New Ski Club of Great Britain chat forum

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I've never seen a rep either. The only time I've ever seen a SCGB person is at the ski show, and you can watch them visibly sag if you say "Actually, I'm a snowboarder" as though they know they've got nothing to offer.

And its not TO demand, its visitor demand, and by joining a leader led group, they would be defacto members of the club. The volunteers volunteer for the benefit of the club, so would be contributing to its service. The SCGB benefits from increased profile, the TO benefits from being able to offer service by proxy to its customers at an agreeable price, and the skiers benefit from experienced hosts rather than a teenager with a pistemap and a hangover.

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If the leaders are volunteers why does the service cost £240k a year?

After all it is free

beequin, expenses - insurance, travel, accom, food, snazzy jackets, butlers and batmen, corkage, bribes to local officals etc. multiplied by 100 leaders...

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Mistress Panda, sorry, but your prospectus has no international model. No other ski club, internationally, does anything remotely like your proposition.

Your proposition is hugely risky. You're typing into a ski club which has spent 10 years proving that the SCGB is a dinosaur. Get with the program!

You know it makes sense.

Mistress Panda, SCGB Leaders have to pay to go on a leaders course and pass it. Refresher courses are also required. They have to committ to three consecutive weeks a season - at least.

How many can do that in the current economic climate? How many would want to go the less attractive resorts and spend time leading if time and money were not an issue? Do not forget that SCGB members are not usually on the breadline, so they do not have to act as leader or otherwise forego skiing like some gap year Tour Operator hosts.

Where the club has 'unemployed' leaders i.e. resorts where there is no take up, do the club say 'thanks but no thanks' to the resort providing free accommodation? Then move the leader to a more popular resort and pay the accommodation cost as well?

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

Comedy Goldsmith, I doubt many other ski clubs turn over in excess of £2m either. The does have some precident, many US and Canadian resorts have volunteer hosts, drawn from local or national ski clubs. These are normally cost paid for by the resort operator, and offered as a free service, but as that is unlikely to be an offer repeated by the European resorts, that role of financing the operation could fall to the SCGB under its leader model.

George Jones, there are hundreds of gap-year students who'd take that role in a heartbeat. They've got time, disposable income and the inclination to do it. Team them with some legacy leaders and they'd find their feet soon enough and you'll probably have them as club members for life too.

The stagnation in the SCGB is palpable and lamentable, as I'm sure you'll agree. This is merely a shot in the dark from outsiders looking in, and it'd never get past The Management, like any idea which'd threaten the status quo. The club should find its strengths and play towards them, their leader offering seems pretty unique to me and therefore seems like a strength, maybe i'm wrong and its just a massive drain on resources pandering to people who treat it as a cheap route to a season in the snow and used by a handful of port-swillers whos idea of a hard day on the mountain is 5 courses for lunch instead of 4.

A snowHead

Richard_Sideways, Yes, you could take students as leaders but how would they get on with the current SCGB age profile?

Some members harrumph Comedy Goldsmith and he has not seen 21 for a year or two. Maybe if existing offspring could be persuaded to join, but they do not want to and this was stated at the AGM by more than one person.

I agree change is desirable but I am not optimistic - withering on the vine seems a more likely scenario. Or gradual transformation into an upmarket niche holiday company.

I have had some good lunches with SCGB but 4 or 5 courses is not typical.

A snowHead

Mistress Panda,

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

George Jones, your argument seems to be that younger people are incapable of engaging with older people and offering them a service. Once anyone puts on a pair of goggles I struggle to identify how old they are, and indeed I have experienced some world class on-piste guiding by a 22 year old. The leader merely needs to act as a meeting point, and needs to be capable of leading a group around pistes on the mountain appropriate to their experience and desire. That doesn't really need a 60 year old leather-skinned chap who was born on skis, even if that might be what some of the more narrow-minded members might prefer.

