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A snowHead

I like Nick's points - but am still left with a question: if I'm skiing with a rep and s/he heads off piste, do I need to know enough about route planning to second guess his/her decisions - or do I just follow?

A snowHead

And that is one of the questions we all would like an answer to, supposedly you just follow but how do you know the rep concerned knows what they are doing ?

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

And what if you're like me, ie no sense of direction whatsoever? I would follow anyone down anything, as my fear of getting lost is far greater than going anywhere. And I'm not that great a skiier Crying or Very sad

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maggi - all the ingredients for trouble there! Wink

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DavidS, do you sign a release before heading out with a rep? Seems like there's some real liability there...

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I am following this all with great interest. I am planning to be a guide with the Copper Mountain Over the Hill Gang next year. The guide program is under the auspices of the Copper Mountain Ski and Snowboard School, but guides are volunteers (some are also employed parttime by the ski school to give lessons). If I am injured while guiding for the program, I am covered by workers comp insurance. Similarly, if a guest has an accident, they are treated the same as they would be if it happened in a ski school class.

I am trying to understand how SCGB can provide reps but then deny culpability in case of an accident. You can't have it both ways. At least not here in the States...

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Maybe someone should point that out to the SCGB cos the last time I checked they have Reps there too...

Seriously though it's a worrying thoght and has serious issues that the club seems o think it can get round by having people sign a disclaimer and say they have read the new little card that says it's not the reps fault !.... Ostrich Mentality possibly Confused

After all it is free

ssh, it dates back to the older days of litigation over here. About 20 years ago things worked on a more "common sense" basis. If a person said he would show you a few runs and did so, why should he then be liable if something happened to you whilst you followed him.

On this basis people accepted that skiing was dangerous and off piste more so. They agreed to expose themselves to this danger. The courts also agreed that a volunteer acting in this way could not be expected to be giving professional advice as he wasn't getting paid and so wasn't a professional; you couldn't have something for nothing.

However, things have moved on and through the media we now more closly follow the US legal thought process. That is, that no one agrees to suffer injury, that if someone else is in charge when an injury occurs then it's probably that persons fault and the person in charge should pay up compensation because they're probably insured thus financial loss is spread amongst the entire community through increased insurance premiums.

There is merit in both views, but the SCGB may have failed to spot the change that has taken place.

Are the reps covered by insurance?

marc gledhill, interesting. My thinking is that, since the use of those reps is limited to SCGB members and guests, that members are paying for use of the reps (whether the reps receive payment or not). Therefore, the entity taking payment (the SCGB) is providing a service for pay and would be expected to be held accountable for the service they are offering.

This is similar to the OHG. Members pay $200/year (plus lift pass) to be guided up to four days a week during the season. If I (as a volunteer) am the cause of an accident or injury, then Copper and the club will be held accountable. How is this different from the SCGB's guide program?

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marc gledhill, BTW, this is not to say that I think that someone must always be "at fault." More often than not, it's simply an accident or mistake. But, in the case of negligence or incompetence, it seems that there is a reasonable expectation of competence based on the SCGB's training and membership policies.

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ssh, I know what you're saying, I was just looking at the historic reasoning behind their stance.

The old viewpoint would be that the SCGB allows members (and others) to tag along with it's reps for free whilst your guests are paying specifically for guides.

From what I've seen of the liability trend, then if anything happens it's someones fault for doing a run that was too icy/powdery/steep/boring/bumpy for the injured party. Yes OK a litle cynical but not too much.

I think these days the Rep and the OHG volunteer would be treated pretty much the same.

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You know it makes sense.

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

I'd give odds on them prosecuting the Rep, especially if there happens to be a group of French police at the bottom of that slope

A snowHead

Not clear where this train of thought is leading.

Are you saying you are anti off-piste skiing/boarding?

A snowHead

Nick Zotov, not at all, in fact the opposite. But it appears that the SCGB rep guiding system don't carry any PL insurance in case things go sticky.

We were wondering why, and whether they would/could be liable. The concensus appears to be that they could be, so it's worrying for everyone if there is no insurance. The rep and/or the club could be made insolvent on the back of a large claim, and the injured may not get full compensation.

