President's Annual Message
Good Evening Club Members and Guests,
Thank you all for joining us tonight for the Stampede City Ski and Snowboard Club’s Annual General Meeting. This upcoming year will be our 53rd year as a Club; 8th year on Meet-up, 5th year on Twitter, and who knows how many on Facebook and Instagram.
These past few years have been very difficult for our Club and many other Clubs throughout the City and beyond. Covid 19 and its subsequent variants made it very challenging for us all to get out and enjoy the mountains during the winter months. As you may know, a Club by definition is a social organization. Since March 2020 many social organizations have struggled, many no longer exist, but fortunately those of you here tonight and many others who are not, have continued to support and participate in the Stampede City Ski Club and its activities and we thank you for that.
Clubs, as always, are maintained by volunteers. We have been most fortunate to have had a strong Executive and a supportive Board. Tonight, I’d like to thank the 2021-2022 Executive Team and Board. Many of us have served the Club from 3 to up to 7 years as Executives and/or board members. Many have put in countless hours ensuring the events and activities are as well planned out so that the members can enjoy their alpine activities to the utmost. Diane has been our fearless Social VP for the past 6-7 years, always welcoming new and old members and ensuring we not only have special guests but appetizers to enjoy for each of our monthly Social meetings. Derrick, our past President, has been diligently working behind the scenes ensuring that our Event Meet-up posts correspond to the ones on our skicalgary.com website. He is also working to update the skicalgary.com website to make it more interactive with our members. And then there is Grant, our steady and so very thorough outgoing Treasurer. Grant joined the Executive in the spring of 2019 and went to work creating new processes, introducing checks and balances, supporting best practice and guiding us towards a more balanced budget. Grant was the Executive’s “word of caution”. He brought forward a different perspective and he was a “stickler” as many accountants can be; but, more importantly, Grant did a great job organizing our records, our books and keeping us all in line with anything financial. All of us on the Executive thank you Grant for being that “guy” as SCSC is that much better off since you took charge as our treasurer. Fortunately, our new incoming Treasurer – Kamlesh Nankani – is the successor to a much better situation than that which Grant inherited. Both Grant and Kam have spent some time over the summer reviewing the books and processes to keep everything in order. I am confident that Grant has prepped Kam well and that Kam will be confident and comfortable in his new role as Treasurer. Thank you for stepping up and volunteering to help the Executive as Treasurer.
Last season was one of hope as people were beginning to grapple with living with COVID. The Club prepped for the season in anticipation that the resorts were fully open for business. They were and they weren’t as COVID crept back into the winter season. However, we soldiered on and hosted six overnight trips … first to Fernie, then to Panorama, Family Weekend at Revy, offshoot trips to Sun Peaks X 2, with the final overnight Club Trip to Kicking Horse. Thanks to the Hosts – Diane, myself, Rowena, and Derrick for stepping up to the plate to ensure all members had a great experience. Each trip takes a lot of planning and extra thought from morning gatherings, to lunchtime meetups and apres ski at the local watering hole, hot tub excursions and dinners extraordinaire. We also hosted an “Almost Free” bus to Lake Louise early in the New Year. Both Dagny and Kam worked tremendously hard to coordinate with the National Park and ensure everyone felt safe and comfortable on the bus. On that note, please ensure you thank your Event hosts this coming season. We welcome anyone who is interested in heading up an Event as a Host as we still have some Events without hosts yet. Please note if we are unable to find a Host for an upcoming event that event will be cancelled and any accommodations will be released back to the provider.
Ahhhh …. What to look forward to in the coming year? Over this past summer, the Executive has been busy pulling together some great new opportunities, along with a mix-in of some ol’time favourites. For the first time ever, through a collaboration with the Mountain Collective group, we are offering our members a discount on the Mountain Collective Pass. Did you get the notification? So, if you waited until this fall, perfect timing to get your discount through SCSC ‘s partnership with Mountain Collective. We will also continue to offer discounted resort cards to such great mountains as Castle, LL, Sunshine, Fernie and Kicking Horse (RCR). We hope to welcoming back the “Almost Free” bus to Lake Louise in the beginning of January, and perhaps introduce one for Sunshine. We are looking for Event hosts for these early morning Day trips. We are looking at helping other ski and snowboard like minded communities with events we can all benefit from. We are also looking to book a group tickets for the upcoming Freshtival Event on October 14-15; promoting and supporting the annual Ski Sale at the Max Bell Centre, sharing the opportunity to “Ski with the Pros” in Panorama, supporting the Rocky Mountain Adaptive program in some shape or form; and other events that may arise.
Finally, I would like to thank our sponsors who helped us out last year and in advance, thank those sponsors who will be continuing their support. Last year one of those with notable mention is Streamside Property Restoration, who provided us with delicious appetizers for the December Social. Other included were the Unicorn Pub and Castle Mountain Resort… both with Wow cards as Door prizes and Paradise Skis and Mike’s Wax and Tune who have offered discounted products and services this past year and this year.
For the past few years, I have personally participated in many of the overnight and day trips to the mountains, as well as many other social events. I take great enjoyment in getting to experience new resorts and meeting many new great people who have a genuine passion to ski/board.
This is a new year and I’m really excited about our upcoming SCSC season. As the returning President, I can attest that the Executive continues work really hard to provide its members value, along with a great experience as we venture into the mountains to ski and board. We hope you will tell your friends about this terrific Club and that you join us in carving memories into friendships out on the slopes of the marvelous mountains that are so nearby.
Cheers to enjoying great snow and great people for the months to come!
Andrea Svenningson
President, SCSC
2022-2023 Season