In the current climate it is proving very difficult to gain sponsorship for anything ski related. Last year the club national we were only able to secure one sponsor whereas the first year we were able to secure several who contributed over £2000 to the event.

Have received the following from Lynda Hickey about a fund raising event being organised by Rufus Alcott. Email is as follows.

Good morning,

As you know, Snowsport GB have had major financial difficulties and the team going to compete in the Olympics are left without sufficient funding. I know it's been coming for a long time but it seems so unfair on the athletes who have put so much commitment and dedication to getting to Vancouver.

Last Monday evening Mike Barker spent some over at the Ipswich club with the Vikings team during a training session. He was there to see how things are done at Ipswich, talk to the coaches, racers and parents. This also included something to eat and drink afterwards.

I’ve been involved with ERSA for a number of years now and helping out at the races and this continues through to the national races. In 2008 I stepped back a bit from the scene as I became somewhat disillusioned with various aspects of the sport. Like any sport skiing certainly has it’s own set of unique characters, personalities and politics. How much you become involved is entirely up to yourself but in a sport that has been crying out for helpers all over the place it can be very disheartening at times.

We are well into the winter season racing now with kids and parents travelling all over the place to take part in races in various countries. But it won’t be be that long before the summer season is upon us once again. As with the past few years the number of races available to people is high and if you wanted you could race virtually every weekend (pity the kids that have to do that what about a break?).

The minutes of the ASC meeting that took place in November have been published on the Snowsport England website here.

Worth a read if you want to get a picture of what is happening this coming year, although does raise a few questions.

Snowsport GB has been in financial trouble for sometime now but things are definitely coming to a head now. What a disaster on the timing though and obviously raises more questions than it answers.

This article was in the Times yesterday. There’s a lot of work going on in the background to make sure they get to the Olympics in a few weeks time but it doesn’t exactly help with the preparation.

Various updates have taken place over the past few days for various races and information around them.

Can find the latest information on Britski.

The latest list of entries received for the English Alpine Championships can be found here. Closing date is the 1st Feb. Also the Ski Cross has now been cancelled due to lack of entries.

The last set of minutes for the SSE ROTP (Race Organising Technical Panel) have been published on the SSE Website (unfortunately not able to put a link in here) to find them,

1. http://www.snowsportengland.org.uk/key_committee_minutes-841.html

2. Scroll to the bottom of that page and the ROTP section

3. Click on the November 2009 option

Last week I spent the time in Les Houches, France with Natasha for the Anglo Scottish Cup race. We were there with lots of friends from various clubs who also had children taking part in the races. It was the first snow race for Natasha, not something I was expecting to have to attend with her, but during the year Natasha asked if she could give it a go, what more could I say!