 Poster: A snowHead
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@crosbie, you are missing the point.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| under a new name wrote: |
| @crosbie, you are missing the point. |
Hmmm. Do you mean that 'sliding down snow covered mountains on polished wood' has not significantly changed, nor has 'commerce and its monopolists parting folk from their money' significantly changed?
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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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| crosbie wrote: |
| under a new name wrote: |
| @crosbie, you are missing the point. |
Hmmm. Do you mean that 'sliding down snow covered mountains on polished wood' has not significantly changed, nor has 'commerce and its monopolists parting folk from their money' significantly changed? |
You're back to France-specific issues again. I don't ski in France, but many of those who do have already stated that this isn't an issue.
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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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@crosbie, there is a much greater choice of ski schools in larger French resorts than there was 20 years ago. There is also the choice not to use a ski school but just bumble around with your mates or your mum. Your references to "monopoly" is very wide of the mark.
There is a separate issue about whether France is correct to apply the same qualification criteria to other EU instructors as are applied to French ones. But that hasn't prevented the development of more competing ski schools in the larger French resorts than almost everywhere else.
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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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| crosbie wrote: |
| under a new name wrote: |
| @crosbie, you are missing the point. |
Hmmm. Do you mean that 'sliding down snow covered mountains on polished wood' has not significantly changed, nor has 'commerce and its monopolists parting folk from their money' significantly changed? |
Just how has it changed significantly?
Different coloured skis, better technical fabrics and those pesky snowboarders doesn't mean that an extraterrestrial wouldn't link an old Pathe film of e.g. morzine in the 1950s with the same activity today...
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| under a new name wrote: |
| Just how has it changed significantly? |
All depends on your perspective eh? Whether extraterrestrial, ski resort company executive, ex-skier, licensed ski instructor, skier, or non-skier.
From the feet-on-the-ground perspective of an experienced skier teaching a couple of friends to ski, there is the slow, but almost imperceptible 'boiling frog' increase in the risk of being challenged as an unlicensed instructor.
It can of course be waved away as imaginary.
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Well, until it's happened it is imaginary and not something to be hardening your arteries stressing about.
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@crosbie, it is all in your imagination.
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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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| pam w wrote: |
| Well, until it's happened it is imaginary and not something to be hardening your arteries stressing about. |
Ok, perhaps someone fancies starting a post entitled "Accused of being an illicit ski instructor?"
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| Quote: |
From the feet-on-the-ground perspective of an experienced skier teaching a couple of friends to ski, there is the slow, but almost imperceptible 'boiling frog' increase in the risk of being challenged as an unlicensed instructor.
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Yes imperceptible as it almost never happens, is that what is annoying you? the fact you haven't been stopped when showing a couple of your friends how to ski.
Do you know of anyone who has been stopped when they weren't instructors or SCGB leaders and had anything else than a couple of questions asked of them?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Quote: |
The next step (wangled by ESF) will be to require that anyone engaging in any friendly/unpaid tuition (friend/friend, parent/child) must first obtain a 'non-professional instructor permit' from the ski resort tourist information office, which can be provided to anyone (for a small fee) for a maximum duration of two weeks per season. This will also necessitate wearing an armband identifying the wearer as a permit holding non-professional instructor.
This trajectory is obvious.
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Sorry if I'm being thick but are you joking or actually forecasting that this will happen? Over what timescale?
Personally I'd offer you good odds against this happening. I see no sign that the French want to stop people teaching friends and family in an unpaid capacity. At all. We can argue about the rights and wrongs of SCGB and chalet ski hosts but they are a qualitatively different issue.
Last season I was instructing my kids. I'd just finished an explanation when I realised that and ESF instructor was stood just uphill of me with a few clients. I was a bit self conscious about it but he gave me an approving nod and grinned.
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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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@jedster, you have to give the OP credit in the "banging your head against a brick wall" stakes. 
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I have unwittingly been used as a model for good bumps technique by an ESF instructor who told his class to watch what a friend and I were skiing and noted, "that's how you ski bumps".
Gratifying.
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You know it makes sense.
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Myself and MrsS are both instructors (Snowsports England, and CSIA - not qualified in France), and we have taken three grandchildren skiing in France - and it must have been blindingly obvious that we were instructors teaching them, but amongst the uniformed French Instructors with their groups no-one was remotely concerned, nor would I ever expect them to be. One thing we don't do though, is wear our Norfolk Snowsports Club jackets with "Instructor" emblazoned on it - that would be asking for trouble.
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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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| jedster wrote: |
| I see no sign that the French want to stop people teaching friends and family in an unpaid capacity. |
Nor do I.
That's why one day, sooner or later, they will provide 'unpaid ski instructor' permits free of charge (initially) to any lift pass holder - on request (no qualifications required).
Just as they are keen to stamp out illicit lift pass sharing, so they are keen to stamp out illicit ski instruction.
You gotta think like a corporation... 
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Poster: A snowHead
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@crosbie, nah. Little has changed in 30 years. You are scaremongering -at best
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS
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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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| crosbie wrote: |
The next step (wangled by ESF) will be to require that anyone engaging in any friendly/unpaid tuition (friend/friend, parent/child) must first obtain a 'non-professional instructor permit' from the ski resort tourist information office, which can be provided to anyone (for a small fee) for a maximum duration of two weeks per season. This will also necessitate wearing an armband identifying the wearer as a permit holding non-professional instructor.
