 Poster: A snowHead
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British skiing's governing body, Snowsport GB, is mired in financial crisis, according to news reports. The demise of SSGB could jeopardise Britain’s hopes of winning any medals in the 2010 Winter Olympics. Leading figures in snowsports claim the organisation is insolvent and has had to make cuts. Apparently, its coaches have not been paid, and so athletes have not started crucial training for Vancouver in February...
For more see: http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Olympic-medal-hopes-on-the.5544730.jp
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I thought that the HNGB's were now in receipt of funds from the Sports Council, unless these have yet to come through ?
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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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david@mediacopy, Snowsport GB isn't an HNGB.
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I think this news story is slightly out of date?
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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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rjs, surly they would still benefit ?
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| david@mediacopy wrote: |
| rjs, surly they would still benefit ? |
You'd hope so, wouldn't you, in an Olympic year of all years.
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| rob@rar wrote: |
| david@mediacopy wrote: |
| rjs, surly they would still benefit ? |
You'd hope so, wouldn't you, in an Olympic year of all years. |
Why should SSE hand over funds that have been given to it for one purpose to SSGB to use for something else ?
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| rjs wrote: |
| rob@rar wrote: |
| david@mediacopy wrote: |
| rjs, surly they would still benefit ? |
You'd hope so, wouldn't you, in an Olympic year of all years. |
Why should SSE hand over funds that have been given to it for one purpose to SSGB to use for something else ? |
They shouldn't.
But it does illustrate the utter pointlessness of having the home nation bodies and SSGB if there is an inability to vire money to the elite squad in an Olympic year. I was talking to one of the WC squad recently who doubted whether they would get any southern hemisphere training in this year because of funding problems. That's madness, IMHO.
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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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rjs, I think that what I was trying to say is that I'd have expected SSGB to benefit from the Sports Council funding for skiing, along with the other Governing Bodies.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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david@mediacopy, The Sports Council funding wasn't to be used for elite racing.
I think that the national teams should be properly funded too but SSGB knew their budget at the start of last season and significantly overspent. They were also using some of the money paid by members of the development team to fund the WC team which is the reason behind this.
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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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And lets hope they don't forget the Nordic team. We now have 5 athletes qualified to start in the World Cup and good young skiers fighting for places in the olympics.
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| Quote: |
| Home Nations to take over the running of the Alpine Racing Development Teams |
...and to think the other year they were trying to force the Home Nation bodies out of existence. 
Plus if their web site http://www.britski.org/ is anything to go by, they wouldn't be much loss. The home nation associations are stronger, more local to their populations and we need rid of the alphabet soup in snowsports, so what is the point of SSGB?
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You know it makes sense.
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Winterhighland, The britski website isn't run by SSGB, it is also low-bandwidth enough that it can be viewed and updated from anywhere.
Until Scotland declares independence there has to be a national governing body for GB if only to submit the race entries.
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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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Poster: A snowHead
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Which is also nothing to do with SnowSport GB.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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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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It has now made the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/winter_sports/8199471.stm
"SnowsportGB, an Edinburgh-based not-for-profit organisation, is responsible for the British teams in alpine ski racing and snowboarding and receives funding for the athletes from UK Sport and the Scottish Institute for Sport as well as private sponsors. "
Also responsible for Nordic, Freestyle etc. budgets that weren't overspent because they were miniscule compared to alpine budget.
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Seems the best information on what is going on is on PlanetSKI. What a shambles especially ahead of the Olympics. Hope chemmy, ed and the rest can still preprare OK
http://www.planetski.eu/news/714
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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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Ben - Not sure you could really claim the best info - seems like they have just been round all the other agencies and summarised the info in one place. Good summary though.
A lot of this info was available over three months ago the press as a whole have been very slow on this one.
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Remember the Scottish Guys as well! Dougie Crawford and Jan-Michael Kochalski and Pam Thorburn!! All the British team guys are in serious financial troubles! The Fed havent got the funding they need to support the teams, wether you believe thats what the funds are for or not, everyone should be able to see the fact that the Team guys and girls need the support, financially for their training as well as support from all the British Skiers who dream of any of them winning medals in Vanc! We should all be getting up behind the team and supporting them in ANY WAY WE CAN!!
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Hi all, long-time reader first-time poster. Nice forum you have here.
Anyway, to the point: there's a light at the end of the tunnel!
We've spoken to SnowsportGB and have the full story on our website: http://bit.ly/eemC4
Have a look and let us know what you think...
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welove2ski, interesting - and welcome to snowheads.
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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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Welcome to  s
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| welove2ski wrote: |
Hi all, long-time reader first-time poster. Nice forum you have here.
Anyway, to the point: there's a light at the end of the tunnel!
We've spoken to SnowsportGB and have the full story on our website: http://bit.ly/eemC4
Have a look and let us know what you think... |
Love the quote at the bottom - Remember: anyone who thinks they can do a better job of preparing our athletes for the Olympics has the perfect chance to prove it. SnowsportGB is still taking applications for the CEO's position - with a salary of £40,000 per annum.
Isn't that the issue? if the CEO is only worth 40K per annum for what I assume is a full-time position you're not going to get anyone with that much talent for that amount of money.
To contrast with the recently advertised CEO position of the RYA (admittedly with a wider remit than just 'performance') but that was a 6 figure sum.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Bertie bassett, haha fair point! Sadly I think that's linked to funding. I was going to make a comparison with skeleton or bobsleigh, but we weren't able to get hold of accurate figures.
Even then, both skeleton and bobsleigh receive millions in UK Sport funding, and their budgets are much larger as a result. Everything scales up!
