 Poster: A snowHead
|
|
Even if it was a really tiny percentage of skiers, so what? If it is just a sociable activity involving hanging out with some like-minded people on easy slopes, the safety argument looks like a distraction from the real issue. As soon as you start arguing - whether with irony or not - that hosting is there to help British skiers who are scared of getting lost, and that denying them this service could be considered "dangerous in itself", you have bought the issue of safety - and having responsibility for leading those in a weaker position to you - back into the main frame.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
maggi, I just wondered if there were any figures to back that up. I have no axe to grind, just have never been in an environment where I have felt the need for it.
I have always gone with my other half or friends and used a piste map, when I stay in Chalets I often end up with other couples, and have met people in resort and go skiing as a group.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
|
miranda, look, the court interpreted the law on guiding includes ski hosting. French law therefore for the French to decide...however, the ski hosting I've used has had nothing to do with safety and has been all about skiing with people of a similar ability in an unfamiliar resort, hopefully having some banter and even more hopefully making some new friends and nothing to do with safety.
As it happens I have made friends from a hosting group and we now don't bother with hosting but take it in turns to do exactly the same thing that a ski host would do...we aren't paid so we are ok as I understand the position, or are you saying otherwise here
| Quote: |
you have bought the issue of safety - and having responsibility for leading those in a weaker position to you - back into the main frame.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
|
blahblahblah, I have no figures - or an axe either! I go with my OH (piste map reader extraordinaire!) and usually friends too. I have met a lot of people in chalets though. And we did usually ski with the host on the first day, just to get to know the other chalet guests.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
| maggi wrote: |
| blahblahblah, I have no figures - or an axe either! I go with my OH (piste map reader extraordinaire!) and usually friends too. I have met a lot of people in chalets though. And we did usually ski with the host on the first day, just to get to know the other chalet guests. |
Thanks I "get" that. I have never had the offer.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
PsychoBabble. I'm genuinely not sure what you're asking me. Maybe reread my posts and ask me again but, this time, with it mind that I'm not anti-hosting 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| shep wrote: |
| you were always prettier than me... |
this thread is useless without pictures... come on under a new name... brighten up this thread!
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
|
|
'ang ona sec. . . It's instructors wot gets the totty so is this another 'spanish practice' by the ESF to clear the slopes of casual lotharios and replace them with profesionals?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| PsychoBabble wrote: |
miranda, look, the court interpreted the law on guiding includes ski hosting. French law therefore for the French to decide...however, the ski hosting I've used has had nothing to do with safety and has been all about skiing with people of a similar ability in an unfamiliar resort, hopefully having some banter and even more hopefully making some new friends and nothing to do with safety.
As it happens I have made friends from a hosting group and we now don't bother with hosting but take it in turns to do exactly the same thing that a ski host would do...we aren't paid so we are ok as I understand the position, or are you saying otherwise here
| Quote: |
you have bought the issue of safety - and having responsibility for leading those in a weaker position to you - back into the main frame.
|
|
Everthing was OK for you as it is virtually all the time when skiing.
As far as I know though, if you have an accident, regardless of whether the Host realised it, was insured, was at all responsible for you in reality, then under French law - as the host was being rewarded for guiding/hosting, there would have been an element of liability.
Your travel insurance company knows this now and would in all likelihood go after the host in the French courts. I would be pleasantly surprised if the altruistic TO would stand shoulder to shoulder in this event.
|
|
|
|
|
|
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
|
| Masque wrote: |
| 'ang ona sec. . . It's instructors wot gets the totty so is this another 'spanish practice' by the ESF to clear the slopes of casual lotharios and replace them with profesionals? |
By George I think we've finally hit the nail on the head, well done Masque. I'll never take the mushette to France again!
|
|
|
|
|
|
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
|
| Quote: |
Your travel insurance company knows this now and would in all likelihood go after the host in the French courts. I would be pleasantly surprised if the altruistic TO would stand shoulder to shoulder in this event.
|
No, they wouldn't. They know the host has no money to speak of, so would go after his/her employer, who does have money, and who was the entity you paid to provide hosting services.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
French people generally have civil liability insurance as part of their home or car insurance, which Brits perhaps don't. It covers them for things such dropping their skis on someone's head or their dog biting you. This is perhaps part of their holiday insurance but would a ski hosts 'working' holiday insurance would cover him in the event? Whenever I worked for TOs we just had bog standard holiday insurance contracts, no mention of work in them.
| stevomcd wrote: |
| Quote: |
Your travel insurance company knows this now and would in all likelihood go after the host in the French courts. I would be pleasantly surprised if the altruistic TO would stand shoulder to shoulder in this event.
