13 April 2016
The Ski Club of Great Britain
Over 100 years old and going strong
by Lynda Goetz
A few weeks ago I came back from one of the Ski Club’s Freshtracks holidays. Although, disappointingly, there was not even a hint of fresh powder and we were treated to blue skies, sunshine and spring skiing throughout the week, it was a great holiday. It is the fourth Ski club holiday I have been on in 10 years and each time it has struck me what a winning formula the Club has created and how it has managed, so far, to adapt to the rapidly changing world of a sport which is less than 200 years old (although travelling on skis is another story altogether and has a history which dates back some eight thousand years in Russia and Scandinavia and possibly ten thousand in China).
The Ski Club was founded in 1903 with the stated aim of encouraging people to learn to ski, helping members to improve and get the most out of their skiing and bringing together people to enjoy the sport. Until World War I, the Club focused mainly on Nordic or cross-country skiing. In 1914, the first official British Ski championships were held in Saanenmoser, Switzerland. the results being based on cross-country and, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, ski-jumping. However, this was nearly one hundred years after the first recorded ski jumper (Olaf Rye, 1809) and fifty-one years after the first public skiing competition in Tromsø, Norway. Ski equipment, like so much else, has been transformed since those days.
Sir Alfred Lunn, skier, mountaineer and writer, who was President of the Club between 1928 and 1930 organised the first British National Ski Championship in 1921 in Wengen. By 1922, when it was held in nearby Murren, Lunn had decided that the slalom needed to be decided on speed, not style. He pointed out that “The object of a turn is to get round an obstacle losing as little speed as possible. Therefore, a fast ugly turn is better than a slow pretty turn” (Something we should perhaps ponder if we are ever tempted to criticise a skier’s style whilst sitting in our armchairs watching Ski Sunday). It was through Lunn’s efforts that downhill and slalom races were included in the 1936 winter Olympics – although he was opposed to them being held in Hitler’s Germany. The Ski club remained responsible for British Alpine racing teams until 1964, when the role was taken over by the National Ski Federation of Great Britain (later the British Ski and Snowboard Federation).
Since that time the Club’s focus has been on the ‘reps’ or ‘leaders’ which it has in resorts around the world and on organising holidays where skiers of similar abilities can share their passion for the mountains and the sport. There are currently 17 resorts with volunteer Ski Club leaders. Any member of the Club who wishes to ski with one of the leaders in a resort can either arrange this in advance online or, more usually, simply turn up on a first-come first served basis. This is an opportunity to be shown the best runs in resort (depending on conditions) without having constantly to peer at unfamiliar piste maps. It gives people the chance to concentrate on the skiing rather than route-finding . Rather unfortunately, the complex and ongoing legal cases over ski-hosting in France mean that, even though Ski club leaders are volunteers with only their expenses paid, they are currently not allowed to show members around any resorts in that country. This season the Ski Club have had an arrangement with Evolution 2 Ski School (‘one of ‘les Bleus’ or independents as opposed to ‘les Rouges’, the Ecole du Ski Franҫais (ESF) who have been bringing the court cases) to provide an instructor-led guiding service at reduced prices to replace the Leader service in French resorts.
Apart from the Leader service, appreciated and enjoyed by members, it is possible to book either family holidays, Freshtracks holidays or, for the over-55s, Peak Experience holidays. Many of these have an emphasis on off-piste skiing and it is a brilliant way of getting experienced and expert guiding with fully-trained local instructors and mountain guides without paying the sums it would cost you as an individual, couple, or even small group. To ensure that skiers in a group are of similar ability, the Ski Club grades people according to a system they have had in operation for some time. It can appear a little off-putting to feel you are being ‘assessed’ and the re-grading which goes on at the end of a holiday can be somewhat daunting – especially if your grade goes down rather than up! However, the system, operated by the Leaders who accompany the holidays in conjunction with the instructors or guides, does have the advantage of ensuring generally that those who wish to ski fast (with or without ‘ugly’ turns) can do so; whilst those who wish to ski more gently or with less experience of varied conditions can do so without feeling that they are holding others up.
In the evening there is the pleasure of a shared meal in the hotel or chalet and these are an opportunity for finding out a little more about your fellow guests, as is lunch in restaurants on the mountain. In the few holidays I have been on, it has been my experience that, once the initial barriers are broken down and everyone has got over the need to play up or play down their skiing knowledge and experience, most are simply there to enjoy the skiing with others who share that passion. Many will have come on their own, as I did. This is not because they are lonely souls looking for companionship, but more usually because their other half is not as interested or competent in the sport as they are. For some it is one holiday of several, particularly for those who are retired. One may be with friends, another with family and then there is the irresistible opportunity to go skiing just one more time!
My slight concern for this centenarian club is based on its own statistic. Peak Experience holidays account for 25% of its programme. The holiday I went on was not Peak Experience, but it would be fair to say that the average age was somewhere in the mid to late 50s. A number had children who ski, not only enthusiastically, but seemingly far better (and certainly faster!) than their parents; largely owing to the fact that they started when very young. At the moment they all ski with friends of similar standard and generally do not have the time or the funds for 3 weeks skiing a year – unless they are working in a ski resort (which most seem to have done at some juncture). None of them ski with the Ski Club. Will they do so when skiing friends start having families and are not free to go with them and do the sort of skiing they want to do? Will they simply go on holidays with those same friends and their children? Will they be Ski Club holidays? Alternatively, will they wait until they are over 55 before contemplating going with the Ski Club? If the latter, then the brilliant Ski Club formula may not be able to survive the hiatus in its membership; but then who knows what the world may be like in another one hundred years? At the present rate of progress, it won’t simply be spring skiing in March. The crocuses will already have flowered and the Alps may not have any snow at all.
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