Dear Friends and Supporters,

 

Welcome to the Christmas newsletter! It seems like a good time to reflect on what has been, despite many challenges along the way, a fantastic year at Snow-Camp. The youth programmes have gone from strength to strength, over 40 more youth projects have got involved, our supporter numbers have grown, the snowsports industry has been as supportive as ever, our patrons have been fantastic and the awareness of Snow-Camp and our work with young people has continued to grow through some fantastic press coverage, shows and events.

 

We would like to thank everyone who has got involved and supported this year  - our funders, volunteers, corporate sponsors, bursary providers, the youth projects and above all the fantastic young people who having been introduced to skiing and snowboarding, and who continue to inspire us with their committment and determination. 

   

We are all looking forward to 2012 - a bigger staff team, the first residential trip to Aviemore, Scotland in February and another group of young people being put forward for Snowsport England instructor qualifications with the Excel programme. But first here is the final round up for 2011!

 

Enjoy this month's update and have a wonderful Christmas!

 

The Snow-Camp Team

50 young people successfully completed the latest Graduate Programme, run over 6 weekends at Hemel Hempstead Snowcentre during October and November 2011. The participating young people, from youth projects located across London, worked hard with the centres instructors and staff to improve their skiing and snowboarding technique and learn more about the ski industry.

 

The Graduate programme aims to be a more vocational course and speakers from the ski and snowboard industry are invited to talk to the young people each week about their roles and how they got started in the business. This year we were excited to welcome Jim Duncombe from Natives who came to talk about working a ski season; Maggie Halpin, a Hemel ski instructor who talked about ski instructing qualifications and how to achieve them; FBBB’s Aly McMorland and Mikee Cee did a talk on how they started out and ran freestyle slope sessions with the young people and Snow and Rock ran an equipment maintenance session - all enjoyed by everyone!

 

Next stop for these young people - Aviemore, Scotland, and their first experience of real mountains!

Read the full Press Release about the Graduate Programme here

We are very proud to have been nominated for the FIS Snowkidz award, to be decided in February 2012. The award recognises and promotes the best examples of bringing children to the snow in varying national circumstances and is presented every second year at the International Ski Congress. As part of the "Bring Children to the Snow" campaign, the FIS Member National Ski Associations are invited to submit one project to compete for the CHF 10,000 prize. Dave Edwards, Head of Team GB said he was "delighted to support Snow-Camp's nomination". Fingers crossed!

 

Snow-Camp patron, BBC Ski Sunday presenter and all round snowboard guru Ed Leigh dropped into the office recently to say hello. We shot a quick interview with him and he gave us a signed snowboard to use for this competition! To watch the interview please click here! To read the article in Ski and Snowboard Magazine click here! And many congratualtions to Andrew Barrett who won Ed's snowboard in the competition. Over £700 was raised in total and thank you to everyone who entered!

We are all set for the Snow-Camp Everest Challenge 2012! We have 40 people signed up to complete the Challenge in Morzine between 26-29 January, and everybody is looking forward to the event! There is loads of snow and its going to be an epic challenge - 150km, 15 resorts, two night stages - and lots of fun!

 

Watch this space in the New Year, to see if we can reach our fundraising target of £30,000. Thanks to everyone involved! 

http://snow-camp.org.uk/everestchallenge/

This year we have seen a fantastic growth in the number of bursaries being provided to help young people complete the full journey of Snow-Camp programmes from beginner to instructor.

 

The Starr Trust, The Myles Robinson Memorial Trust, The Salters Charitable Foundation and the Miles Kemp Trust have all supported young people this year by providing this life-changing opportunity, with commitments to continue support in future.

 

Find out more about the young people benefiting from these bursaries by clicking here! And if you would like to consider supporting a young person through the bursary programme please click here for details or call the Snow-Camp office. We would love to discuss this with you!

 

We are now up to 12 runners signed up to our Brighton Marathon Team - and we have had to buy more places as we are now aiming for a team of 15!  If you want to fill one of the last remaining 3 places, please get in touch. Vivo Barefoot have agreed to sponsor the team with free trainers, vests and publicity - which will all help the event hit its fundraising target. Local comedian Steve Coogan has even signed up to run this year, so you could find yourself jogging alongside Alan Partridge! Aha indeed!!

 

Find out more about the Brighton Marathon here!

Do you know a company or group that runs a ski trip? The Good City Ski Company can now book any resort, hotel, flight and package...if your group books a ski trip through us, not only will Snow-Camp get half of the profit, but you will receive a £50 Ellis Brigham voucher to say thanks!

 

For more info on this opportunity please contact Dan on 07930 69538 or see www.goodcityskicompany.com

Many thanks to Dez Mighty and Gary Lawson for putting on this fantastic event at the XOYO gallery in Islington to raise funds for Snow-Camp. Over £1,000 was raised and a great evening had by all. Fantastic to see friends from the Nubian Ski Club and Ski Fest all doing there bit to support the event and help Snow-Camp. Check out their Facebook page below.

 

Conquering Mountains Exhibition Facebook Page

We know times are tough for everyone at the moment, but if you feel like making a small donation to Snow-Camp's work we would be very grateful for any support you may be able to give. We depend on the generosity of our supporters and funders to carry out our work with innr city young people - so if you like what we do and want to get behind the Snow-Camp initiative, please consider making a donation. Thank you very much and happy Christmas! 

 

You can safely donate at our Just Giving site: www.justgiving.com/snowcamp

 

This month we would really like to thank:

• Amie and the Yodel Team for the piece in the months edition
• Dom at In The Snow for GCSC editorial
• Vivo Barefoot for Marathon Team sponsorship
• Mountain Leap for support and partnership plans!
• Westbeach for donating 10% of sales as part of World Snowboard Day
• FBBB, Natives, Hemel and everyone who helped with the Graduate Programme 2011
• Kirbia and Aaron for fantastic youth volunteering and Douglas for once again being a huge support!
• Norton Rose - for agreeing two dates for events next year to support Snow-Camp!
• Josephine Manfield for loads of work on Good City Ski Company
• The Snow-Camp Trustees - for another year of support!
  

If you would like to get involved with our work we would love to hear from you! Please contact Dan at dan@snow-camp.org.uk or 07930 695384 / 01273 241 383.

That's all for now, thanks as ever for your support and interest.

 

The Snow-Camp Team

T: 01273 241383
E: info@snow-camp.org.uk
Web: www.snow-camp.org.uk
Registered Charity Number: 1101030

Click here to donate at our secure Just Giving page