New Ski Club of Great Britain chat forum

A snowHead

This just received.

Couldn't have expressed it better myself - Merry Christmas!

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I think CG asks some good questions, the trouble is those in the club don't like being asked good questions, I never got a satisfactory reply when I asked how green the respect the mountain wrist bands were, it seemed to me to be somewhat ironic to be promoting green issues with something made of a material that will take hundreds of years to degrade but hey that's just the way the SCGB seems to work

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I may not agree with everything he has to say, but I will defend with my life his right to say it. Etc etc and all that.

If an organisation cannot stand up to the scrutiny of one enthusiastic amateur asking questions and raising concerns, it is probably in a lot more doodoo than it realises.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Good points, DG Orf. SCGB 'Respect the Mountain' wristbands were sold from 2005 onwards to raise money for the Club's environmental fund. 35,000 were manufactured for sale at £2 each. The amount raised, as stated here ...

http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=94856&start=1720#2332753

... was £6,816.22 (i.e. sales of around 3400 wristbands.

The destiny of the unsold wristbands is not known.

As for the fund in general, it's high time the SCGB clarified what happened to the estimated £40,000+ which has never been accounted for [see link above].

The Club continues to levy (as far as I'm aware) 50p per membership subscription towards its environmental fund -a quasi-charitable exercise to fund environmental projects. There is a need, given the public non-member support of this fund (via sales of merchandise etc.). for the whole position to be clarified - I'll be investigating this further, into 2014.

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Comedy Goldsmith,

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

31,600 wristbands would make an a-m-a-zing catapult.

Comedy Goldsmith, The environmental fund thing is really where you should be concentrating. There is a real issue there which I too would like answered. But it gets lost in all the other gripes you have. And your nasty behaviour to those who challenge you.

I don't give a toss if this thread lives or dies. I have managed to ignore it for months at a time. There is life outside the internet Wink

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Cacciatore, he could make a knot on a log look impatient . . . wink

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A further point concerning the SCGB's environmental fund:

Tonight there appears to be no reference to the 50p environmental levy on the SCGB 'join' page ... where it's been clearly mentioned in recent years ...

https://www.skiclub.co.uk/skiclub/join/yourdetails.aspx?membershipType=1#.Uqeriiff5xU

... but the 'Respect the Mountain' page says ...

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

Quoting stoat of the dead: "Comedy Goldsmith, The environmental fund thing is really where you should be concentrating."

Not really ... it's a drop in a great big fat ocean of money.

The environmental fund is interesting and surprising, since it's a tiny amount of money (under £10,000 per annum). Despite its relative insignificance, the SCGB seems unable to unwilling to account for it.

What about the rest of it? We're dealing with a £4m per annum turnover here, and huge areas of expenditure (right) - hundreds of thousands of pounds per category - which seem only to generate decline and waste.

A snowHead

Comedy Goldsmith, OK,

A good journalist might take the thing where he has a clear line of financial enquiry visible - a smoking gun if you like - and pursue that. You perhaps sarcastically alluded earlier to Bernstein & Woodward - and isn't that what they did?

Asking what happened to the environmental funds collected from a lot of us at the time sounds a productive initial line of enquiry... andone that you could reasonably expect to be answered, although weren't you actually on the environmental subcommittee for some of that time??!

The trouble is - as when you used to start something like 10 threads a month out of the 12 or so on the Ski Club section of the now moribund SCGB forum - if you attack on too many fronts at once, you dilute your effectiveness - and risk people thinking you are a vexatious complainant with a grudge which will never be resolved.

As long as you are attacking everything about the club, except what it was like when you first joined, and as long as your only solution is to close it down, despite the fact that a reasonably stable number of people are voting for it with their wallets at a time when skier holiday numbers have actually fallen... there may be a credibility gap.

Remember when admin arranged for opening a page of one of your sH threads to cause a "stuck record" sound to be played? Well, both you and I might deserve that repeated...

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

stoat of the dead, I think the difficulty is that anyone representing SCGB can avoid the difficult question of where all that environmental money has gone because of the sheer number of other points to debate. It does come across as a complainant with a grudge, but then every organisation has one of those. All other issues aside, the one involving money will probably be the one of greatest concern for most.

