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Snowsport GB in Administration

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
PJSki wrote:
But anyway, explain to me about the money in the clubs. Where does it come from and where does it go?

Clubs get money from their members, mine charges a small amount on top of what people have to pay the slope whenever they ski during a club session. We pay some to the home nation based on the size of the club. We can do whatever we want with the rest, mostly stuff like replacing broken gates and other kit.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Scot_Ski, good post Happy
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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?
Just one point people, the word is off, not orf, you are not well orf I am, but I am sadly not well off OK Evil or Very Mad
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rjs wrote:
PJSki wrote:
But anyway, explain to me about the money in the clubs. Where does it come from and where does it go?

Clubs get money from their members, mine charges a small amount on top of what people have to pay the slope whenever they ski during a club session. We pay some to the home nation based on the size of the club. We can do whatever we want with the rest, mostly stuff like replacing broken gates and other kit.


Ok, so your home nation leaches money of you, and then what does it do with it?
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
PJSki wrote:
Ok, so your home nation leaches money of you, and then what does it do with it?

Just had a look at the 2008 accounts for SSE in their website (2009 not yet available)

Total Income - £436k
Total Expenditure - £423k
Surplus - £ 13k

Of the £423k expenditure, it's easy to identify the bulk of it -

'activity expenditure' £179k (presumably the cost of running races)
salaries £113k
office costs £ 87k
insurances £ 29k

It all mounts up! I would suggest it's very difficult to get these costs any lower than they are already, so it would seem the only option is to increase income somehow.

That's where I think there is the need for heavier marketing (whch comes at a cost!) to get increased sponsorship in. These aren't 'big' numbers, but it shows how close to the wind the HNGBs are sailing....
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Jon.L, Any indication of where the income came from ? The only number that stands out are the office costs. Presumably with that salary figure they can't be employing many more than say 5 full time staff. Around here office space for that number of people could be as low as 5 - 10k, depending.
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Jon.L, looks worse than I thought. Seems money is mainly flowing up, only to be blown on salaries with questionable benefit to the sport.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
PJSki, No idea who you are, dont agree or disagree with anything you have said (sit on the fence, dont like confrontation), but I love your posts. You have just make my day as I have been literally laughing to the point of urinating myself. I like direct talking. Oh, and there are a few weirdos and home knit jumper wearers in UK skiing! Fair play to you!

PSG
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
PJSki, Your points 1-8 are all pretty valid and would be the start of how things should be run.
However your points 9-10 are just completely wrong. There is no way that you can ban individual sponsorship and replace it with scholarships paid for from a collective sponsorship pool of money.
Firstly you would never find anywhere near enough money from sponsors to be able to fund more than a couple of athletes.
Most sponsors like to see their logo in papers on TV etc. You can only do this if you are successful. Trying to find any sponsorship of more than a few hundred pounds for kids that are 10 -15 with potential would be almost impossible.
Take it from me as my son TJ is the most successful British Children/Junior skier in the past 20 years and is now in the top 20 world junior rankings in 3 events it is extremely difficult to get sponsorship. If he can't get fully sponsored then the rest have no hope.
The cost of a world class programme for 8-9 months for competing in 50 FIS races is around £30k per year. To compete at a high level this is what our top skiers require. TJ has managed to get around £15k in sponsorship & grants which left the rest covered by SSGB because of the level he is at. Them going to administration left him totally abandoned. The money had all been frozen over 2 weeks ago. He was the only GB skier at the World Junior champs and was a genuine medal hope in the Super G being seeded No 8 for the race. I had to pay for his coach and the cost of his accomodation again even though I had already paid SSGB in full for the cost of the whole season until the end of April. If I had not paid he would not have gone!
Also what you say about only kids with pushy well off parents is just total cr..! I don't and have never earned anywhere near £60K a year and we have had to make lots of sacrifices over the last 10 years. He is ranked no1 in GB for all 5 disciplines! So that blows your theory completely out of the water. As others have said there is also Dave Ryding, Aaron Tipping etc etc. There are a number of other very talented skiers that do not have wealthy parents who struggle to be able to pay for their training and racing. They are ranked higher than a lot of the wealthy kids! You can't buy talent!

Lets just hope that the new governing body will listen to what the athletes want, get proper funding, is totally transparent and there is a structured programme for the next 4-5 years at least.
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Ski the Net with snowHeads
Plugboy, well said
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Plugboy, well said from me as well....

lets just hope the new organisation that emerges will be a completely new sensible body instead of the mess we had previously. an organisation to help direct and steer a pathway from grass roots ski racing all the way to wc level is needed but a very small one should be able to handle it without numerous overlapping competing quangos and fifedoms.

hopefully they will dust off the "modernisation " paper, re look at it and consolidate even further for the next go around. perhaps a meltdown was the eventual outcome with a group of squabbling enthusiasts that all want the same success for british ski racing but completely screwed it up and couldnt work together positively.
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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.
PJSki wrote:
rjs

1. Disband the home nations.

2. Ban certain individuals from involvement in competitive snowsport at any level.

3. Reconstitute a UK governing body from what's left.

4. Fine, bankrupt and ban any 'athletes' who haven't repaid all their debts to the governing body by a given date.

5. Form a proper pyramid structure for all disciplines.

6. Remove the requirement for racers to be affiliated with a racing club.

7. Hand responsibility for all coaching to private contractors.

8. Promote the existence of super teams competing at national level who draw their talent from lower levels through a scouting network.

