 Poster: A snowHead
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Nick Zotov, my last post somehow had the first bit deleted - It said: "sorry, I must have misunderstood the start of your earlier spiel. I thought you meant that constructive suggestions to solve the Ski Club's problems should be on another site".
It seems to be mostly criticism or defense of the status quo on here, and not much in the way of suggestions of how to solve what seems to be the club's main problem: the failure to attract young adult skiers to the ski cub. The usual age of all punters on the SCGB holidays I've been on has been over 45. Just occasionally someone young turns up and never comes back.
The only exception was the Hot-Shots holiday which was enormously popular but depended on the exceptional skiing ability and knowledge of the leaders which allowed them to do adventurous things, but also their charisma and free (ie minimalist) attitudes to organisation: for example people decided themselves which leader or guide to ski with on a given day. They had to fight the ski club to do things their way and it payed off. The main problem was that too many people wanted to go on it and it grew and grew till it lost its character and the ski club couldn't resist the urge to make it more like their other holidays which "ought" to work better - even though they could see the evidence of the same people coming back again and again to that one holiday.
Perhaps there are lessons to be learned.
Perhaps I should have started a new thread, admin. Possibly I'll do that when I get back after the weekend.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| snowball wrote: |
| ... The usual age of all punters on the SCGB holidays I've been on has been over 45.... |
They have been targeting holidays at younger skiers for a while now. This season's holidays for under 20s, and 20s to 30s, and placing older skiers in a groupp for them, seem -in part - to be addressed at worries like yours.
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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?
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Nick Zotov, I seem, once again, to have failed to verify the facts before writing. (This is getting embarrassing!)
I knew about the teen-age holidays, but had simply not noticed that this year there were holidqays for 20s and 30s. Good on them - well, sort-of. This was the secondary part of my idea, but only to protect the first, which was cheap holidays.
The reason I didn't notice is that I had this year only looked at the holidays for the top two standards of skier (Gold and Purple/Gold), for which they have not yet provided holidays in this age area (the hardest two holidays offered were for purple/silver skiers and I notice that one of these even (!) offers the possibility that a guide might be hired for one day so people could try the off-piste). But surely 20s and 30s should be the time to ski fast and steep and deep, and explore the wild country (?)
I should emphasise that this segregation is not what I personally want, since I prefer to ski with a mixed-age group and feel that it is a loss to Ghettoise skiing by age. However I was very aware that very few younger people would be able to afford the full Ski Club prices and consequently those few who turned up often found themselves in a small minority. What I had suggested were Cheaper holidays and these are not cheaper.
I notice that most of the holidays are still in the £800 - £1,200 area (plus lift-pass), despite none of them including a guide (which would put it up a minimum of £250). There are a couple at £700, which isn't really bad, I suppose, but my friends and I have managed to arrange 8 1/2 days of skiing WITH a top guide for £700, or £130 less if we stay in the Maurienne instead of transfering to the Dolomites. In other words £250-380 less than the SKi Club cheapest, and for a longer holiday!
I should perhaps add that most (or, anyway, many) of the Ski Club Reps cannot afford to go on SCGB holidays.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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snowball, Sorry, I keep trying to post a message with a few paragraphs, and it keeps coming up in multi-repittion, even when I copy and paste from a plain text file.
I'll try to get back to you again soon.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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snowball, I think you have identified 3 areas of concern:
Ghetto-ising" into age groups, whether there is sufficient challenge to all in those age groups, and cost.
Bar the over 60s - and even for them (I have one more year today until I join the ranks!) there is some flexibility - there is no compulsion to join the age-group range of holidays. The problem is that the Club's age profile, not surprisingly, matches fairly closely the national profile. So, inevitably general age-range holidays have a high number of senior middle age in the clientele - and some feel that discourages a younger element coming along. FWIW, I am going on an over 50s holiday for one of my ski trips, and a ski safari open to all age ranges for my other one. I do expect to meet young bloods on the safari - and am working on my fitness accordingly!
I guess the club is still feeling its way as to the appropriate challenges - and hence standards for the younger groups. I think you may have a point. Why not drop Caroline Boileau (FreshTracks manager) a line?
