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Diary of a Snow Camp 2010 volunteer

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
hi,

I'm volunteering on the Snow Camp France trip to Vars this coming April, and have had a few Snowheads express an interest in learning more about Snow Camp, so I thought I'd write a diary of what it actually means to be a volunteer, and the activities you get involved in leading up to and after the trip. I hope you find this interesting, and it makes you consider whether you'd like to get involved with the charity in some way. Everything on this post has been written by me, not Snow Camp, but please visit the Snow Camp website (www.snow-camp.co.uk) to get more information (check out the film of last year's Snow Camp, great stuff!).

So, what is Snow Camp?

Snow Camp is an English charity that provides young persons (aged from about 13 - 19, I think) from youth centres in London with the opportunity to go skiing/snowboarding for the first time ever. Snow Camp is relatively young, this year there are 160 young people going to France, with 18 volunteers (of which I'm one), and about 30 youth workers. It started only a few years ago with about 6 young people, so you can see the charity is growing rapidly, as awareness grows.

As well as taking them skiing (and boarding, for brevity, I'm going to use the term skiing to cover both snowsports), the young people participate in a 'life skills' course whilst on the trip.


Now, this might sound mildly interesting. But, think about it. If you're a young person attending a youth centre in London somewhere, the chances are you're pretty unlikely to be able to muster up the cash/interest/parents buy in/trip organisation/friends interest, etc to go skiing, so this in itself is a great opportunity.

As well as learning their chosen snowsport, the Snow Campers' life skills programme is all about helping them to consider if anything they've learnt from the experience could be applied to their lives, be it learning more about snowsports, to having the confidence to try something they never thought they could, to understanding that trying and failing is far, far better than never trying.




What does being a Snow Camp volunteer mean?


A Snow Camp volunteer participates in the France trip by pairing up with a group of 10/12 skiers during their lessons (led by UCPA instructors), is assigned organisational duties on the trip (I'm part of the health and safety team, I fully expect to spend the week reminding people to put suncream on Very Happy ). Snow Camp volunteers must raise £600 to fund their place, and are expected to assist greatly in the delivery of the life skills programme. More about the life skills programme later.


To be accepted as a Snow Camp volunteer, you have to go through quite a rigorous selection procedure, be CRB checked, provide references and undertake an impressively searching interview.

Once all this is done, there is a then a training programme to complete prior to the trip.


Training session 1

So, you first go to Milton Keynes snowdome to observe last year's Snow Camp graduates on their lessons (there's more about the Graduate programme on their website). This is useful to get to meet some of the youth workers, and the graduates, and find out what they thought about their trip. When I went, I found it really useful to hear how young people had to earn their place by collecting points for various activities devised by their youth workers. With only 10 or so places, the youth worker I spoke to had to whittle it down from about 50 who'd expressed an interest. So, by the time the young person comes on the trip, they've already had to work hard to earn their place, plus raise £99 funding.


There are graduate sessions that run each month, so it's a good idea to attend one of these sessions prior to the formal training starting.

Training session 2

Last weekend, I met with the other volunteers for the first time. Everyone who's volunteering is very committed to this cause, and everyone has great backgrounds, skillsets and a 'can do' attitude which I think will be really inspiring to the Snow Campers. You do not have to have worked with young people before.

We spent the day at Milton Keynes. The morning session provided us with an overview of Snow Camp and the charity/trip organisation charts, introductions from each of us, opportunities to ask questions about the trip, and division into organisational teams - health and safety, kit, etc.

In the afternoon, we completed a Safeguarding Children course. As a ski instructor, I've done (probably countless by now) safeguarding children courses, but I found this session really useful, as we were putting this into the context of Snow Camp, and the possibility of what you would do as a volunteer if a young person disclosed information to you that you had to act on. All extremely good training, and we get a Sports Coach UK certificate!


Our next training session is a residential weekend in Kent, scheduled for a couple of weeks' time, so I'll update you with how that goes.


Why bother?


So, why bother? What on earth would a young person from Stockwell in London learn from a fancy ski trip to France? What life skills could that person pick up on such a trip that could ever apply to his life/aims/aspirations?

This, for me really is the question. I learnt to ski at a late age (32), and I can honestly say it changed my whole perspective on my ability to do things. It made me realise that something I'd always ignored (quote 'why would I want to go skiing? I hate the cold!') could actually introduce me to a whole new world I knew nothing about. It also made me think that I can do anything I put my mind to, and it made me realise that you don't have to be the best to be good at something. I think I would say that my life changed immeasurably just by learning to ski - it's even now my job!

