Are you planning a ski season?

A snowHead

Hi all,

I'm a skier called Alex from the UK. I'm about to head out to Queenstown in New Zealand to complete my instructor qualifications before heading out to Whistler in Canada for the rest of the Northern Hemisphere winter.

Myself a few mates have just set up a snowsports clothing company called Own The Snow that will be launching fully in the winter.
In the meantime and more importantly for everyone here we have pulled together a FREE community and support service for anyone who is thinking of doing a season.

We found that planning seasons and extended trips can be a pretty daunting prospect but for many that is half the fun. What isn’t fun is trying to sift through hours of unnecessary google searches, blog posts and endorsed messages which raises the risk of paying too much or missing out on getting exactly what you are looking for. Our solution is to give you people to talk to who have actually done seasons and to focus on quality of information rather than quantity.

So if you are interested check out http://www.ownthesnow.com/seasonnaire-community/ and 'Like' our http://www.facebook.com/ownthesnow

Let me know what you think of the website and give us a shout if you are heading out to NZ this summer!

Cheers,
Alex

A snowHead

One of your 'gurus' is a gap kid with all of half a season under his belt? Laughing

I'll pass, thanks.

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

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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Perhaps she walked into a bar and asked for a double entendre.
So the barman gave her one.

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

OwnTheSnow, Not in the market myself, but a friend might be so I'll pass it on. Good luck with your venture.

Lizzard, as usual, your contribution is patronising, snide, and just downright nasty. Notwithstanding the blindingly obvious fact that it's not aimed at you, what do you think you're contributing with your pointing and laughing. Really?

After all it is free

Lizzard is I believe a hardened veteran of managing one season wonders and of the interweb's premier seasonnaire website which, while is has a vested interest in recruiting and filling chalet grunt jobs, is a pretty good existing resource. So one wonders why the OP needs to create the shinier newer wheel where a few people with some limited experience hold themselves out as experts til they get bored. To sell hoodies - how massively original, I expect we're looking at the new Fat Face/Superdry.

I do the the idea of "gap year guru" however.

fatbob I don't think I've seen more mean spirited posts than yours and Lizzards, in response to a genuine and enthusiastic young person starting up a new venture in the snowsports industry. Snowheads probably seemed like a logical place to go in order to engage with other enthusiasts, and advertise their venture (as many others do in their sigs, Lizzard included). It seems that he was very much mistaken, given the dreadful welcome he's received by two long standing (and therefore some might asume to be, for want of a better expression, senior members) users.

I'm flabbergasted by the meanness, and quite frankly embarrassed on behalf of Snowheads.com.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Dr John, How to engage a community - come in, freely give advice,participate, contribute. How not to - link pimp to your own amazing community and not even offer a snippet of the goodies within without a click thru. The site doesn't look bad but the cynic in me asks how enthusiastic the gurus will be about answering questions one on one.

and I've posted more advice relevant to the subject matter than the OP, albeit you have to see through the sarky tone wink

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Alex, welcome to Snowheads.

Nice website loads quickly and a clean look. Quite a good idea, a bit like Natives using their forum to pimp the recruitment business. The content will obviously grow over time, particularly if you can get enough members signed on, I guess that will be the tough bit.

Have a great time in NZ, hope you get some snow. The NZ system is good focusing on teaching a lot more than BASI where the focus is more on personal performance.

Pop in during the season, and let us know how its going.

snow reports

Dr John, How many like you are out there? You're too trusting.

This is quite obviously a front to sell merchandise. Setting up as an authority to advise young people on working a season when no-one has any real experience or authority on the subject is bogus...

E.G. "Talk to our Guru who has done half a season but her season was cut short and she went to Oxbridge..." etc.

The only reason this site exists is to promote the OP's new range of clothing..

Dr John, Unfortunately for you fatbob is correct in both his posts. Both he and Lizzard have posted on numerous occasions to provide info, advice etc. Between them, they've posted some damn useful stuff. Can the OP say the same? Methinks not. Perhaps it might be time for your happy pill? Or a re-read of the 'How to understand humour and enrich your life' self help book? wink

OwnTheSnow, Welcome to snowHead

s. It would be nice if you decide to stick around and contribute. But if you join this community and jump right in with pimping your stuff (whatever that may be), you're going to get jumped on. Imagine you walk into a heaving pub full of strangers.... would you walk in to the middle of the crowd and shout 'Hey, come and see the stuff I'm pimping/selling' and expect to get a friendly reaction? No, thought not.

You know it makes sense.