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Quoting stoat of the dead:
"Asking what happened to the environmental funds collected from a lot of us at the time sounds a productive initial line of enquiry... and one that you could reasonably expect to be answered, although weren't you actually on the environmental subcommittee for some of that time??!"

I was on the SCGB Environmental Working Group from its formation in late 2004 for 3 years, under the chairmanship of Sally Cartwright (the maximum term allowable, we were then informed). It's important, at this juncture, for us to know who chaired that group from 2007 to date. I recall that SCGB director David Sterland took over at that time. Richard Bird, a current SCGB director, stated last January that he was chairing the Group at that time and provided some information (right).
Source: http://www.skiclub.co.uk/skiclub/membersonly/snowtalk/discussion.aspx/The-Environment?discussionID=14241#.Uqi0xiff5xU

Richard Bird's account of "recent" expenditure (to Jan 2013):

Quote:

- Patrick Thorne Green Travel research - work out the carbon cost of alternative travel modes to the resort - £3000
- Bristol University Cabot Insitutute - Research into Biogeochemistry of Snow in French Alps £4000
- Freshtracks "Ski Holidays by Rail " promotion £3600
- Leaders Train Travel subsidy to encourage use of train instead of air travel £2300
- Britannia Hut Saas Fee solar panels installation to eliminate massive water and energy waste £3000
- Scottish Resort Big Spring Clean Up, around £2600 annually
- Woodland Trust tree planting £1500
- Chamonix Lac Blanc hut hydroelectic installation - £7500 (ongoing project)
etc. etc.

The Club's full account (to December 2013)
Source: http://www.skiclub.co.uk/skiclub/respectthemountain/environment/skiclub.aspx#.Uqi4qSff5xU

Quote:

- Woodland Trust tree planting scheme - £7500 donation to plant 600 indigenous forest trees in Britain. A further £1500 donated this year.
- Research project by James Lewis, entitled "Sustainable Alpine Tourism: the British Ski Industry's Role in Developing Sustainability in the French Alps" - £4250 download the full report as a pdf
- Eco-boxes through Summit foundation in Verbier, Switzerland - £816.22
- Makesnowsportsgreener campaign and snowsports sustainability and resort makeover - £4000
- "The Big Spring Clean" - Scottish resort clean up day. This year's cost was £2600
- The Eco-guide to Mountain Gear - £1788
- Ski Club Leaders Train Travel subsidy of £100 each to encourage travel by train has been popular. 23 Leaders took it up this year. Cost £2300.
- Freshtracks is including train travel options to Les Arcs for members in this year's holiday programme. The EWG is allocating £1600 to help keep the travel costs comparable with plane travel.
- Disposable ashtrays have been handed out in resorts by Club Leaders - £1500
- The Chamonix Lac Blanc Refuge hydroelectric project has been approved in principle. This project is to replace an aging and polluting diesel generator. Cost £7500.
- The historic Britannia Hut near Saas Fee was built many years ago with the help of the Club. Solar panels have been installed to help save fuel, water supplies and environmentally intrusive heli lifts - £3000
- Researchers at Bristol University are looking into the role of micro-organisms in snow, and how snow longevity and possibly snowfall is affected. The Club has given a grant of £4000.
- We have commissioned snowcarbon to provide the Club with ongoing information on 'green travel'. This will be included in the Green Travel section and help members to plan journeys by rail. Cost £850
- Contribution of £4000 towards the University of Bristol's research into the biogeochemistry of snow in the Alps and the potential impacts on the snowsports industry and ski resorts.

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Further to the above: I'm not aware that "The Big Spring Clean" actually happened "this year": 2013. However, since that project conventionally occurs in late spring, in the new SCGB financial year, the absence of the project in 2013 suggests that it was not budgeted into the 2013-4 financial year, for some reason.

The Club is clear that the 'Respect the Mountain' project is very much live, despite there being no obvious indication of the 50p levy being charged at the time of subscription collection ...

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Ok. Thanks. So does that mean the club has actually spent the environmental money appropriately? I'm confused... That looks like more than 40k spent.

I'm obviously missing something here

After all it is free

Until the SCGB itemises, dates and quantifies the expenditures it's impossible to say. We also don't know how much has been raised each year. I estimate, very roughly, that £80k to £90k total has been raised over 9 years (membership levy + merchandise etc.)

Yes, about half of that has been accounted for, but with no indications of when money was spent.