Cost. Sure. That's put me off a bit before. But the club's got to provide something that others do not more cheaply. It has to absorb the risk of something going wrong, both because of a natural responsibility to members and its ATOL and ABTOT responsibilities. And it has to cover the cost of administration. So I would expect the cost to be quite a bit higher than if you can do it yourself.
I am very surprised to say none of the holidays included a guide. Page 55 of the holidays’ brochure shows 32 photographs of professional instructors and guides associated with the holidays. I think most are UIAGM guides, rather than instructors. I can vouch for Jim Rose and Any Perkins being guides having skied with them last year - and I sure hope Rob Collister is - or I am in trouble this season!!
You are very lucky to be able to organize a group of compatible-ability skiers under your own steam. I can't, unfortunately. So I am grateful for the club organizing it for me. BTW, a week's ski safari, with a guide is costing me £625 under club arrangements. OK, I’ve got to arrange sleasy flights and train tickets, and we'll be in a hut most nights. But I sure am looking forward to it - and it's not costing a fortune.
Gosh. Sorry - that's a bit of an essay.
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Hah! that got it away - had to use Firefox to do it though - IE was giving me real grief.
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| Nick Zotov wrote: |
snowball
I am very surprised to say none of the holidays included a guide. Page 55 of the holidays’ brochure shows 32 photographs of professional instructors and guides associated with the holidays. I think most are UIAGM guides, rather than instructors. I can vouch for Jim Rose and Any Perkins being guides having skied with them last year - and I sure hope Rob Collister is - or I am in trouble this season!!
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Groan - I did it again. I was refering to the holidays for 20s and 30s but looked too quickly. Instead of the pathetic 2 holidays that they have actually provided I thought the section included all of what is actually the action zone. It was this that I was characterising, so some of the point of my comments has gone. (Of course none of these holidays use an instructor or guide.)
I would still speak up for cheaper holidays generally, though. You seem to know of somewhere else that does Ski-Club type holidays cheaply but I certainly don't. I'd be interested to hear. The Ski Club, of course, has an inbuilt advantage that it holds records of ski standards, which gets rid of the problems of people self-rating unrealistically, which can spoil a holiday for the others.
I'm afraid I got back today having stood on my glasses (a recent necessity for reading) and crushed them while away for the weekend, and of course I blame my misreading on that (though it was actually mostly just over hasty reference to the brochure, which I by some miracle managed to locate).
I should say that, of course, all the SCGB holidays I have been on have had guides!
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snowball, sorry, at the moment I'll get lynched if I do a reply tonight. Family pressures. Get back to this tomorrow 
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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.
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Just to throw my hat into the ring, I would say that SCGB have a terrible reputation on the ground in many of the resorts that I've stayed in. Most of the seasonnaires shudder at the thought of the SCGB coming to stay in their chalet-hotels, and no matter what the truth is, we have a reputation as being very one dimensional. I think that this contributes to the total lack of street cred that the SCGB (we?) have amongst the younger generation.
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snowball, Ha! Just got away so I'll jot down a note.
I certainly did not mean to say that there were cheaper holidays like the club's around - I simply meant that there was no point in the club offering the same product as standard TO fare. I guess the club's costs will always be higher than TOs - it's a bit like saying your local specialist shop is more expensive than a supermarket. But looking through the brochure, the prices don't look that bad. The first page (well, OK, page 7) has a 20s to 30s holiday for £575 HB at Verbier - with one of the leaders being our very own Gerry. Obviously, there are way more expensive offers. I agree with you the prices are higher than we would like. But if we want well-run, bonded hoidays that don't put the club at risk financially, maybe they have to be priced where they are.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Kramer, I'm not sure I know what you mean about our reputation. What do you mean by one dimensional? That we are only there to ski?
I tend to shudder when I see how many of the seasonnaires ski, with very little awareness of the dangers. I skied with a couple of them one day recently and was persuaded to ski the Gebroulaz glacier, a bit of a climb above Val Thorens, without guide or ropes, and found they had absolutely no idea, when they were crossing obvious cravasse lines, that the cravasses were even there. The two of them even did a jump which, if they had missed the landing, would have crash-landed them onto a hollow which was a wide cravasse bridge (which in any case they skied out briefly along!)