This trajectory is obvious. |
Well it is not likely but who knows... normally the winds are blowing the other way. The Bolkestein directive is finally being implemented in France (years after the deadline) which is liberalizing the provision of services. It is fairly timid, ski instructing was never on the table and provisions regarding taxis etc have been dropped.
However, the Loi montagne, which covers ski instruction, is currently being revised with a new law later this year or next year and with the head of the ESF now a senior politician, regional vice president in charge of the French Alpes, one can fear the worst.
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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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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Maybe you should hand yourself in on arrival @speed098, the custodial sentence will be more lenient.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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@speed098, you'll be OK. When the instructor is handing money over to the pupil different laws apply.
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@speed098, you'll be OK (2): they know it's parents teaching when the kids aren't listening 
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| altis wrote: |
| If you are experienced in an activity and you go out with a group of inexperienced friends to do that activity then legally (and morally) you are responsible for their welfare. I believe it's the same in France as the UK. |
I'm not sure on what basis in law you make that assertion, at least as far as the UK is concerned. Unless gross and unconscionable risk is involved ("recklessness") I don't believe it to be true and the sports of sailing and climbing would pretty much fade away if it were. Can you point at any cases where a casualty in sailing or climbing or their relatives have in fact successfully sued that more experienced friend?
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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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I can't point to examples where it's actually been used, but that's certainly the accepted wisdom in Spain as well as France. But sure, I don't think it's something that would get bandied around much; there's not much civil liability litigation in Spain.
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I suppose you could extrapolate from a general "duty of care". A child lost an eye in a sailing session led by a qualified volunteer at our sailing club. A freak accident, in a very safe session. The mother threatened to sue but didn't, in the end, perhaps having been advised there was no chance of her winning as there had been no negligence or recklessness. But if there had, the instructor's volunteer status wouldn't have stopped an action though it might have been taken into account in court. Poor man - a lawyer as it happened- was devastated.
My daughter was a very junior instructor at the same session and involved in the " first aid". She wanted to call an ambulance but was overruled. The girl's father was there too, and also decided against and as a 16 year old she had to shut up. It might not have made any difference anyway. Very distressing for all concerned especially as the girl, a bright and likeable person, was never allowed by her vengeful mother to go to the sailing club again though it had been a social as well as sporting part of life for her and her father.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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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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@dogwatch, Summit, the magazine of the BMC, had a long article about this some years ago. The gist of it was as described above. I'll try and find it online sometime. In order to join our mountaineering club you have to sign a declaration saying that you acknowledge we undertake dangerous activities and you don't hold the club or anyone in it responsible for any accident. I imagine it's the same for all similar clubs.
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| dogwatch wrote: |
| altis wrote: |
| If you are experienced in an activity and you go out with a group of inexperienced friends to do that activity then legally (and morally) you are responsible for their welfare. I believe it's the same in France as the UK. |
I'm not sure on what basis in law you make that assertion, at least as far as the UK is concerned. Unless gross and unconscionable risk is involved ("recklessness") I don't believe it to be true and the sports of sailing and climbing would pretty much fade away if it were. Can you point at any cases where a casualty in sailing or climbing or their relatives have in fact successfully sued that more experienced friend? |
In a hiking club I am in, we had this conversation. A legal person who is in the group, said the few cases she knew about resulted in the judge refusing to assign any liability on the grounds it would kill volunteering and people do things at their own risk. So the conclusion was as you say - unless a volunteer leader does something incredibly negligent, they won't be held liable. So if you take some hikers up a grade 1 scramble, and someone falls off - well they took their chances in a risky situation.
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You know it makes sense.
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I can't find the whole of the BMC article but the gist of it is here:
https://www.thebmc.co.uk/how-liable-are-you
In particular, note the bit:
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| A very clear duty of care exists between a qualified mountain guide or climbing instructor and those that they are professionally leading or teaching. Guides and instructors engaged in such work would normally have professional negligence or liability insurance. Amateur climbers should be aware of and accept the risks of participation ( see BMC participation statement ) and should also be aware that, where they are the nominal or actual leader of others, they may be held responsible in the event of an accident. |
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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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You have pulled one sentence out of an article that provides numerous countervailing reasons why that might not be so. Nor is that sentence quite equivalent to your original assertion which was:
"If you are experienced in an activity and you go out with a group of inexperienced friends to do that activity then legally (and morally) you are responsible for their welfare. I believe it's the same in France as the UK."
"Nominal or actual leader" might be a scout leader or a club member in charge of an organised event. It's a stretch to say that being the most experienced in a group of adults makes you the leader in law.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Oh, FFS, Crosbie, no one has suggested that individuals with their friends/ relations will ever be affected. For a kick off those "policing" such matters are looking for, at the very least, patterns of behaviour over several weeks or seasons.
One could even hire an instructor to go on holiday with you - and as he is not recognised in that resort nor wearing uniform - then who would know?
They are just being protectionist against the competition they can see.
Your arguments sound very like one of our old " friend's" ..... Let's hope you don't get obsessive over flogging dead horses like he did.
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FAQ
Last week just me 