Schuss in Boots, nice one. I agree, but am in dire need of some popcorn at this point. Toofy Grin

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

A snowHead

Dr John, it's not reasonable to put up as an expert someone who has worked half a season in one resort for one TO in one position. On top of that, the 'community' aspect is plainly primarily a marketing strategy designed to punt yet more custom hoodies to an already crowded market. Clearly the site isn't aimed at me, but as it stands it doesn't offer much to the group which it claims is its target market.

Or was I supposed to come up with gushing praise just because he's "a genuine and enthusiastic young person"?

A snowHead

Wow you cynical old gits! What skin off your nose is it if this young man is being brave/foolish and setting up a little business? It's not like the government is going to need to bail out the business!

Good luck to you OwnTheSnow,

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

Sooooo much self-justifying rubbish being talked here;

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OwnTheSnow, looks like a professional effort, well done and good luck and I hope people contibute to what you are trying to achieve in getting a snow related business off the ground.

btw ignore the cynical 40 something (edit some of them wink

) old lags - the will just suck the life out of you if you let them Very Happy

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Lololololol.

So a new Natives sans the experience on that forum...

Good luck with the clothing, but I'd make sure your 'experts' (lol) aren't giving out too much dodgy 'advice' to people who probably won't know any better.

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

OwnTheSnow,

Just a quick point
On your site you have the slide show in an LI for some reason - maybe better on a low Z Indexed div (up to you though)
Eitherway you need to increase the Z Index of the LI's for the masthead (over that of the slide show - which you should put to a minus number, maybe one higher than the containing Div ?)
you can do this is the css to casscade the effect through the site - if you have a stye sheet ?
This way in IE the masthead dropdowns will appear on top of the slide show which it doesn't at the mo and as the vast majority of people use IE....

for example - http://www.folgarida.co.uk/
Note that the masthead dropdowns are a higher Z Index to the main Div with the pictures so they appear over them

Other than that it seems to work fine

Yeah I know, geeky thread drift wink

PS. I need all the help I can get when packing for my seasons, done over 20, coz I'm a

After all it is free

clarky999, That's a good effort the only times I've ever come across structured instructor programmes they all seem to be caning it pretty heavily in the bar every night and spending heaps on shiny new kit to keep up with the clique.

Dr John, I'd be prepared to give the guy the benefit of the doubt if he had actually thought a bit more about his intro post .e.g majoring on the benefits of his FREE forum with lots of people who know a fair bit about doing seasons - sound like anything you know - Natives or even here? Would he have the front to post the same post on Natives? The point I'm making is that Lizzard may be a prickly old dinosaur but she has more experience in the sort of seasons the guy is talking about than all his gurus combined (& probably double or more). Youthful enthusiasm is great but perhaps a dose of reality in that there's already something out there which does what his "service" does better is also worth pointing out. After all Siralun would be interested in how he was going to beat the opposition if he was pitching on The Apprentice. For instance looking at their CVs how are his gurus going to be able to answer the question of " How do I do a season in Canada?", "what qualifications do I need to be an instructor in the US?" (answer - quite possibly none other than a work visa and ability to pass a hiring clinic).

Ok so I only just checked back this post this morning!

Firstly, I apologise to anyone who is offended or irritated by this post. This post was NOT intended to sell anything to anyone here and I'm sorry if it came across that way. What I wanted to try and put across is that I would never use this forum to try and sell anything and instead wanted to publicise some of the advice and support we are trying to give.
I was also after some feedback which in a sense I got!
I'll try and answer each of your criticisms in turn which believe it or not are very helpful if not a little unexpected and at times probably a bit aggressive.
The bank of Mum and Dad jibe is frankly a pretty shocking stereotype that you'll be surprised to know in this case doesn't apply to me.
I'm funding this from working every summer whilst at uni because like all of you I love snowsports and I thought this would be fun to do and maybe even add some value to the snowsports community in the long run.
I could very easily go off and become an investment banker which I'm sure would make you like me a whole lot more...

1) Lack of experience
The 'gurus' idea is fundamentally focused on finding people who have literally just done a season or 'gap year' so that they can help students who are thinking of doing the same. I am 100% certain that almost all of the people on this forum have done more seasons and have a lot more experience but what a lot of our friends are looking for are advice from people who did one off seasons just like they will. Perhaps the word 'guru' was a poor choice and displays a patronising and and arrogance which doesn't actually exist. Think of it more as a small group of friends trying to give each other advice but by slapping the tag 'guru' on someone it shows that they have done this before so you should go talk to them.