Nick Zotov, yes, I saw that one, finally, (as I mentioned I had been looking on the wrong pages). That's good value (the sort of value I was hoping might become more common). It shows they can do it. But I notice the other on the page is almost twice the cost!
But don't forget that although they we must pay their organisational expenses (and usually the expenses of the holiday leader) so I don't expect them to equal the best we can do independently, they do have some muscle in negotiating down the prices we would pay.
Last edited by snowHeads are a friendly bunch. on Wed 22-12-04 19:22; edited 2 times in total
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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.
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Kramer, I've been on a few Club trips.
Typically, I would arise in the morning, ablute, go down to have breakfast, return to get ready for skiing, then go out skiing for the day.
In the evening, I would return, have a shower/whatever, change, go to the bar, have dinner, go back to the bar or out to another bar.
Bar excursions would hopefully include opportunity to meet other skiers/snow people, especially female ones.
After bar then bed.
Repeat next day.
I had thought that I was enjoying myself, but now I realise that my holidays have been confined to a singular dimension and I am distraught.
What have I been missing?
Help, before it's too late for me 
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You had the energy to go to a bar after dinner?
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You know it makes sense.
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Ok, I lied 
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Alan Craggs I think you missed a bar stop between the end of skiing and having a shower in the evening. You certainly did if you were me.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Having stayed at a Hotel at the same time as a SCGB group were there, albeit only once, I think I know what Kramer, is getting at - although "one dimensional" isn't perhaps the best way to put it. The party did seem a little, err, sedate and dull by comparison to other guests.
This is of course a very small sample to judge an entire club against, but it did put me off the idea of joining to go on one of the group trips untill I was, perhaps, nearer to retirement age.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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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?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Snowball As a recent member (starting on my third year's membership) I'd say that the holidays are about the best thing the SCGB has to offer. I've now been on 4 and have two more booked for this season. The biggest downside seems to me to be the cost, but as Nick Zotov has mentioned, the huge upside is skiing with a group of like-minded and skill-compatible skiiers, who may even develop into friends. Of the holidays I've been on so far the groups have mostly been 35-45, with outliers down to 12 and up to about 57 (probably <15% over 50). The first one I went on was actually billed as a 20s week, but the youngest was only 28 and the rest were again 35-45, and I doubt it was us snaffling the cheap deal ahead of the clamouring kids as there were I think two of us who booked on only the week before. Needless to say we all had a fantastic time.
As for guiding etc. (I realise you've withdrawn the point you made initially - but I think the following point's worth making), a quick scan through the list of holidays shows: 50 with IFMGA guides, 33 with ISIA instructors (7 of those also being guided as well) and 49 with just club leaders (of whom about 1/2 doz are billed as BASI or equivalent). I must have miscounted somewhere as that total's one more that the total number of holidays they offer, but the gist is there. That seems a pretty good balance between off-piste, instruction and general hooning about to me! There is quite clearly an off-piste bias to the Club's activities at present, but as I see it this is one of the major differentiators from the main T.O.s - and one that suite me just fine at the moment. (Possibly I would have found that a bit daunting 5 years ago though)
The reason I didn't join the club earlier was simply that I didn't know about it. As a (late) beginner and early intermediate most of my friends were non-skiers, or went on family holidays. I would certainly have jumped at the chance of finding like-minded 20/30-somethings to ski with - although I would have thought twice about some of the holiday prices.
Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Wed 22-12-04 21:27; edited 1 time in total
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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(Curses -- f***ing software keeps screwing up the message however I edit it - see if splitting it in two will work better)
The teenagers' holidays do look good value, all four being under £500. Note that the "other" specifically 20s/30s holiday (at twice the price) is over New Year, so would be expected to be a lot more expensive. But this all begs the question of why should 20/30s need their own holidays at all. Teenagers fine (and from the stories one leader told of his experiences in past years I'm very glad they do have their own weeks), but are 20s/30s that different from the rest of us to need special treatment. They're just skiers and if going on a skiing holiday will either want to ski or go boozing or both, pretty much like the rest of us. Quite possibly the less experienced ones would be put off by being surrounded by aging ski-gods, so there seems a reasonable case for the blue-red-silver type holiday.