Note Richard Bird's comment above: "... you are entitled to scrutinise the use of it." That's what was attempted in late 2012, but no reply was received from the Club's treasurer or Environmental Group chairman ...

I don't know if Richard Bird remains chairman of the group - he's welcome to comment. And ideally publish the 9 sets of annual accounts.

Ok. Thanks. Now all you have to do is ask someone who is a member to seek an answer to that question, not questions about everything you hate about the club and the way it has treated you.

"Please can you let us know the funds total receipts each year, and how it has been spent?"

Mistress Panda, yes. Precisely.

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More about the SCGB and the environment/atmosphere ...

Back in 2009, SCGB director Gerry Aitken (who has been on the SCGB board from 2005-8 and 2011 to date) stated:

"... the Club does encourage skiing in North America, but also the offsetting of CO2"

Source: http://www.skiclub.co.uk/skiclub/membersonly/snowtalk/discussion.aspx/The-Ski-Club?discussionID=11954#.UqmI7yff5xU

I'm not aware of any CO2 offsetting undertaken by the SCGB. Maybe he can explain what's been done. Presumably he means removing from the atmosphere the CO2 that's been added. So ... what does "encourage" mean?

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Offsetting of CO2 usually means planting trees which will capture the carbon dioxide produced by flights, power generation and so on, there's a formula around somewhere that is supposedly designed to tell you how many trees to plant depending on how many air miles you've traveled on what sort of aircraft but I have no idea if it's accurate.

If I recall correctly the SCGB has planted (or contributed to the costs of planting) some trees somewhere, think it was listed under the environmental costs.

D G Orf, it's correct that the SCGB has funded tree planting, but this was never originally represented as a carbon-offsetting exercise (for various reasons). As a member of the Environmental Working Group, I did the research on this back in 2005, looking at three potential partners:

- Future Forests
- Climate Care
- The Woodland Trust

The Woodland Trust was selected, partly because it wasn't making carbon-offset claims (which were viewed as controversial), and the Club then (independently of the EWG) represented the project as a 'long-term tree-planting project'. This phrase was used for some years by the SCGB in collecting subscription payments and the 50p levies. Payments were made to the Woodland Trust, but in 2009 I began receiving complaints from the Woodland Trust that their payments had actually ceased in 2006 (this obviously all needs clarification from the SCGB). This is doubly peculiar, because the Club is now claiming that it has paid the Trust "a further £1500 this year" (see above).

The full schedule of payments to the Woodland Trust (and/or any other tree-planting partner) now needs to be clarified, because the original intention - as recommended to SCGB Council in 2005 and agreed by them - was that approximately 50% of the SCGB environmental fund would go to tree planting (not necessarily the Woodland Trust in all cases). It's not at all clear what the SCGB paid the Woodland Trust in total, but I guess this could be re-checked with the latter.

It may be of interest that the idea of the environmental levy originally came about because two tour operators in 2004-5 (Erna Low and Crystal) were collecting £5 per ski holiday to finance their own tree-planting schemes. The SCGB decided that a similar levy on Freshtracks holidays would not work, so it was decided to levy the membership across the board at a rate of about 1% of membership revenue - how the 50p was chosen as a round figure.

You know it makes sense.

Good luck with getting a honest answer out of the SCGB on that CG, I never managed it on wristbands which I felt at the time were a particularly stupid way of getting across an Enviromental message. I've said what offsetting CO2 is usually taken to mean, if the SCGB are doing something else they don't seem to want to say.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

The wristbands always were a joke. Not a brilliant idea.

Comedy Goldsmith, you see, I thought journalists actually went out and found stuff out rather than merely aggregating information from the Internet?

Your calculations, which I do not dispute, might show a financial hole. There could be a real story here.

A snowHead

This is certainly 'the story you've been looking for'.....
There is a humanity angle which can reach out to non skiers and non-SCGB-carers.
People getting ripped off, charities not receiving their promised cash and missing accounts.
Comedy Goldsmith, as mentioned above; it is time to really focus on this and nothing else. But do it without trawling message boards, screen dumps and google images. Get all the published accounts that you can and create an ordered case.
Then present this to one of your many journo contacts who may be taken 'seriously' (please note I am not suggesting that you should not be taken seriously) by the club.
There is a genuine angle here. It is up to you how you decide to progress with it.