So what can you do - it's a chicken/egg thing. They can't afford a proven expertise at the helm, which in turn means they won't have proven expertise guiding them. Realistically, they ought to be looking at taking a chance on a young, ambitious but less-proven CEO.
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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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So SnowSport GB have had a few difficulties in the financial dept - a lot of sports have had problems with finance over the last 12 months or so. Just read this on the BBC site "Astana had financial trouble this year after sponsors defaulted on payments, meaning that riders reportedly went unpaid for long periods." - sound familiar.
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You know it makes sense.
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Haggis_Trap, fully understand where you're coming from and it may be a good salary compared to the national average, but I don't think you'd find many CEOs with the skills to run this type of organisation well for £40k. It's not like it's a commercial organisation with potential financial upside if a success.
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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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Many of my friends and colleagues are loosing their jobs in the industry, those that are involved with marketing, sponsorship and events. Just yesterday 2 very significant ski businesses let their people go. We have World Champions that have zero funding next year. It's a nightmare the world over.
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Poster: A snowHead
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SMALLZOOKEEPER, not just confined to the ski industry though...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Sport is run as a business these days, particularly with regards to funding. You put in a forecast of your predicted results and you 'bid' for the funding required to achieve these results. You then budget accordingly. If you do not achieve the results you promise, your budget is slashed. This has happened to many sports, not just skiing, following poor performances in the Olympics last year. As pointed out by welove2ski, this results in a chicken/egg situation.
Run your business well, and you may start to see an increase in performance and results. So, for example, given we are not an alpine nation, maybe we should concentrate our elite athletes on the European circuit, as opposed to the WC? Put in a steady string of podiums, and the funding may well increase as a result....also, given that there are 101 organisations mentioned above, maybe having one recognised body to control our athletes would prevent confusion - if all of the aforementioned were putting their respective sponsorships and funding into one pot, how much would we have in the kitty?
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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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SMALLZOOKEEPER, it's not necessarily as bad as you think. Marketing and sponsorship have of course been hit incredibly hard; they're the first thing to go when companies have to tighten their belts.
But that said, as far as tourism goes (which really is the backbone to the industry), there have been suggestions that there's no reason to worry. An industry study I recently read actually had a significant number of tour ops reporting more business than last year. I'll work on digging that up for you.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| bertie bassett wrote: |
Isn't that the issue? if the CEO is only worth 40K per annum for what I assume is a full-time position you're not going to get anyone with that much talent for that amount of money.
To contrast with the recently advertised CEO position of the RYA (admittedly with a wider remit than just 'performance') but that was a 6 figure sum. |
Is the salary offered the same as it was for the previous CEO or just what can be afforded now ?
The expectation was that SSGB were getting a talented candidate last time.
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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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| Quote: |
| To contrast with the recently advertised CEO position of the RYA (admittedly with a wider remit than just 'performance') but that was a 6 figure sum. |
The talented people at Snowsport GB are the athletes (and trainers).
These are the people on the front line who can potentially deliver sporting success.
The assumption that a CEO needs to be paid a 6 figure salary just to do their job properly is incorrect, and also immoral.
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Haggis_Trap, if you think it's so easy to find someone with the right skills for that salary, then why not volunteer to find them someone? Help them save on the immoral headhunter's fee...
£40k is a long way off a 6 figure salary however...
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| Quote: |
| given we are not an alpine nation |
Perhaps we'd be better focusing our efforts away from traditional Alpine racing disciplines then and more on freestyle disciplines where it's not necessary to have Alpine scale mountains to hone your skills and possibly Nordic events were a lot of training can be achieved off-snow????
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| Winterhighland wrote: |
| Quote: |
| given we are not an alpine nation |
Perhaps we'd be better focusing our efforts away from traditional Alpine racing disciplines then and more on freestyle disciplines where it's not necessary to have Alpine scale mountains to hone your skills and possibly Nordic events were a lot of training can be achieved off-snow???? |
Exactly. If you've only a small budget then select a highly motivated team and focus on events where you are likely to get results. Then with those results build a slightly bigger team, add a few more specific achievable targets - get results, so on and so on.
Its no surprise that British Cycling has had the success its had. Several years ago all the effort was put into track events where outcomes were measurable and achievable - in the kilo or team pursuit for example if a certain time could be achieved then its likely an Olympic medal would be won. On the back of medals in those events - think Sydney Olympics and Jason Queallys Gold along with other medals funding was increased, more goals were set.......... British Cyclimg didn't say "Right lets try and win a Gold in the mens Road Race" - a huge task against the best pro riders in Europe. Which in effect is what Snowsports GB is after with DH, Super G medals etc with Chemmy, Ed Drake etc. It aint going to happen. (Although I wish them well)
BC got huge amounts of flak from the grassroots for focusing on the track and not pushing the road - ah 10 years later we have Wiggo, Cav, Ben Swift and a full compliment of 9 riders in this years World Race Championships. Longterm planning and strict team selection criteria.
As Winterhighlander says, why not focus on Olympic events where there is a reasonable chance of medals - in possibly unglam events, pocket the success and funding then move on.
Oh and 40k for a CEO is a joke - any sports CEO or Elite Performance director will be looking for 70K plus I'd say. Success comes from quality leadership - someone with vision and passion. They deserve paying.
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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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[quote="Winterhighland"]
| Quote: |
| Perhaps we'd be better focusing our efforts away from traditional Alpine racing disciplines then and more on freestyle disciplines |
Ski cross anybody? Great Britain's World Cup team has five athletes ranked in the top 100 in the world: 39th (Sarsfield), 51st (Sauvey), 53rd (Morison), 75th (Samuels) and 77th (Robinson).
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welove2ski, and way more interesting to watch imho
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FAQ