|
No, they wouldn't. They know the host has no money to speak of, so would go after his/her employer, who does have money, and who was the entity you paid to provide hosting services. |
Perhaps, I have no idea personally, but still I suspect it would be a lot more complicated with certain companies where the staff are hired as 'contractors' instead of 'employees'. In this case as independents surely they don't benefit from any sort of corporate liability gubbins and and would see themselves and families bankrupted to meet any civil claims?
|
|
|
|
|
|
You know it makes sense.
|
Anyone who is upset at the banning of T.O ski hosting in France can make their feelings known by adding their name to a thread on Snivel which has been started by VinceTheSnowVole in which he says "treat it as a petition to the French Authorities to reconsider and discuss a sensible discussion" (sic). Already since being started on 20th Feb it has amassed a huge number of 12 names! 
Last edited by You know it makes sense. on Fri 15-03-13 9:43; edited 1 time in total
|
|
|
|
|
|
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
|
Alastair Pink,
Do they all start with "V" ?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Poster: A snowHead
|
| Alastair Pink wrote: |
| Anyone who is upset at the banning of T.O ski hosting in France can make their feelings known by adding their name to a thread on Snivel which has been started by VinceTheSnowVole which he says "treat it as a petition to the French Authorities to reconsider and discuss a sensible discussion" (sic). Already since being started on 20th Feb it has amassed a huge number of 12 names! |
Since Vince clearly has trouble speaking English, engaging the French in dialogue should be a formidable challenge (unless he's French, of course)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
|
Article in the Sunday Times today about oversized ESF classes,and their general lack of care for kids. Really puts you off entrusing your kids with them. I know the ST has a story to make but the report chimes with my and friends' experiences.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
| Quote: |
oversized ESF classes,and their general lack of care for kids
|
Must be why French kids are so very disturbed and such cr*p skiers. 
The ESF are generally the cheapest show in time (despite all the urban myths about them getting paid far more than anybody else). They couldn't run courses at such low prices with small classes. If you want small classes you can go to one of the British schools and pay 3 times as much. I don't see the problem - having a range of different ski schools to choose from seems to me a good thing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
| Quote: |
I don't see the problem
|
pam w, well, I think the alleged "losing" of someone's child probably IS a problem.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
| Bode Swiller wrote: |
| Quote: |
I don't see the problem
|
pam w, well, I think the alleged "losing" of someone's child probably IS a problem. |
Let's wait till all the facts emerge before jumping up and down tho.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
feef,
| Quote: |
Let's wait till all the facts emerge before jumping up and down tho.
|
 awh, come on, this is snowHeads
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
and I did say "alleged" m'lud.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
|
|
Bode Swiller, aren't you the one always moaning about our health and safety culture and how kids are molly-coddled these days and Snowheads turning into mumsnet.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
pam w, maybe, but that doesn't include handing your 4 year-old over to some goons who manage to lose the little fella... on a mountain... in winter... etc. You should start Pamsnet.
|
|
|
|
|
|
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
|
I used to teach for ESF. My daughter won't be going there. Ski-club with selected ESF instructors, absolutely; but group lessons no way 
|
|
|
|
|
|
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
|
| shep wrote: |
| Ski-club with selected ESF instructors, absolutely; but group lessons no way |
My neighbour went to pick her daughter up from the ski club the other day only she wasn't with the group. Instructor gave a shrug and pout and gestered to some seedy resort bar and said
"ah your daughter 'ad a dose of zee squits at the top of zee runs, so I told 'er to ski down to zat bar and use zuh crappeur'.
Anyway neighbour goes into bar and her 9 year old is at the bar on a stool chatting to a load of seedy looking Serge Gainsbourg look-alikes.
So no harm done, I guess. Educational even.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
davidof, very funny!
Wikipedia - as always - has some interesting background on that great phrase in loco parentis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_loco_parentis
| Quote: |
| Cheadle Hulme School, founded in Manchester, England, in 1855; adopted in loco parentis as its motto, well before the world's first Public Education Act of 1870. The school was established to educate and care for orphans and children of distressed parents; during times when the average longevity of Manchester factory workers was twenty years old. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
You know it makes sense.
|
| Quote: |
Anyway neighbour goes into bar and her 9 year old is at the bar on a stool chatting to a load of seedy looking Serge Gainsbourg look-alikes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
|
|
Bode Swiller, Air New Zealand left my 12 year old in Los Angeles......
|
|
|
|
|
|
Poster: A snowHead
|
davidof, good story  and yes I suppose it happens at ski-club too.