If I can share some of this magical stuff with young people, hopefully it won't take them until they're 32 to learn these lessons! It's not necessarily about becoming a ski instructor (although, why not?!), or even working a season as a chalet maid (again, though, why not?!), it's about having the confidence and self belief to attempt anything you want to, whether it be going to college in a different borough, dropping out of something your heart's not in to find what you really want to do, to realising that the street hierarchy you are bound by does not necessarily apply when the big kid keeps falling over as you sail past him...


(you know I mean ski there, don't you Happy )

I'm genuinely excited about what I will learn from this trip. As well as sharing my love of mountains, my sport, and my belief that sport can teach you about life, I'm looking forward to meeting some people I probably would never get the opportunity to meet in my life, and working with them to help them to see what they can learn and apply from this experience. This is an amazing opportunity to let me give something back to newcomers to my sport, and even if that person never ever skis again, but makes the choices in life he wants to because of it, I'll be delighted.

And, shameless plug coming up...

If anyone would wish to sponsor me, I'd be very grateful. My Just Giving Page is


http://www.justgiving.com/Maggiehalpin1



So, I hope you will find this account interesting. The Snow Camp trip is in April, we have a residential training session, and a kit day in London to complete, and then we're off!

Maggie
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
snowqueen11, very interesting setup. Good luck, and I look forward to hearing more of your experiences.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Sounds fantastic. Have a great trip.
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snowqueen11, sounds really interesting, please keep the blog going.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
snowqueen11, very interesting, keep us informed Smile
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So, part two of my blog...

Last weekend, 18 volunteers, 30 youth workers and about 10 Snow Camp management team met for a residential training programme. We went to an outdoor centre near Tunbridge Wells called Bowls, I'd recommend it for team building stuff..

The purpose of this weekend is to get all the management team together to prepare for the Snow Camp trip. Some people had been to a snow camp before, others, like me, are new to it, so it was great to meet everyone.

We're put into teams of about 7 or 8. This reflects the ski/snowboard groups of approx 10 young people, so each ski group has their youth workers, plus a volunteer present. My ski team are girls from a Lambeth youth project, plus we have a couple of young people from another youth centre in Waltham Forest.

We first did an outdoor team building exercise, where the penny began to drop that although we may be in separate teams, actually, we're all one big team, and we depend on each other for success. This was a brilliant exercise, and really fun too.

We then spent the rest of our residential going through areas such as travel, accomodation, rules and regulations about expected behaviour, snowsports, medical incidents, etc. This was really helpful, it's a mammoth task to take 230 people to a foreign country, and I do really feel I've got much more of an idea how to manage this trip now.

One of the best sessions we talked about was how to deliver the life skills programme. At the end of each day, the groups will spend an hour or so discussing what skills they've learnt from their trip so far. It's a very structured and well thought out programme, and has evolved as a result of previous snow camps. So, it covers topics such as self awareness, confidence (lack of and gaining), skills you can acquire and skills you already have, etc. Our team leader told us to expect these sessions to get quite emotive, and I'm sure they will be!

We finished our residential on Sunday morning. Friendships are beginning to form amongst the volunteers and staff, and everyone is deeply committed to ensuring these young people have the best trip they could possibly have.

Next weekend, we have 'kit day'. This is where sponsors of Snow Camp have kindly donated kit for the young people to use on their trip, so we're off to London to provide them with jackets, goggles, trousers, gloves, etc. I'm looking forward to the first time I get to meet the young people in my group, and we've said we'll meet up for coffee beforehand so that I can answer any questions they might have about skiing.

Snow Camp's starting to take up quite a lot of my thoughts. I think the training and preparation we volunteers have received so far has been excellent, really comprehensive, and has tried to really give us a sense of the task we're about to undertake. It sounds totally full on, as volunteers are 'on duty' basically from breakfast to 11pm each day (you do get one night off), and there's also one night shift for each volunteer. I think I may need a holiday when I return!

It's also making me realise just what an amazing opportunity this is. I'd say most of the youth workers haven't been to the mountains before, so they've also got a real treat in store. We're all now starting to work out ways to amuse ourselves during that 18 hour coach journey to the resort...
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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Really glad you're doing so well and it sounds awesome, hope the kit day and holiday goes well Very Happy Very Happy
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After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
snowqueen11, keep the reports coming, very interesting.
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Quote:

At the end of each day, the groups will spend an hour or so discussing what skills they've learnt from their trip so far.

snowqueen11, that sounds like quite a lot of ski holidays! people gather in the bar to swap stories about how scared/hard/worried/drunk/amazing they've been since they last gathered in a bar!

very interesting, thanks. My daughter did a couple of weeks some summers ago doing mentoring on a "Gifted and Talented Youth" summer camp - sounds similar in many ways. She found it fascinating, rewarding, and totally knackering. And they were paid!
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