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

1. Immediately, now as of today - no off piste unless appropriately qualified - that means an externally validated qualification {IFMGA guide, ISIA/IVSI equiv in some circumstances}

2. A review of training processes to bring them in line with the minimums set down by the appropriate international body {in this case the IVSI} for those leading on piste.

3. In the longer term current leaders to be externally {re}qualified by an appropriate governing body {it strikes me that the snsc ski leader award would meet most of the needs of the club}. Though I cannot speak for any of these governing bodies I am sure that they would be willing to give accreditation for prior learning for parts of the reps course reducing the time needed.

Associated with this process a formal agreement whereby new reps are required to be externally qualified more quickly than the above. The club's partnership with a governing body would enhance the status and awareness of each otganisation to the other's members.

I am sure that the fairly high income of the club could subsidise re training guides over the next few years. Perhaps also funded by cutting out some of the deadwood resorts where reps n'er meet a skier, {other than perhaps a mate or two}.

4. Those reps who are involved with children in any capacity {I suspect one way or another most of them} to have been formally police checked. There is probably a debate as to whether the standard disclosure or the enhanced disclosure check.

This is a bit off my patch but I quote the guidance notes regarding the 'Protection of Children Act 1999. They refer to voluntary ogrnaisations, sporting activities etc and state that the 'Protection of Children Act 1999 are not made mandatory for these organisations it is the Government’s hope that they will take advantage of the scheme to its fullest extent so as to ensure that they provide a comparable level of safety to children in their care as that afforded within the regulated child care sector'.

5. A review of the clubs resources used with/on reps {note this is a cost, not a safety issue}. This will examine;

a. An audit of useage of reps in each resort on a week by week basis

b. In response to a, above a review of the resorts selected and number of weeks repped in each resort.

c. A review of the process by which reps are allocated to resorts and the critieria used. These criteria to be publically available {necessary to encourse many to enhance their 'professional' development and consequenrly be posted to 'top' resorts}

d. In the light of a and b above {and also in the light of a general strategy decision by the club to either expand membership or to serve existing members only} a review of thse resorts where reps can usefully serve a greater body of skiers. Clearly the strategy decision would effect the selection of resorts.

6. A safety point {and I speak from ignorance of 'post qualification' requirements for reps}, but if not required reps to attened a course for continual professional development every x years. This would flow naturally from 3. above.

This is a start I guess...

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Just looked ay my posting above it looks like a bit of a non sequitur in the context it has landed in. For the record it was a response to DG O and DG's questions with regard to the changes I would propose to reps training, operation, deployment etc.

Nick - as far as I know the reps 'qualification' {or rather the club on behalf of the reps} does carry professional negilgence insurance. However my point has been for a wee while that if/when this is tested in the courts tho' the insurers will cough up they'll look VERY closely at what they will insure the club and the reps to do in the future.

Rightly or wrongly {and I accept the 'we're all becoming too American, too litigious, it's terrible' arguments that many will rightly make} we operate in an environment where people expect higher professional standards than in the past.

The reps programme, or parts of it {at least} is operated using perceptions of an earlier era which whether or not we like it, is gone, over. It started to die when resorts began to groom runs, to have ski patrols, to put fences close to cliffs. When rules were written for the conduct of skiers, ski resorts and guides {with substantial input from a former club chairman I might add}. It keeled over and breathed it's last when {again whether we like it or not} legal aid was stuffed and conditional fees, claims handling companies and adveritising solcitors arrived.

It's no longer possible to argue that;

1. We re the scgb we can issue our own qualifications with no relationship to any international standards
2. We re all club members together and no one should sue the club {try running that one when a rep leads a non member to encourage them to join the club and see how far you get}
3. We all jointly accept the risk of skiing in hazardous areas {well actually you can run this argument to some degree, but when one person deployed to take charge actually selects a route and others follow him/her then in most circ's a court will assume that the skiers are entitled to believe that the person's judgement is right/sound}

It's got to change and it's better if the club controls the change as opposed to an adverse judgement in the courts and insurers starting to take fright !

