Message from da Prez:

Wow!  What a season this has been.  From financial disaster before there was even snow on the ground to 2 new buildings and a major competition at the end of the season!

First my thanks:  to Cliff Doiron and Lothar Mueller for their delicate touch on the grooming. With this year’s thin snow pack it’s been touch and go whether we can groom at all and they have kept our trails in wonderful shape!

FYI in order to preserve the snow for the Winter Games, we will be grooming to an absolute minimum for the next few weeks.   As I write this, it is snowing in Kitimat and I’m torn between wanting more snow and knowing that the Piston Bully has blown a gasket and we can’t really handle a huge dump this week!  There’s always something!

More thanks to the race committee (Cheryl Brown, Ruth Mueller, Adrienne Vandenberg, Kelly Kline, Rob Hart, Nick Dahler, Bill Vandenberg, Glen Robertson and Travis Carter to name just the chief organizers) who have practiced and practiced and produced a technically perfect race at New Years.  We want to put on a really good event for the Winter Games and it can’t get any better than that!

Thanks to Paul Evans (computer whiz extraordinaire!) and Adrienne and Cathy Vandenberg (likewise) for their hours and hours of work getting the new website up and running.  Check it out.  There are several interactive bits(?) on it:  gear swap, trail reports etc.  Let us know if you notice anything that needs fixing.   Websites are always a work in progress and we need feedback.

A huge thank you to Ken Earl for the enormous amount of work he has done in writing up grant proposals and going to various groups around town to get us funding for the garage, the lodge, the new wood stove that we’re getting soon and new timing equipment that we don’t know if we’ll get yet.  He’s put in hundreds of hours doing presentations and running all over town asking for donations of material for the winter games.  If you see him on the trails, say thank you.  We owe him big time!

I’d also like to thank Kirsten Earl for donating the rocking chair for the lodge.  We have at least 3 nursing mothers in the club (not to mention a post-operative Prez) who really appreciate it!  Kirsten is also our hard working Club secretary.

And finally I’d like to thank all the little elves whose names I don’t even know who have equipped our kitchen with everything under the sun, who fill the wood box regularly, put up signs, sweep the floors and generally do stuff around the place to keep it running, without being asked.  It makes my life so much easier and gives us all a lift to know that the whole club is pulling together!

I would like to congratulate and thank Dustin Quezada for organizing a very successful Ski-a-thon for Haiti on Dec. 6.  He and his band of skiers raised $2612.32 for the Red Cross, which the Federal Govt. will match for a total of $5224.64! Well done everyone!  Pretty good for our little corner of the world!

This weekend, Sat. Feb. 13, is going to very busy.  Rabbits and adult lessons are scheduled for the morning and then things will really get going.  We need to practice a sprint race which will take place entirely in the stadium.  We need teams of 4 and everyone will win a chocolate bar.   You don’t have to be a great skier or even a very good one.  We just need bodies to go around the track.

We hope to get lots of families out and even if you don’t have a team, show up and we’ll put you in one.   The fun starts at 3:15 with bib pick up. Registration is $2 to cover the cost of chocolate bars.

This will be immediately followed by a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new lodge extension and a pot luck dinner in same.  Bring your own utensils and plates, the Club will supply hot chocolate, tea, etc.  Come one, come all, it’s time to party!  Jim will bring his PA system, you bring some dance music!

And now for the not so much fun side of things.  While Ken has done amazing things for our club by getting us grants to build huge projects, that money can be spent on those projects ONLY.  Couple of new tables for the lodge?  Nope.  More cups and a tea pot for the kitchen?  Donations please!  Upgrade the rental equipment?  Not this year – we need that money to buy gas for the grooming machines.

The reason for all this is that the Provincial Government took away all lottery and gaming money for sports and arts groups this year to fill their own black hole in the budget.  Leaving us with ours and only our memberships and rental income to fill the gap.  So far we’re in the black but all our savings accounts have been emptied to cover our deficit.  Next year is going to be very tricky in deed.

We now have 244 members!   That’s the great news!   That’s up 50% over last year at this time.  We could use even more.   Please introduce your friends and family to our great sport and make our Club grow even more.

In the mean time, we realize that the Club, which works on the honour system at the ticket booth, has always supported a certain number of free loaders who don’t pay.  If we come across them on the trails, we try to talk to them nicely and encourage them to pay their share.   We don’t like doing it, it’s not pleasant for us and it spoils our ski.

We also recognise people on the trails who have day passes, but there are no corresponding envelopes in the box at the end of the day. We empty it daily.

(FYI – Parking lot plowing is $250 for the quads to come, $700 if we have to get the heavy machinery to come out. The big piston bully is $140/hr to run and the Ginzu is $55/hr.  It takes 6 hours to groom the entire trail system with the Piston Bully under good conditions.  The Ginzu take 4 times that because it’s so much lighter and has to go over the trails 3 or 4 times.)

Bottom line here is that we can’t afford to support people who only pay half or not at all any more.

Brad Porteous has volunteered to be a Pass Checker on the trails. He will be conducting spot checks of passes for the rest of the season. Watch for his vest and wear your pass proudly where he can see it. Thank you, Brad, for doing this.

Anyone who would like to help, please contact me ASAP.

This Saturday marks the half season mark. Season passes will be on sale for half price starting Saturday. Get ‘em while they’re hot! By the way, we’re the only Club in the Province that has half season passes.

There are also a few new jobs looking for volunteers.  We need a finance committee to help Ken Earl and Karen Westby (who thought she’d retired as Treasurer but returned when the replacement had to find a new job).  There are numerous things like helping to write up grant applications and sending follow up information that they’d be very grateful for help with. No meetings involved, it just takes people who are comfy with numbers and paper work and can spare 1 or 2 evenings a month.  Please call me.

I’m taking names of people interested in training to coach kids and or adults.  I have to book trainers in March or April for courses in the fall so let me know if you want in right now. We may need to team up with Smithers for some courses.  Training courses run Friday evenings through to the Sunday afternoons.

The Treasurer’s job will be open next year as will the Secretary’s. Being on the Executive is actually quite enjoyable. We have quite a lot of laughs and Cathy and Brenda make really good cookies!

Anybody who would like to just come on the board as a member at large to see how things work is very welcome. Our meetings are the 2^nd Tuesday of the month @ 7:30 and any Club member is welcome to attend and speak – you just don’t have a vote unless it’s a general meeting.

And lastly, I’d like to say that once the Winter games are done and the building projects are finished, I really want this Club to settle down and focus on member services.  More lessons, more events, better rentals, excellent grooming and snow clearing and skier safety.  Oh yeah, and fix the lights ($25,000) and get a front end loader to clear snow (~30,000) oh yeah, and some more parties!  What’s the point in having a club house if you can’t party in it?!

Any way, that’s my vision for the next year or so.  (This message has turned out longer than I expected.)

You may contact me by clicking here or by calling 632-6055.   Cheers all! Get out there and ski while it lasts!

Think Snow!

Liz Thorne, president

Snow Valley Nordic Ski Club