2) Its the same as Natives
Natives, in my experience, is primarily a great and very comprehensive website if you are looking for to secure a job in resort. What myself and many others found a bit more difficult was trying to actually find all the relevant advice on that website and we wanted to explore moving from a forum format to a more formalised word of mouth kind of service.

3) Lack of content
We have literally just launched the pre launch site and did it to firstly get some feedback and secondly to force us to work a bit more quickly.
At the end of this week we are pulling together a more comprehensive introductory e-book on how to approach going about a season. It contains a lot more about what sort of qualifications you could do if you go down the instructor route and then more details on other avenues such as improvement courses, working in chalets or for a large companies or picking up odd jobs.

Anyway thats my piece.
Apologies once again, I'll definitely think a lot more before I post again! Lesson learnt.

Alex

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Oh sorry and one more thing which I just forgot.

One of the key motivators for us to set this up was to try and produce something more authentic than what we have started to witness with 'Jack Wills seasonnaires' as a growing trend on university ski trips
http://www.jackwills.com/Seasonnaires/Default.aspx

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

OwnTheSnow, you just picked the wrong forum to post on for target audience feedback I think - wrong demographic, wrong scenario, wrong attitude for your product (both the clothing and the for the 'guru' service) - which means you're likely to get three types of responses from a bunch of strangers in this situation:

1) condescension and negativity
2) total non-interest
3) non-interest in your services and clothes, but good will towards your new venture.

Just be grateful you didn't post a feedback questionnaire.

Best of luck!

snow reports

From what you've said, I think Natives pretty much cover everything you're looking for, even down to the book on how to do a season.

The reason a forum works, is because everything is up to the minute. Resorts and what is happening in the Ski industry change's from day to day. You can find anything you need on the 'search' button.

If you are looking at the younger crowd and the 'JW' route, why not contact Universities direct?

You know it makes sense.

miranda +1

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

Thanks miranda I think you are spot on.

@Spud interesting what you say about forums. It might be a demographic thing again (sorry in advance because you might be similar age to me) but with the development of social networks people have become used to having more of a face to everything and I sometimes feel forums lack this.

A snowHead

A snowHead

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

OwnTheSnow, good luck with your venture, miranda has it about right for me.

With regard to your comment about having a face on a forum, many many of us have met up with others here, so for most people, users here aren't just names, they are real people Shocked

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cathy, You mean those people I met on bashes are real people ? Shocked

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

OwnTheSnow, Thanks for coming back and fighting your corner. You see I like you a lot better already now you've established you're not a spam n run merchant. wink

The bank of mum & dad comment was aimed at encouraging people to have a plan for how they were going to support themselves - IMO working hard in the UK and banking some savings for 6 months ahead of going out then not needing a ski resort job is better than working as daytime chalet grunt for sub minimum wage but I know there is sometimes a bit of a divison between workers and bums on this point and workers do enjoy the collegiate atmosphere.

Now you've described it I think I see your USP in the "peer to peer" space and I think its good you're bucking against the "Jack Wills"isation of the ski world, which hopefully will probably restrict itself through social selection to the Tarantaise and minor parts of Valais. I think you've an uphill task with a casual clothing company but every so often one hits big so it could be you. I'd like to see more Brit led companies with more technical kit like the Trew and Saga etc but that's just me. Let us know how your seasons go.

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geepee, apart from the sock puppets Toofy Grin

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

After all it is free

Right, I realise I’m not your target demographic as a 30yo office monkey but I did do three seasons on leaving uni (whilst only intending to do one) so do have an idea of who you’re aiming at. My questions would be (and this isn’t trying to be argumentative):

What sets you apart from the brands out there at the moment?
Why are you better than JW or are you just different?
Why buy your clothing and not just wear cool ski/board branded clothing a grab the standard seasonaire hoody?
Who exactly are you pitching to?

The “The Story” part of the website sounds a little like a uni business module project. Phrases like, “start building a snowsports lifestyle fashion”, “community that embodies and supports the growing student snowsports movement” and “young people deserve a snowsports fashion brand that listens and responds to their interests” wouldn’t appeal to me at 21/22; they feel as though you’re talking to a marketing exec on a pitch on The Apprentice not your peers.

The site is fine as it is but I’d want it to be cooler. I’d more likely by something of these guys http://www.planksclothing.com/ than your site, and I’m a 30yo still trying be young and cool at the weekends (much to my oh’s amusement). My 20yo self would definitely drift to planks over you.

You’re keen on skiing, you know what brands are “in”; use them as something on which to base your model.

If the above sounds negative, sorry. I wish you all the best and as it’s a cut throat market out there give it everything.

(Remember, all of the above is just the opinion of one random on the internet, get as much feedback as possible)

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

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