 Poster: A snowHead
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People have been trying to put that idea into practice for 20 years. The problem is that the tour op business is so cut-throat; so they view an extra two quid on their prices as liable to render them non-competitive in the market.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Martin Bell wrote: |
| People have been trying to put that idea into practice for 20 years. The problem is that the tour op business is so cut-throat; so they view an extra two quid on their prices as liable to render them non-competitive in the market. |
That obviously doesn't apply to the 2 quid credit card surcharge they are happy to apply to anyone who wants to pay with plastic.
Still we come back around to the question, why should someone going on holiday pay competitors? You may as well charge 2 quid on a ferry crossing to go towards our Americas cup team.
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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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A more precise analogy would be to charge 2 quid to every British person going on a yachting or sailing holiday - to go towards our Olympic sailing team. (Britain does not have an America's Cup team at present.)
Whenever this idea has been floated, there has usually been the suggestion of an "opt-out" - so no-one would be forced to pay the levy.
It would be a way for the UK ski industry to say thanks for the 40 mins of free advertising per week that they have got for the sport from Ski Sunday for the past 30 years. davidof, even you would have to admit that there might be a few readers of your excellent website (pistehors.com) who were perhaps originally inspired to take up the sport of skiing by Ski Sunday...
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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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Martin Bell, I find that Ski Sunday is watched mainly by people who've already got the bug amongst my friends.
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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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Well, it's an academic question anyway, because skinutter's plan will never be adopted. The difference with tourist taxes (aka "room taxes") and airport taxes is that tour operators have to pay those, they have no choice.
But the proposed "ski team levy", or whatever you want to call it, would never be adopted by any tour operator, because they would be afraid that some of their competitors would not adopt it and would be able to undercut their prices.
That's not to say that no UK tour operators have ever put anything back into the sport, far from it - Airtours, Bladon Lines, Neilson, Ski Independence and Thomson have all sponsored British ski-racers in the past.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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A bit of lateral thinking is needed.
What should happen is that we lobby for sports we are good at to become Olympic sports.
Gold medals for darts and snooker would be a distinct possibility. You would not need much in the way of sponsorship for either.
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question to martin Bell -how much funding did you receive from government or was all your sucess mainly funded by family contributions and how would you advise aspiring young skiers/boarders to acheive what you did ?
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As you make your way up through the club system it is mainly parent-financed, although if you are able to win events at children and junior levels, the prizes often come in the form of "training grants" which offset some of the costs.
Then if you make it to the national team there is government support (from UK Sport, formerly known as the Sports Council). If you achieve some international success, then there is the opportunity for commercial sponsorship - and also Lottery Funding, which did not exist back in my day.
A big part of my success was undoubtedly down to the Austrian ski academy at Stams. Other (but not all) British racers have benefited from Austrian ski academies (Kirstin Cairns, Emma Carrick-Anderson, Johnny Moulder-Brown, Ross Green). So I would advise any young ski-racers to start their German lessons now! (If that's really not possible, there is now a British ski academy, based in Chamonix - http://www.britskiacad.org.uk/ - run by my old team-mate Malcolm Erskine - certainly a very good alternative to going to an Austrian one.)
Before getting to the stage of a ski academy in the Alps, for 8-13-year-olds it is possible to get to a very high standard using dry and indoor slopes in the UK, as well as Scottish snow. (Interspersed with camps in the Alps once or twice a year.) A good start would be finding a strong dry slope ski-racing club as near as possible to where you live. The best place to live in the UK (if you want to be a ski-racer) is probably Edinburgh - within weekend range of the Scottish snow areas, plus the UK's longest dry slope on your doorstep. And now an indoor slope over near Glasgow as well.
We may not have the mountains, but we have no excuse for being less fit than the Austrians or Swiss, so plenty of fitness and strength training is a must.
I can't really comment on snowboarding as I think the feeder system is probably very different from ski-racing.
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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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Thanks for the reply Martin ,both my boys are in cairngorm ski club with the eldest one attending training camps in Tignes,we stay in Strathspey so we have good access to the scottish ski areas however there are at present no local dry slopes with a racing programme however we are hoping to use occasionaly the new escape place in Glasgow.We do get a shock on how good the children who train at milton keynes are when they vist us for the outdoor races up here ,i didnt expect them to cope with difficult conditions as a well as they do,indoor snow seems to give them them the advantage of perfecting technique on a regular basis where as with snow conditions outdoors over recent years have been very unreliable not giving many chances to use gates etc.A bit worrying about your advise to learn german as my son has just droped it as a subjet as only allowed to take on one language at school and he choose french.Thanks for your advice and perhaps with some lottery help we could come and train with you in Taos better go and put my £1 on the lucky dip?.Ps the boarders are do better than the ski racers here at the moment as boarding is the more trendy option and doesnt require as much practice or fitness and can be practiced on very little snow cover so i would expect more boarding success than with skiing.Fitness is not a problem in my family as i belive most unfit children are a reflection of their parents lifestyle although exercise is an alien concept to most of the population here!
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As a DHO member I should point out that we run several training camps for youngsters, this year we have camps in Summer, October, Christmas, February and Easter and we've also added 5 long weekend camps for older trainees (no minis or children 1 first year). For further details have a look at http://www.downhillonly.com/pages/home.html, a huge proportion of the club funds each year goes to fund racing and training opperations
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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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Why is it better to live in Edinburgh than Strathspey? Because Hillend is there, week-in week-out, year-round, which is important for the younger racers although plastic should play less of a role after the age of 13 or so.
Still of course Strathspey has produced the Baxter brothers and Lesley McKenna, so the sky's the limit (as long as it keeps snowing...)
tomf, if you have any more precise ski-racing questions, please PM me and I will try to advise you or find someone who can.
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