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

arnold lunn, well put accross, as you say the "off piste" insurance area is a minefield. My guess is that to get definitive cover the insurance company will probably reqire that type of qualification anyway.

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Thanks for the kind words Mark.

I am not sure as to what the club's restricted to doing by insurers. My experiece of other sporting bodies is that initially {espc' with established bodies} things are initially very much taken on trust.

'We'll insure your staff where you deploy them, after all you re much more expert at running skiing than we are. We know you'll be sensible because if you get it wrong your premium will rocket when we re assess'. {this is pretty much a verbatim record of a conversation, save for the reference to skiing that I had with an insurer not too many years ago}

It's the second sentence where the little land mine is planted........

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

[I've opened a substantial new thread on the Ski Club site today, under the new 'The Ski Club' section of the forum. It's called "The great reps debate - part two". Only members can access it, but it means there's an internal discussion by those who own the Club. It's intended to explore the whole subject of reps on all issues - not just off-piste liability etc.

Personally I welcome this continuing discussion on Snowheads, because it'll give the Club a more public perspective on the issues.]

Sorry to interrupt.

After all it is free

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France seems to be quite focused on criminal, rather than civil, liability at the moment - prosecuting members of a ski patrol, for example, when a woman was killed after hitting a poorly marked cord between two pistes: http://www.pistehors.com/comments/59_0_1_0_C/

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Yes - my experience of the French courts is that they are much less inclined to favour a Claiamnt than might an english one.

snow reports

There was a crucial stage in this debate on the SCGB site when the issue of deaths was raised. Since road traffic issues often come down to cold calculations of this sort, it's maybe worth raising again:

The Ski Club's argument for continuing repping can be partly based on its safety statistics relative to other modes of off-piste leadership, but what factual information do we have?

We know that one skier died while led by a SCGB rep in Verbier many moons ago (from memory, the mid 1980s). If this was the only death in the history of the service, over the many decades that repping has continued, how does this compare?

We know that dozens (literally) of US skiers are dying hitting trees. They are usually not being led (and would probably be alive today had they been). So there's an argument for off-piste leadership at accessible rates, in non-avalanche terrain.

We know that a group of British doctors died in an avalanche in Val d'Isere some years ago, when professionally led. Many British skiers have died while professionally led. Lucy Dicker, the well-known travel expert, died in La Grave from head injuries in a couloir that a professional guide judged to be appropriate for her ability. He may have been right - I don't know.

We know that many other skiers are dying annually, off the piste.

I'm not raising this as a defence of a repping service that is being reasonably analysed here. I'm just wondering if we're too focussed on one thing. I had a day in Argentiere about 15 years ago with an official Chamonix guide who was reckless, in my view. He took no account of our lack of fitness at altitude and took us down steep stuff too quickly. Some members of the group were significantly over-stretched.

I'd be in favour of reps focusing on new member recruitment and objective snow reports, and taking people to the most interesting pistes and most beautiful places. I think the Club will eventually pass the responsibility of leading groups to guides exclusively, because it's the only logical outcome.

In the meantime, I think it's only fair that the Club's safety record is viewed relatively and fairly.

Deaths are VERY, VERY rare events on skis.

As an example - 37 skiers and snowboarders died accidentally on U.S. slopes in 2002/03 - this equates to 0.64 deaths per million visits or one death every 1.6 million skier visits.

OK I am not a statistican {and I suspect that I will be leapt upon by those who are, but.......} on the back of the proverbial fag packet this could be taken to mean that taking a nominal 27 000 skier members EACH member would have to ski with a rep for 60 days to hit this total, methinks that we're not there yet.

Or - lets call that mid 80s figure as '84 so that we have a nice round 20 years. That would equate to about 80 000 repped days per year. Again irrespective of the most wildly optimistic estimates of repped days it ain't 80 000 per year.

This on the face of things suggests that skiing with the club might be riskier than skiing sans rep.

