HPSC Summer Outing – Day trip to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin Martin House and Graycliff

Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the 20th century’s premier architects, designing such iconic buildings as Fallingwater near Pittsburgh and the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. While those are absolute must sees for any architecture buff, they are, unfortunately, a far distance from our homes here in Toronto.  However, two of his landmarks are just a few hours away in the Buffalo area.

For all of you HPSC architecture buffs who have not seen FLW’s Buffalo masterpieces, this is your chance to do so. HPSC has arranged for a day trip on Saturday July 22 to visit and tour both the Darwin Martin House complex and Graycliff just outside of Buffalo on the shores of Lake Erie. The cost of this day trip is $145 which includes a boxed lunch provided by the café on the grounds of the Darwin Martin House as well as roundtrip transportation. 

Non-members and guests are also welcome.

For full details and to register please click here.

Ikon Pass Group Sale Extended!

Good news for any Ikon Pass procrastinators! Our Group Sale agreement (with our partner Skican) has been extended to May 5th!

If you are hesitant because you are recovering from an injury, or because you are worried you may not otherwise be able to use the pass next year, Ikon has a few different types of insurance:

Adventure Assurance lets you defer the value of your pass to the following year, so long as you defer before December 14, 2023. And it’s free and included with your pass purchase!

Pass Protection and Injury Insurance are also available. See link here for details.

Insurance is not available directly through the Group Sale. The Spot Insurance will need to be purchased directly with Ikon by calling their Customer Support Center at 888-365-IKON after you’ve purchased your pass through Skican. This can be done anytime before October 31 2023.

For further information or to participate in the Group Sale, contact Russ Harding at ikon@hpsc.ca.

Long Trips News

The season is over, but members are already rushing to pick up Ikon passes before the price increases for our Group Sale program on May 5th. Next season promises to have more Ikon pass trips including two trips to Banff, two to Sun Peaks, the new Approach hotel in Panorama, and the lovely slope side Josie hotel, a Colorado trip and three overnight bus trips to Mont Tremblant. Other club favorites such as Club Med Europe trip, the popular new Club Med in Charlevoix, a March Break trip to Quebec City, and Holiday Valley in New York are planned. We’re also working on some overnight bus trips to the USA. Stay tuned to SnoBiz as we will announce sign up dates soon.

President’s Message – THANK YOU!!

This is the last SnoBiz of this season – we are taking May off and will have a monthly newsletter over the summer. 

First off, I would like to sincerely thank all of you for being members of High Park Ski Club. Without all of you we would not exist. 

At this point I would also like to express a special thank you to ALL of our volunteers who are the backbone of the club.  Absolutely nothing would get done without the volunteer hours put in by members so that their fellow members can enjoy trips, receive lessons, attend socials, check information on our website, read this newsletter, attend election night or AGM virtually, or receive a refund when required, as well as numerous other things.  Volunteers are just that and can choose to walk away if they do not feel they are being appreciated. I look forward to honouring all of our volunteers at the Volunteer’s Dinner in September. 

I would also like to thank all of the members who attended, either in person or via Zoom, this week’s election meeting. This allowed us to ensure we achieved the official quorum required by our club By-laws to proceed with the election.  There are two events in the annual calendar where members have direct input on how the club is run – the election in April and the Annual General Meeting in September. No official actions can be taken without a quorum of members present as outlined in our By-laws. So again, thank you!

I would like to congratulate and welcome the following members as new Directors to the Board. I look forward to working with each of you. 

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Director of Administration:  Wendy Rangel

Director of Finance:  Francis Rementilla

Director of IT:  Peter Kovalchuk

Director of Downhill Skiing and Snowboarding:  Christine Bellerose

On a personal note, for those who have asked, my recovery has been coming along nicely this time, and I hope to be able to cycle by sometime in July.  And of course, be ready for next ski season!

I do hope to see and speak with many of you over the summer at our various social events (see below) or just out and about. If not, I want to wish all of you  a fantastic summer and look forward to seeing you in the fall!  FYI, SkiFit resumes on Saturday, September 9th!

Cheers!

Justin Graham

President, High Park Ski Cl

More success for our amazing instructors!