9. Ban individual commercial sponsorship in favour of even sponsorship.

10. Fund scholarships for the most promising youngsters from a commercial sponsorship pool.


Here here.
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So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
agree with most of that but dont see how banning sponsorship will help much. i could be wrong but as an example of why central pooled sponsorship can be difficult and divisive i heard the irish have something like pjski's 10. but virtually all the money went to one athlete and caused a lot of agro

not sure about why having affiliated clubs requirement removed a good idea. grass roots support is important. but there was the case of sega fairweather who was treated poorly and discriminated because she trains in the states.

but looks like a good framework for a modernisation and didnt cost 50k Toofy Grin
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
The problem with individual sponsorship is that it creates inequality. Yeah you can't buy talent, but you sure as hell can develop it more fully and have a better chance of achieving full potential if you have good financial backing. Unfortunately the current system rewards success at the expense of opportunity not being made available to others. Thus, late developers are locked out. Sport should be about sporting ability not the ability to trap sponsorship. So, it would be central contracts and pooled sponsorship if I was in charge. Then the formation of about 4 super teams, that are neither regional or national, who then compete against each other. Racers then choose which team they want to go with. I would expect to see great rivalry between teams as they try to develop ever more ingenious ways to outdo each other. That has to be better than the stagnation and bankruptcy we have now.

I'm still shock the SSGB were pledging money to the tip of the pyramid. They should have been using that money to cover more fully their bases at the bottom.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Quote:

4 super teams, that are neither regional or national, who then compete against each other

It's an individual sport. People already compete against other people from dozens of nations. Team structure exists mainly for training purposes and for major competitions like World Champs and Olympics. Another false level of team will fall totally flat. You'll never stop Scots teaming with Scots, or Welsh with Welsh, or etc with etc etc.

Quote:

try to develop ever more ingenious ways to outdo each other
What? Like you mean try and get down in the least possible time? What a concept.
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Bode Swiller, I just leave it all to the likes of you to continue facking up in that case.

How would you fix things? Hold a black tie event in central London? What, what, old boy? Invite all the nannies too? NehNeh
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
PJSki, well I've never been involved enough to "fack it up" and I'm certainly not about to organise any black tie events in favour of ski racers as there are far better causes on this planet. I think I said I'd go along to the Snow Ball but that seems to have bitten the dust and I reckon that's a fairly good indication of how hard commercial sponsorship of any kind will be going forwards. You can continue to run competetive skiiing from the safety of your string vest, underpants and keyboard in Surrey but you're never going to be the person who actually has to walk the walk and deal with the politics and finance of it all. Coming up with some bullet points is very easy, making them happen is not. In the real world, those with the money will continue to pave the way for their offspring and those without will struggle to keep up. I don't like it either but it's the way it'll carry on.
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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?
david@mediacopy wrote:
Jon.L, Any indication of where the income came from ? The only number that stands out are the office costs. Presumably with that salary figure they can't be employing many more than say 5 full time staff. Around here office space for that number of people could be as low as 5 - 10k, depending.

Of the £436k quoted:

£251k 'Activity Income'
£110k Registration and Renewals
£ 51k 'General office income' - whatever that is???

Sponsorship income is a grand total of £11,800 Shocked

Plugboy Well said - all I can say is 'Oh s**t'....
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PJSki wrote:
Unfortunately the current system rewards success at the expense of opportunity not being made available to others....

Exactly how UK Sport divvy out the funding, unfortunately.....
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Jon.L, In terms of 'proper' income, for other sports they will be trying to maximise the income TV and media broadcasting revenues. I guess the problem with Skiing is that the FIS will own the broadcast rights to it's events and with no 'National' series it's going to be a struggle for the NGB to create revenue there.

That leads to a couple of interesting questions:

1. Do top level FIS competitors get 'TV' or 'Start' money ? (in Bike racing the competitors do get start money - in particular for Road Racing / The Isle of Man)

2. Does the FIS give a cut of it's TV money to the NGB's of competing Nations ?

edit for rubbish spelling
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If you want to hear Colin Moynihan here in Canada talking about Snowsport GB (on the radio yesterday) try this link and go to 45 mins 47 secs. Interesting points about the funding and teh political/structural situation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qg6zy/You_and_Yours_12_02_2010/

I wasn't aware that there was a number of individuals and agencies involved in the bale out.
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
PJSki wrote:
The problem with individual sponsorship is that it creates inequality. Yeah you can't buy talent, but you sure as hell can develop it more fully and have a better chance of achieving full potential if you have good financial backing. Unfortunately the current system rewards success at the expense of opportunity not being made available to others. Thus, late developers are locked out. Sport should be about sporting ability not the ability to trap sponsorship. So, it would be central contracts and pooled sponsorship if I was in charge. Then the formation of about 4 super teams, that are neither regional or national, who then compete against each other. Racers then choose which team they want to go with. I would expect to see great rivalry between teams as they try to develop ever more ingenious ways to outdo each other. That has to be better than the stagnation and bankruptcy we have now.

I'm still shock the SSGB were pledging money to the tip of the pyramid. They should have been using that money to cover more fully their bases at the bottom.


hitting on this again... you say it creates inequality, maybe so, but if you ban it/remove it whatever you want to call it.... then most small businesses are priced out of helping

we put a bit into racing in terms of support with equipment and fitting, i am a 1 man business, i can't afford to put more in, much as i would love to. i also wnat to know where my money/time/product is going to, if it goes into the pot then i don't see a benefit, if it goes to racer X and the get a result then i see what my effort has helped to achieve... for what it is worth i work with several of team memebrs most of which didn't make it to the olympics (and a couple who did!)


other than that most of your pionts about how to make it better make sense.... we just need someone to make it happen



BTW racer X is no relation to or involved in any way with Resort X Toofy Grin
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
Good news for all those involved in the British Land National Ski Championships in Meribel:
it is to go ahead after all.
See announcement on britski.org
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