A snowHead

stoat of the dead, flangesax, and other members of the studio audience, without wishing to blow my tin trumpet (I may enjoy larking about a bit, but) ...

... I am not a beginner at journalism or general scribbling. Back in 1977-8 I was lucky enough to cut my teeth on Skateboard! magazine with a man who has become the most successful private-entrepreneurial magazine publisher in the world: Felix Dennis (Dennis Publishing). Felix owns (on the isle of Mustique) the house once owned by David Bowie and is establishing the largest private forest in Britain (one million trees planted to date).

I worked for years for The Sunday Times doing originally-researched ski articles. I've spent two years at City University's Department of Journalism and Publishing and studied investigative journalism with two of Britain's greatest practitioners: Nick Davies and David Leigh. Nick Davies wrote the most influential recent book on journalism: 'Flat Earth News'.

The Ski Club of Great Britain has a significance of 'fuck all' in the general concerns of humanity, but it's important that this exercise/narrative is seen through. You may be correct that a 'spreading of the word' may be a good idea, and this will occur in 2014. In the meantime, and while 'Respect the Mountain of Unsold Wristbands' and the SCGB Environmental Fund is further investigated, here (right) is how 'Respect the Mountain' is being used as a logo and promotional device. The cutting is from page 35 of the SCGB's lavishly printed 84-page Freshtracks brochure.

It would seem, from the information above, that these train holidays have been cross-subsidised (in recent years) by £100 payments per passenger from the Club's environmental fund (it's not known if these £100 payments continue for 2014). Perhaps we'll establish who took the decision to make those payments, and whether they fit within the charitable/quasi-charitable purposes originally established for the environmental fund. Clearly a SCGB member (as far as I can see) who has paid £62 for a year's subscription is getting a terrific 'cash back' by being paid £100 to take the train.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Yes... I/we know all about your professional background and respect it.
You have written about your credentials many, many times throughout this forum. That is not being questioned by me (nor many others).

Yet your blinkered view that this can not possibly be a matter that the general public could carry a concern for carries a weight of negativism in regards to the whole story/article.

Pitched correctly (by a professional journalist who carries a weight of enthusiasm) this would be a perfect exposé for papers that care about ski toffs... unfortunately I will probably never get to read the article as the top sheet of these papers is often enough to induce vomiting....

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Comedy Goldsmith, as I understood things the £100 was for reps who went by train, are you saying it was for anyone who used a train via the SCGB Fresh tracks holidays ?

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Oh yes. Check my posting above from Wednesday - the gravy train now has more carriages. The £100 payments have been dished out more widely ...

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Comedy Goldsmith, I am glad to hear you are taking this forwards.

What I am saying is that people might be much more impressed by a targeted look at an issue where you actually might have some facts and a real "story". If you actually discover you were wrong and admit it, they might be more impressed still.

You have - in the past - worked in a limited sector of journalism. One where financial investigation and balanced numerical evidence assessment was perhaps not often called for?

At one time, on the SCGB forum, you were not exactly kind towards someone rather significant to snowHeads who was posting news stories here who actually does have a background in impartial assessment of evidence for publication. You subsequently apologised.

You may have learned much more recently about investigative journalism, but other than investigations of an avalanche in 1836, I have yet to see the products of this learning.

So if you don't mind, I will await something actually tuneful from your self-blown trumpet.

In the meantime, a thread which seems characterised by cut-and-paste jobs of documents/images of variable relevance, ex-cathedra statements that things are "important" when actually that is just your opinion, and poor behaviour towards those who disagree with you, does not necessarily constitute a major triumph of journalism. An interesting Blog maybe.

Why not report back when you have something to report back?

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

OK. In the meantime ...

Carry on Doctor

http://youtube.com/v/veHH3QCP8ws

After all it is free

This thread is about as far from the joy of skiing as I can possibly imagine. I read it and thank my lucky stars. I suppose it's a service to the skiing community in some perverse way.

Alright then. Here's Joy skiing ... badly ...

http://youtube.com/v/OdFk6Krl3ng

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I was checking out prices for train vs plane to Switzerland last week as it happens, with the latest enviromental taxes, booking fees, luggage fees and so forth train travel can be competitive with air travel sometimes even beating it especially with advance bookings, get an offer on first class eurostar travel and get a nice meal with wine at the start and end of your journey

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