What I'd hope the SCGB is planning in the next few years is to evolve into an organisation that the existing offspring would not need persuading to join. Sadly many other organisations I am familiar with struggle with exactly the same issue - cater only for the current membership, much of which is 60+ years old, or look to attract the next generation and the long term members that might keep the thing alive at the risk of losing one or two of the more extreme diehards who are resistant to change. Personally I leave the diehards behind every time when that is the choice. Sadly they frequently realise this, and start becoming incredibly confrontational, voting against any form of change, and closing ranks. That appears, from what has been reported here, to be happening already.

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Mistress Panda, In cartoon terms Student Grant, from Viz, leading Colonel Blimp.

Could work if they were relatives - otherwise tricky.

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The problem with the SCGB providing a service for TOs is that TOs are commercial organisations. This means that The amateur status of SCGB reps would be lost as the customer of TO has paid money to be there. Result is end of SCGB leading in the whole of France, by law. Can't speak for other countires, but probably same throughout Europe. SCGB leaders have not been allowed in St Anton due to perception of competition to Arlberg ski school. You have to join SCGB to go on a Freshtracks holiday, the profit of which contributes to SCGB funds.
I have been a member of SCGB for over 15 years, probably done 40+ Freshtracks holidays and skied with reps about 50 days. They have a system that ensures some level of trained consistency of performance of reps & leaders, which obviously is essential, but there is still a proportion a rouge performers that get ousted, just like useless employees get sacked. I would not be a rep for SCGB under current system, so you can assume I think it could be done better, but it is done well in my opinion.
In my experience the problems with SCGB membership acquisition is 3 fold: Their inability to relate to snowboarders, but then again is snowheads as welcoming as it could be (dark side)? The high cost of their Freshtracks holidays in an atmosphere assuming a recession. The southern centric/middle class membership.
Their forum is dead in comparison to when I used it regularly 5 years ago, I do know why others do not use it but my reason for desisting was due to too many negative/ augmentative posters.
The snowheads forum gets loads of use in comparison, but not been on here enough to know the negativity level.

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sahsah, Well put.

Do you see any issues with the aging profile of membership?

After all it is free

Does the club need to recruit younger members? not really, just needs to recruit more members at the younger end of the current age profile at a rate enough to offset those who leave the club, for whatever reason, physical, mortal or financial. Hopefully that number is greater than the lost membership.

Should the club be trying to attract members younger than the existing age profile? Yes, I think they should, but not at the risk of upsetting a stable, if not very dynamic demographic of the existing membership. Better to stick with what you know and work slowly than alienate your existing membership while failing to attract a new demographic.

I think this is where Frank and the team are going, rather than making some grand, immediate change and risking upsetting existing members, they are evolving the club to make it more attractive to all. A very slow process, but one which I agree with.

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Admin's been on tour of all the snowdomes, though, including Braehead, which shows a more inclusive and intelligent appreciation of Great Britain including Scotland. It has very good ski mountains, by the way, though they don't enforce helmet use.

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it has been on here that the staff at scgb were not as expected and that they were all in there 20s and 30s.
They are getting behind the young freestyle skiers , james woods etc
I have spent days with leaders who do not ski, but snowboard.
Agree with FEEF, .... they seem to be evolving the club.

I began working as a freelance writer for the SCGB at age 25, then much more seriously as equipment editor of the magazine - for about 12 years - at 30. But this has nothing to do with age. It's about attitude, inclusiveness (that Gerry word), roots, respect for them, agreed goals and plans, communications and honesty. Also, plenty of creativity and provocation. But essentially it's about skiing! (no, not snowboarding - that's catered for).

Someone tell me what this has got to do with age. As someone at the SCGB pointed out to me about 25 years ago ... "There are young farts, as well as old ones."

You know it makes sense.

perception ..

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

the picture painted here is of a club born in the early 1900s. references to the eaton square days, an old library, old leaders in their 60s, old outdated values, stuck in the past ways of business, a club not up on social media, old school old boy network, references to quotes from the scgb 25 years ago etc etc.
I would suggest that is what age has to do with it .......

A snowHead

Hmm. Looking at page 12 of the annual report I think that I've been unfair. The age distribution is centred on a more youthful age than I had thought. Maybe the Club can be reborn.

