people and the top rope site
management should include at least three or more climbing ropes. This yearly
training requirement is based on the need to set a minimum standard by which
your yearly involvement with taking out top rope clients will keep your top rope
skills sharp and honed. Less than this amount of time engaged in this sport
could cause your skills to get rusty. This National Outdoor Top Rope Instructor
Certification Course is intended to actually certify all of the top rope leaders
and all of the top rope instructors in this field that are working with the
General Public. This would involve all of the major top rope users that visit
our top rope areas. This would include only those top rope instructors who most
specifically want and need and are the most desirous of taking a National
Outdoor Top Rope Instructor Certification Course in order to be nationally
recognized as a Certified Outdoor Top Rope Instructor, be recognized as a
Certified Outdoor Top Rope Instructor by the General Public, be recognized as a
Nation Outdoor Top Rope Certified Instructor by the organization that they work
for, and be recognized as a National Outdoor Top Rope Certified Instructor by
the Land Managers where you top rope with the General Public. This sends a very
strong message to your organization, to the General Public, to the Land
Managers, that you have done your part to get yourself properly trained and
certified to be able to work safely with the General Public as a top rope group
leader/instructor at any top rope site.
Marketing Use by participants:
Organizations who teach or utilize only top rope climbing methods may
advertise that their instructors have "completed a NOTRIC Course" only if
all of their climbing staff have participated in such a top rope instructor
certification program. Otherwise programs may only market a specific
program that will be staffed by at least one NOTRIC certified Top Rope
Instructor per each six to eight students.
8. Each certified top rope course graduate will have access to a National
Certified Outdoor Top Rope Instructor Web Site and each certified top rope
instructor will be given a one years free membership to a soon to be formed
National Association Of Certified Outdoor Top Rope Instructors.
9. All of Jim's Certified Outdoor Top Rope Instructors will be listed by their
respective states and cities and there will be a web page listing each National
Outdoor Certified Top Rope Instructor with a picture, a brief resume, a phone
number, a mailing address, a personal e-mail address and a web site e-mail
address. This will allow organizations that want to use a certified top rope
instructor to immediately find one near their area.
10. This access to a National Certified Outdoor Top Rope Instructor Web Site
will also allow all certified outdoor top rope instructors to get in on the very
latest instructor conversations and concerns, allow you to chat with other
certified top rope instructors with your own concerns and allow others to offer
you ideas that have worked well for them.
11. This web site will also allow each certified top rope instructor to get all
of the latest equipment reviews on top rope equipment, new and old, and comments
from all of the top rope equipment manufacturers, with very specific lists of
good features, any apparent dangers and precautions, and the obvious safety
concerns when using this equipment with groups.
12. All top rope climbing equipment will be evaluated by our certified outdoor
top rope instructors for each of the specific top rope equipment manufacturers.
This will allow their representatives to contribute their input to our
instructors and allow each of our instructors to pre-test their climbing
equipment with the General Public to allow us a chance to actually see the
advantages and disadvantages when using this top rope climbing equipment with
groups. We can discuss with them how this equipment might work well with groups,
and what equipment might not and why.
13. You will be able to be involved on a chat line with each other to discuss
safety issues and concerns and what is working well in making things safer for
you in your top rope area and what things might need looking into to make things
safer in some of our Nation's other top rope areas.
14. Included will be a National Outdoor Top Rope Certified Instructor Monthly
Newsletter. We will have regional reports from every Top Rope Area throughout
North America discussing problems, environmental concerns, or what has been
working well to lessen unsafe top rope climbing.
15. By having a National Certified Outdoor Top Rope Instructor Web Site, if any
accidents were to occur in your area, we would want you to let us know what
happened immediately, what caused it, so we could immediately sound the alarm to
all of our other top rope certified instructors to immediately make things safer
for them. Immediate safety concerns and/or equipment failure, or a report of a
top rope accident would be posted immediately.
16. We want to know what is happening to your top rope area's environment and
what we can do to make things better? As our membership grows, we will be able
to help develop a plan, perhaps along with other organizations, to help each top
rope area's concerns and needs. We hope to become a positive force to help make
top rope areas safer without adding any restrictions to top rope areas. Having
well trained top rope leaders managing top rope groups will definitely help
lessen the growing concerns about top rope area safety issues.
17. We want to unite all of the Nation's top rope areas on our web site, with
lists of each area's concerns and/or problems and we want to have certified top
rope instructor representatives in each area working hard on eliminating unsafe
top rope practices, eliminating environmental problems and concerns, increasing
better relationships with Land Owners, and lessening the risks of top rope
accidents by reducing poor top rope group leadership, by reducing unsafe top
rope instruction and group management, by reducing the numbers of unsafe top
rope anchor systems and by reducing the numbers of careless top rope site
managers. This requires a hands on approach where we can immediately help the
Climbing Community and contribute greatly in helping all top rope rock climbers
to continue to enjoy their continued access to all of our Nation's top rope
areas though out the country.
18. The National Association of Certified Outdoor Top Rope Instructors will be
able to make a huge difference toward the continued bright future of our
Nation's recreational top rope rock climbers continued access to their favorite
climbing havens located on private, federal and state lands. Certified Outdoor
Top Rope Instructors will eventually make up the largest outdoor training group
within the Climbing Community. This "Voice" will eventually be able to make a
big difference in helping to resolve many of our Nation's top rope access and
safety concerns and issues.
19. Discounts from climbing manufacturers will be offered to all National
Certified Outdoor Top Rope Instructors who successfully complete this course.
20. We will advertise all across the nation in all of the major national rock
climbing magazines of our National Association Of Certified Top Rope Instructors
Web Site and the National Outdoor Top Rope Instructor Certification Course. This
should bring attention to this site from every organization from across the
country that wants to certify their top rope instructors and offer the safest
outdoor rock climbing and rappelling to the General Public.
21. Organizations will come to this web site to see who is a certified outdoor
top rope instructor in their area or to find out how they can send their own
staff to be top rope instructor certified.
22. Graduates from the National Top Rope Instructor Certification Course and any
organization that has National Top Rope Instructor Certified Instructors will be
able to receive lower insurance rates.
23. Our organization will also specialize in sponsoring special mountaineering,
trekking and cross-country skiing instructional training adventure courses to
our membership. Adventurous locations all around the world will be visited. We
will hire the finest guides from both the amateur and professional ranks of the
world's finest Alpine guides. This will allow our membership members the
opportunity to partake in some of the world's greatest mountain adventures while
participating and then graduating from expertly instructed mountaineering,
trekking and winter cross-country skiing training courses taught by some of the
world's most highly acclaimed amateur and professional mountain guides. This
will allow our growing certified outdoor top rope instructor membership to bond
while participating on many exciting instructional adventure courses throughout
the world at the lowest possible prices; and it will also allow each Certified
Outdoor Top Rope Instructor the opportunity to continually expand their outdoor
guiding knowledge and outdoor expertise.
These are just a few of the many benefits to anyone that takes Jim Ebert's
National Outdoor Top Rope Instructor Certification Course that is being offered
through Kirkwood Community College.