The guided/instruction holidays are probably of reasonably good value - I'm certainly getting excellent stuff that I've had varying success trying to organise on a DIY basis. The ones I'd consider to be of more questionable value are those in the "action zone" - which for a week of principally on-piste skiing seems a bit steep at £700-1000. So how can the SCGB get the kids' holidays (for basically the same thing) to come out at >£300 cheaper, yet can't do it for an open age-group? I suppose there could be some cross-subsidy, either from other holidays or from members subs - while it would no doubt be controversial I doubt I'd object too strongly to the latter (provided the age limit is then enforced), but the former would seem pretty run to me. More use of chalets may be a possibility - most holidays do seem to be twin share in a hotel - but I have no knowledge of the relative economics there. Maybe increasing the range of accommodation used would also change the perception of the club - although after the extremely negative comments made by some of the participants about the hotel in Flaine last year, the Club probably think things are pretty wide already.
Piste Patrol note: Admin is aware of the posting problems with large posts - see this in Suggestions / Requests. "f***ing software"? Thank you for being so restrained 
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(...looks like it needs a third shot too)
Nick Zotov For a while there it looked like we may be on the same two weeks, but it looks at least as if I'm on the other Rob Collister week. There's an outside chance I may actually be the youngest on the old-fogeys week though as I didn't realise the age limits when booking and I'm actually 5 years too young to go on it!
Kramer - Could you elaborate on the reasons for the negative feelings? The Alan Craggs description (as amended by Mark Lehto) seems pretty accurate of a) what happens, and b) what I want from a ski-trip.
Reading this over is does sound pretty much another of the "status-quo" defences of the SCGB, but I'm pretty happy with what they do. Maybe it's just confirmation I'm another of the middle aged fuddy-duddies it's aimed at! 
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Well, yes, same here.
The segregation isn't (as I said) something I would want but answers a criticism I've heard from people who were put off the Ski Club holidays and which may also be Kramer's, position.
K I'm probably (at 56) not going to want to Party in the evenings and my taste in music might be different (but spans from 12th century polyphony to experimental 1/4 tone electronic music), but if you have a lively mind I hope I'd offer a good conversation (and I'll race you down the slopes or ski a 45º couloir with you any day).
However from the standpoint of a seasonnaire who I might not ever talk with much beyond a "good morning" and would not be skiing with or asking advice from, I would probably hardly register.
I feel this may partly be the difference. We have our own organisation so we don't need or interact with much of the Chalet Company organisation in the normal way.
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snowball, Alan Craggs, GrahamN, to answer a few of your questions, by "one dimensional" I mean that the ski club have a reputation in resort (deserved or not) as being ski bores. I'm not commenting on whether this is a fair reputation or not, but this is something that I've heard repeated on multiple occassions in resort by seasonnaires who work in chalet hotels that the SCGB use. We also seem to have a reputation for being difficult customers who complain a lot. I am sure that this is down to a vocal minority, but it is all of us who are saddled with the reputation.
As I say, I'm not commenting on whether this reputation is deserved or not, but I've heard it in multiple locations in more than one season. Whenever it is mentioned that a SCGB are coming to stay, the reaction amongst seasonnaires seems to be one of apprehension.
I cannot comment directly on whether this is deserved or not, but just hearing all this has been enough to put me off booking a holiday with the SCGB. Whatever else you may say about seasonnaires skiing/riding skills (and I've seen them do some insanely stupid things), they are young people who are seen by other young visitors as being inherently cool. They have a lot of influence in this way. For many young visitors to the resort, there is nothing better than being taken out for a days skiing, followed by an evenings drinking, followed by a nights *****ing, with one of the seasonnaires. It seems to me that if the SCGB are going to recruit more of the younger skiing population, then they have to deal with this terrible reputation that they have first. It needs to be seen to be "cool" to be a member.
Please don't read this to be an attack on the SCGB, as it's not meant to be, it's just my reading on one of the problems that the skiclub faces.
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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.
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FAQ