However...... deaths are very very rare, so rare that with an organisation the size of the tea club it would probably be difficult to draw meaningful comparisons from the above data - one incident in 20 years doesn't indicate any sort of pattern. More data is needed

Because of numbers {both club and overall} the statistics which would be as, or perhaps more valuable would be for skiers injuried under the care of a rep.

I've never argued that skiing with a rep significantly increases the probability of a fatal outcome {I just don't know either way}. However I suspect/expect that the overall risk to which skiers might be exposed is higher with a rep than with a guide.

You know it makes sense.

I don't think anybody's arguing that your safer with a guide than with a rep surely.

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

A snowHead

Hi Bend - I think that I am definitely arguing that you're much safer with a guide. It takes 4 years to qualify as an IFMGA mountainguide and, well quite a lot less as a rep. Either the IFMGA criteria are massively excessive or the 'tea club' doesn't do enough. Check out another posting entitled something like 'important work of reference' for another steer on this.

Sherman - I'd agree with you. I might have posted this elsewhere, but as an internationally qualified coach and ski instructor I have lines, tests, judgements that I make when working with skiers which are I suppose more liberal than some colleagues and more conservative than others.

I suppose that apart from my ethical concerns I worry for the club that if/when a coiurt tests the reps training they are very likely to find i wanting, espc in thix context.

A snowHead

Maggi raises an interesting question on another thread - if her insurance covers her to ski off-piste with a 'suitably qualified guide', would she be covered with skiing with a SCGB rep?

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

I take out ski club insurance so that I am.

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Interestingly, it looks like you need a guide for cross country skiing when taking out the club insurance, but not for off-piste. You're covered for:"Skiing, snowboarding, off-piste skiing / snowboarding, recreational racing, guided cross country skiing, mono skiing, Langlaufen, snow mobiling, tobogganing, ice skating, ski-touring (including where ropes are used for safety purposes) and heli-skiing / boarding."

I wonder why that is...

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I wonder what is meant by cross-country skiing. At Saas Fee they seemed to think the term meant what I call langlauf. I have known some folk think of it as ski-touring, but that's covered specificlly- so it's not that.

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Nick - Cross country would usually be considered to be 'langlauf', certainly not ski touring in an alpine sense.

In response to David's question - SCGB reps are certainly not suitably qualified in this context. If I were asked such a question by insurers {which I am moderately frequently} my answer would be an unequivocal NOPE, for the reasons given here and elsewhere.

I think {and for the record I am not speaking on behalf of any of these organisations} if an insurer were to ask any awarding body in GB or overseas whether the reps qualification was sufficient to lead skiers off piste the answer {once the chuckles had subsided} would be a definitive 'certainly not'. If anyone doubts the accuracy of this comment I'd ask them to check out it themselves.

However here's an interesting one for you to ponder; in the event that someone decided to ski with a rep and as part of their decision making process was an assumption {certainly forstered by the club} that a rep was a suitably qualified person {and that therefore their own personal insurance was valid} and subsequently their insurance was found to be invalid because the rep was not suitably qualified {almost certainly the response an insurer will get if they ask outside of the ski club} ........... could there be a claim against the club ?

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

The correct answer is of course, it depends.

But given the choice I'd prefer to be suing the club rather than defending it.

After all it is free

Hm, I was in doubt that I would be covered, from what I've read here. But I also had other doubts about the safety aspect as the rep, (can't remember his name - Belle Plange, 14 March), recited the week's itinery then said to us, "Just turn up for any day, but if anyone wants to do the off-piste day, can you let me know the night before as I don't want to turn up with 9 sets of safety equipment if only 2 people want to go." What he didn't say was that anyone going had to be an experienced user of such equipment. Personally, I would have thought equipment is only of use if someone has been trained and had practised how to use it.

I'm sure you're right maggi. I've never used a transceiver before in my life, and to be honest, in the heat of trying to rescue someone I think I'd have problems using the shovel, let alone anything more complicated.

That's why resorts seem to run a lot of transceiver training courses, I guess...

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Haven't even practised with a shovel in the garden - I make my other half do it rolling eyes

And I couldn't even spell transceiver. Much use I'd be.

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