A snowHead

achilles, That green block on the left of under 24s are included on family memberships (many won't realise or care that they are members). The 24-34 block gives an idea of how few remain when its time to pay for themselves but it's declining. 24-44 all in decline, 45-65+ all on the increase. From where I sit it doesn't look rosy. But the sport generally has the same problem.

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

Thanks for the annual report link. I'm not hugely motivated to analyse it, but it looks slick enough. They even mention snowboarders 6 times, although not in the images as far as I can tell. Well, the "S" doesn't stand for us, so fair enough on that. From the above posts it seems they don't discriminate at all on what you ride, which is good.

I think you're right on the demographics. Possibly they're simply tracking the market demographic in the UK (to which I don't have access).

I'd expect the SCGB to suffer more than the industry in general because:

They were old skool before I'd left school. Their baggage may make it harder for them to do new things than it is for complete new entrants. It's hard to see that they have any advantage in the market generally. The concept of "SCGB park leaders" isn't likely to work, I'd guess.
People are more adventurous these days. Sure, some people still need to be "packaged", but I think less of us need the security of clubs and things.

Infinite growth is a pretty silly thing to aim for though. Better to just do what they do and keep their people happy.

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An insider's personal view: Most of the SCGB membership seems to fall into two distinct constituencies; both of which are more committed than the average holiday skier - particularly to of- piste skiing.

The first is members who have skied most of their lives (often helped by affluence), many now getting on a bit - good skiers who enjoy the clubiness of the SCGB, regularly meet up with their mates on Fresh-tracks trips or with leader at their usual resorts/haunts. This is where I think most of the family membership comes from, also less active folk who are happy to keep paying their subs

The second is folk who got into skiing maybe later n life; eg 30s to late 40s and use the Freshtracks trips and resort leader groups to enjoying progressing as quickly as possible and don't mind paying for it.

I think the former group is not as dominant as it was, and includes some members who may have earned the outdated perception of being posh/cliquey/stuck in the past. Other members of this group are great company belying this perception.

The second group is increasing rapidly and represents many of the folk I ski with. I believe this will make up the growing niche market for the club.

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Comedy Goldsmith, OK, the impossible has happened and you are now Chief Exec and CEO of the SCGB.... in less than 10 bullet points what would you do with your club.
(Dismiss Jerry Atken is a given!)

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What concerns me is the degree to which smoke, mirrors, concealment, ballooning, and outright fabrication, are being applied to SCGB data. The Club should be transparent about its situation and deal with it, instead of fooling around and fooling the membership.

I feel very strongly about this.

Krakatoa [Goldsmith at large, with log-in password forgotten]

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boredsurfin, I'm on a short break from working hours. Thank you for your enquiry, which will be dealt with by our poster response team late tonight.

After all it is free

It seems you feel very strongly about it yet the members do not. As long as people see value and a need for such then so be it.
That is the crux for the club. And for it to continue then a younger demographic has to be aimed at which will mean changing the perception of the club.
The continual going over old ground etc now leads me to change my previous post whereby I put forward the suggestion that pjski was a DG creation.
I now propose that pjski has hijacked DG and has been clever in his media role, and given the SCGB more media exposure right into the heart of its greatest competitor than one could ever have dreamed of.
The thread is talking its way out and there is no such thing as bad publicity.

limegreen1, Whilst there is an element of 'fact' in what you suggest , you are missing Admin's approach to community i.e. an extremely light hand to freedom of speech from whatever quarter.

There is little doubt imo that the the SCGB has 'shut up' PJSki/Gerry ( wouldn't you !) but Im sure anyone in a position of governance at the SCGB would still regret this thread exists - not because of DG's vitriolic nonsense but because of the OP and PJski's contributions.

There is no question that he SCGB has met the needs of the market in the past. I suspect that without radical review (not DG's views!) its a busted flush moving forward in terms of its objectives --- which would you rather invest in SCGB or Snowheads Ltd? I know where my money would go! I only mention 'investing' as a way of understanding value to us UK skiers/boarders, Admin is shoite at realising the value in what he has imho!

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