Our Director of Cross-Country and Snowshoeing, Heather Steel, in addition to arranging and running a very challenging season of trips, also achieved a personal goal of passing the Level 3 CANSI instructor certification. Well deserved congratulations, Heather!!

Congratulations are also on order to Ephraim Fernandez, who recently achieved his Level 2 certification!

The excellence of our instructors are one of the things that make our club great! Thanks to all of you!


Heather Steel


Ephraim Fernandez

Downhill day trips are officially finished for the 2022/2023 season

Thanks to all club members, instructors and new friends that came out to one of 51 scheduled day trips this season. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough interest to run our two bonus April Saturday trips to MSLM.

A huge thanks to all the hard work by our day trips coordinators, Michael HardtkeBishu BasuroySheila Tolentino-Moshonas and Fran Burgess. They each put in hours of work before and after every day trip to make them happen.

Thank you also to the following volunteers for their huge contributions:

Lisa Ziegler for creating all the downhill registration modules. Yes! She set up all 102 registration modules (bus & drive-ups)!

Jason Tsang for taking charge of the day trips emails and coordinating all our lift tickets every Saturday for Mount St. Louis Moonstone.

David ManningChristine Bellerose and Snow School for getting so many awesome instructors for each day trip. Our members love every ski and snowboard lesson. Thank you to all HPSC instructors!

Hilary Childs for your work with processing all trip cancellations and refunds.

And finally, thank you to all our amazing bus captains that made each trip experience smooth for all our members and guests: Andrea PalmayHeidi GayDavid FlowersSuzanne de GrandpréCeleste O’NeilKim WiebeRocco RomeoMartha WrightRon Maruska, and Jen Beatty.

It’s now time to enjoy some warm weather in the off season. I’m already looking forward to when the snow and cold will return!

Amy Lam

Downhill Day Trips Director

Upcoming Election Night – April 26, 2023

HPSC Election night is part of our annual calendar and is mandated by our By-laws (so as long as there are open roles on the executive) to occur prior to the end of April. This year election night is April 26 live at the National Yacht Club and virtual via Zoom. Please register here.

This year there are four open positions up for election on the board of which three are open to the general membership. The fourth is Director of Downhill Skiing and Snowboarding (Snow School) which is elected among the Snow School.

The following three members in good standing have stepped forward to run for the following board positions:

Director of Administration:  Wendy Rangel

I learned to ski with HPSC back in 2012; the dynamic, friendliness and support of all team members back then made my experience unique. I am back at the club because of the great experience that I had, and I really want to ski more! HPSC is an excellent place to do that with all the downhill and trip options plus I really think it is a great place to meet new people and to enjoy social activities, all year around.

Because of the fond memories that I have of the club, I would like to run for Director of Administration. I have been an Executive Assistant for over 15 years, and have plenty of experience with different administrative tasks plus a genuine interest in supporting the rest of the board members to keep the club as one of the best in the city.

If I am elected for this important role, I look forward to getting to know you all and to working together, fun times ahead for sure!

Director of Finance:  Francis Rementilla

HPSC receives the credit for all my lessons as a downhill skier. I was a member of HPSC from 1993 to 1999. I joined HPSC because I wanted to learn how to ski, but I stayed because of the friendships that I made. I rejoined the club in 2022 as a XC skier.

I have experienced helping HPSC as a Day Trip bus captain, social committee volunteer, and a “sign up” call center volunteer (that committee no longer exists nowadays thanks to the web). 

I enjoyed being a volunteer with the Finance committee for a few years and became the Finance Director in 1997. I would like to help our club again in that role by guiding our organization’s budget and expenses in these unique times.

Director of IT:  Peter Kovalchuk

I joined HPSC in 2021 and have enjoyed every trip with the club.

I’m an accomplished IT professional with a passion for outdoors activities – camping, biking and skiing (both cross country and alpine). I learned cross country skiing at the age of 7 and switched to alpine at 28. Still learning 🙂 

I have extensive IT experience both in software development and system administration/architecture. 

