What Does The Committee Do Then?

By Alan Brown

Actually, you'd be amazed how much stuff we get through. A lot of its dry routine admin, but we think we've been particularly active recently and want to share some of it with you.

For the last 18 months or so, we've been working with Sport Trafford to ensure that our Club is run in an efficient modern and safe way adhering to all the latest guidelines on groan-items like Child Welfare, Disability and Health and Safety. The outcome is that last month a select few attended Trafford's Awards Evening where we were officially presented with our Traffordmark Accreditation certificate. So what, you might ask?

Well, as far as Trafford Council are concerned, we are now one of a select group of local Clubs which qualify for special treatment - and rates ! - when we hire space for Ski Fit. For example, we get advertising space in their sports centres and special pages on their website.

More importantly I think, we have joined a very enthusiastic sub-community, which we didn't know existed, which is determined to extend sport into the wider population.

This all ties in quite neatly with the announcement at national level that Snowsport England has been awarded extra funding for projects which accord with some of our own ideas: there has been something of a shift away from funds for 'elite' sportsmen towards the grass roots. The objective is to 'Grow, Sustain, Excel' where more of the armchair public are encouraged to take part in sport of any kind, to keep 'em at it, and then to use this larger active pool to identify and bring on those with talent.

As part of our accreditation work, we had to produce a Development Plan. This was very high level, and we are only now beginning to drill down to a point where we hope to have specific ideas to share with you about the future of the Club later this summer. You might be pleased to know that we don't intend changing anything which is good about the current setup, but it's more about development.

Communication is an area weíre looking at - hence this piece! - and we felt that we don't tell you enough about what we're discussing in committee. Do you feel we suddenly make announcements out of the blue which surprise you? We thought you'd prefer to be part of the process in that if you know what's going on, you can contribute, and we can listen and get it right first time. So many positives!

Snowsport England is keen to get in on good communication too: it wants all of you to consider signing up for its e-Newsletter by registering on

http://www.snowsportengland.org.uk

(Piste Xtra is for us recreational skiers.) Do take the time to explore their website from that page; it has lots to look at.

Oh, and we've been working on next year's holidays, finalising the summer programme, ski fit, Chill Factore arrangements, the AGM, Club fleeces and finances.

And you might see 'A Sport Trafford Accredited Club' appearing on our literature.