Season Diary - Day 8
Updated: Dec 19, 2024
Tuesday December 10, 2024
After a day off from the course yesterday, suddenly we were thrown back into the gauntlet with the assessment day; the day we were measured on our performance in the role of a Ski Club Rep.
It's worth touching on what a Ski Club Rep is, at this point. The short answer is a member of Ski Club who is in resort to share the knowledge and experience of skiing there, joining other members on snow to help everyone have an amazing day. The two week course we were on was to add a bit of spice to this basic principle - make sure we're awesome skiers to keep everyone entertained, make sure we know how to identify safe territory to ski in both on- and off-piste, and make sure everyone sticks together as a team.
The Club has been running an in-resort skiing service for a very, very long time. The first Representatives were placed into resorts in 1927. Since the 1960s they have received training on skiing ability and group entertainment, such as hosting evening tea dances, although that thankfully no longer features as part of the course. And the name has chopped and changed, too, from Reps to Leaders and once more back to Reps.
The most recent name change in 2019 was accompanied by a change of role, too: out went the job of guiding on snow, and in came "facilitation of group decision making". A steady progression of Alpine nations banning or restricting leading without instructor qualifications forced the Club's hand, so now Club Reps have no on-snow responsibility for the rest of the group. Everyone is there to make there own decisions and, hopefully, agree as a group and a team on what's next, on everything from diving off-piste to stopping for a coffee and slice of myrtle tart.
And that, in essence, was what we were being assessed on today. How well could we facilitate the group to make a team decision - sometimes with a slightly loaded question if one option was clearly better than the rest - and manage everyone around the mountain safely.
After a shaky start, things began to move through the gears. A lack of briefing for the day and a resultant lack of a group plan meant we started slowly, but everyone in our group skied confidently, proposed options, and became the final arbiter of decisions effectively. My turn to Rep the group came last, right after we had scored a pocket of delicious powder on the run between the top of Lanches and the bottom of Vanois chairs. Stood in a rocky powder field precariously balanced on steep pitch, I delivered my "pre-departure brief" to introduce myself, and delivered our options to the group: ski down the icy, horrible Lanches run or pop up Vanois and lap the powder field again. Unsurprisingly, we took the latter, and for a beautiful golden afternoon hour we dodged rocks and found some more powder a little higher up the hill.
I was really pleased with my hour of Repping. I'm writing this after the course is said and done, rather than on the day itself, so I know the course leaders were, too. But after skiing the resort for a number of years and coming in with a good knowledge of what it meant to be a Rep, I'd put a lot of pressure on myself to get things right. Only time will tell if I was able to do that.
The Ski Club's Reps service is one of the best things the Club does, bringing members from all over the world to ski together and have fun on-snow. For 2024/25, the Club has Reps in 30 resorts across the Alps, Pyrenees and North America.
More details can be found at skiclub.co.uk/reps
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