I like to juggle multiple hats. During the weekdays I’m Senior GIS Systems Architect. On weekends I’m IT Administrator for the small private manufacturing company. In my spare time I teach Internet GIS at Chang School of Continuous education (Toronto Metropolitan University). It is very difficult to find IT problem I haven’t seen before!

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We require a quorum of 75 members in good standing including up to 15 proxy votes in order to official hold the election.  If you are unable to attend in person or virtual, please send in a proxy vote.  The proxy form is found on the club website under About Us/Club Document/2023 Election, and there is a link on the registration page.

Ikon Pass Update

Ikon Pass sales have been way up this year over last year! Members seem to be recognizing that the price of day passes is increasing, making multi-mountain passes ideal.

The Ikon Base Pass is especially popular with our members, since it offers unlimited skiing at Blue Mountain and Tremblant. We have a few weeks of skiing left this season! Blue and Tremblant will accept next season’s pass right away! I was at Tremblant for the Easter weekend, and it was a glorious sunshine filled spring weekend with mostly short lines and surprisingly good snow and coverage!

There are a few destinations where only a full Ikon Pass is accepted (or Ikon Base Plus). As long as the passes are on sale, it will be possible to upgrade from an Ikon Base Pass to a full Ikon Pass (or Ikon Base Plus). So if you decide to go on a trip to destinations like Alta, Jackson Hole or a few others, you can upgrade at a later date.

Our Long Trips schedule is not yet settled, but it will have many options that will please holders of Ikon Passes.

Members purchasing or renewing passes get a chance to win a refund for an Ikon Base Pass, PLUS they get a $50 discount off ANY Skican trip.

Prices will be going up April 21. The renewal discount will be finished on that date. The Group Sale will run to September 1.

We are not permitted to share the exact pricing in a public way, so reach out to me for details: ikon@hpsc.ca.

It’s not too early to start thinking about next season!

We’ve had tremendous demand for long trips this season so I’m pleased to tell you that we will be planning even more trips for next season. With the addition of Sun Peaks to the Ikon pass, we’ve planned for two trips next year to that destination. We will also have two trips to Banff. Both of these HPSC favorites had long waiting lists and we want members to have the best chances to be on these trips.

Be sure to continue to read Snobiz as we will announce our list of charters and overnight bus trips soon and provide instructions on how to apply to be an HPSC trip leader. Being selected as a trip leader is a great way to ensure that you and your travel partner will both be on that trip. As in prior years, our Club Med trips will go on sale first, followed by the rest of our charters, followed by bus trips. Dates will also be announced shortly.

Kim Wiebe

Director of Long Trips

President’s Message – So It Looks Like We Made It!

Looking back last fall, we were unsure of how this season would play out. Would we have to adjust again due to another wave of COVID? Would the resorts retain their pandemic restrictions? Would members still want to go on long trips? Would our membership numbers rebound after 2 long years?

I am very happy to report that this season has for the most part been very successful – the issues we faced had far more to do with weather patterns, and bus issues, than public health concerns. While there are areas we can improve upon for next season, this season showed us that members are excited to be skiing, riding, and snowshoeing with HPSC.

At this point, I would like to specifically thank a number of our volunteer club Directors for their contribution to the club over the last three years and who have chosen to step down from the Board.

Director of Admin, Karen Snow who spearheaded our move from a physical clubhouse to our current virtual clubhouse set-up, as well being in charge of sourcing our new liability insurance policies.

Director of Downhill Skiing and Snowboarding (Snow School), David Manning who, in addition to leading the snow school through a number of difficult years, was also, as a former President, a very valuable member of the board in making sure we were discussing the right issues.

Director of Finance, Clark Seadon who ensured that the club remained in good financial health throughout the pandemic and helped to streamline a number of our processes.

Director of IT, Alex Radulescu who has kept our IT systems running, guided us in streamlining our various IT platforms, and set up and managed our hybrid AGM and Election meetings, thereby allowing more members to participate.

Thank you to each of you for your valuable contribution to the club!

Election night is April 26th – please register to attend in person or virtually.

And finally, I would like to thank all of you, our members, for supporting the club and continuing to make this a fantastic community of members.

I sincerely hope you all enjoy the summer!

Justin Graham

President, High Park Ski Club