Easy for me to say "no ESF group lessons", I guess in high season some people don't have much choice. In that case I would recommend organising with the other parents a rota for one adult to shadow the class and keep the instructor (and the school) honest, at least until you're satisfied you've got a good one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
| pam w wrote: |
| Bode Swiller, Air New Zealand left my 12 year old in Los Angeles...... |
deliberately I suspect.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
|
| Quote: |
deliberately I suspect.
|
and maybe that 4 year old was a little sh*t.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
| Bode Swiller wrote: |
| Quote: |
I don't see the problem
|
pam w, well, I think the alleged "losing" of someone's child probably IS a problem. |
I have personal experience of that very problem. As an 8/9 year old ( I think) in an ESF class in Val D'Isere in the 80s, I fell over while following the instructor. By the time I got up and got my skis back on, the group was nowhere to be seen.
I wasn't fussed. I skied on my own for the rest of the morning and went back to the school meeting point at the end of the lesson. My mother was obviously not impressed, went to talk to the instructor who flatly denied everything... Not only that but the next day, she accused me of lying in front of the entire class. To this day I wished I'd just skied off at that point..
Not surprisingly, I stopped ski lessons the moment my parents let me. Something I regret because I stopped just before what would have been race training and all the fun stuff..
That said, pam w is correct. ESF are still the cheapest usually. And as many here often say "you pays your money.."
Funny how so many forget to apply that philosophy here...
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
|
Kruisler, I definitely agree with "you pays your money" but, as an instructor, whatever you are paid, you always count 'em all in and count 'em all out. Losing a kid who is in your care is unforgivable.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
Bode Swiller,
I obviously agree...
But incompetence can be found anywhere unfortunately...
In that sense, and teaching methods aside, I don't know that ESF is any worse than any other large organisation...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Have just been chatting with friends who put their 2 girls into the kindergarten in Kapaonik, Serbia, some years ago. the kids absolutely hated it and the eldest organised a group of English kids to try to tunnel under the wire. They wore their gloves out in the attempt, apparently. When they flew out of Belgrade they noticed quite a lot of tanks....
When, subsequently, there was a lot of TV news about Serbian concentration camps and atrocities their kids were saying "there, that's what those kindergarten staff were training for, we told you they were horrible!".
An Austrian ski school kidnapped my son through an excess of zeal. Same one that air NZ subsequently left in Los Angeles. He was in a beginner class but was 8 years old - the others were all teenies. After the lesson the instructor would leave him, as arranged, and he walked the very short distance to our apartment. One day the instructor was dashing off somewhere and asked Nick to deliver one of the teenies back to the ski school, where he had to wait for parents. Nick duly did so, but then was not allowed to leave himself. They spoke little English and he spoke no German. They said "You wait here for mother". He knew mother was not going to arrive, but as they didn't speak enough English to understand his explanation, he was going nowhere and sat in the corner sobbing quietly and trying his English explanation each time some new instructor came in, and eventually one of them spoke enough English to understand that he'd only gone to the ski school office to accompany the little one. So they let him go.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
One of the joys of having learn't to ski in Wengen was that it really is very difficult to get lost even as a small child, if you are on the Wengen side of the mountain and stay on the Piste sooner or later you will get back to the village or worst case to Inner Wengen where you can grab a chairlift and then get back to the village, if you are on the Wrong side you ski down to Grund then get the train back up and ski down to Wengen I think by age 7 or at worst 8 I knew how to get back an Wengen is so small with no real traffic that an 8 year old is pretty much safe on their own. I doubt that would happen these days but then kids seem more at risk nowdays
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
|
|
Very good point by D G O. Keep it simple and escape the crowds. I was lucy enough to learn in 1959, when Kitzbuhel was a village. Recently I stayed in Niederau - charming Austrian village with nursery slopes on the doorstep. These little Alpine places, remote from the urban-zoo mega-resort complexes, are just right for family-friendliness and simplicity. Everything is huge for children ... so things need scaling down to a level where they will be treated with personal care, and where they will be able to understand their surroundings.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Comedy Goldsmith wrote: |
| Very good point by D G O. Keep it simple and escape the crowds. I was lucy enough to learn in 1959, when Kitzbuhel was a village. Recently I stayed in Niederau - charming Austrian village with nursery slopes on the doorstep. These little Alpine places, remote from the urban-zoo mega-resort complexes, are just right for family-friendliness and simplicity. Everything is huge for children ... so things need scaling down to a level where they will be treated with personal care, and where they will be able to understand their surroundings. |
Well, that explains a lot.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAQ
. Plus you were always prettier than me... 
