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Trip Report:  Pragelato Club Med Italy

In mid-March, 22 High Park members embarked on the much-anticipated charter trip to Pragelato Club Med in the Italian Alps. The resort is located on the site of the Athlete’s Village for 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. The members enjoyed Club-Med style service, wonderful food, drink and amenities. The weather was perfect with sunshine and blue skies daily, providing magnificent views of the mountain ranges. Our experienced Italian guides provided excellent touring, ski guidance and local information throughout the week which greatly enhanced the skiing experience. The advanced-level skiers enjoyed off-piste exploration and participating in the required avalanche training. Wonderful farm-to-table style lunches were enjoyed outdoors at rustic inns on the slopes. Adventures also included skiing into France for a day.  Overall, a great trip and one not to be forgotten soon!

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Celebrating Instructor Successes!

The Downhill Snow School is excited to celebrate some significant instructor achievements! Please join me in congratulating our instructors: 

Kerry Kupecz has attained her Level 2 certification. The CSIA Level 2 is a significant step up from the Level 1 and a milestone in every instructor’s development.

In addition, Laura Shepherd challenged the Level 3 teach exam and has now attained the Level 3 partial – teach certification. The level 3 exam is an advanced certification and recognized internationally.

Lastly, I challenged the ski exam and attained full Level 3 certification.

Congratulations to our instructors for their success on exams. You have made our snow school proud!

David Manning
Snow School Director, Director of Downhill Skiing & Snowboarding
…and new CSIA level 3 🙂

Kerry Kupecz

Laura Shepherd

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David Manning

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President’s Message – Spring is here

As it does every year, spring has arrived.  And with it a slight sadness since it also means the end of our active ski season. The conditions in March were some of the best of the season after a slow start. I want to congratulate our Director of Downhill Daytrips, Amy Lam, and our Director of Cross-Country and Snowshoeing, Heather Steel, for running successful seasons.  

Seeing all of the pictures from our recent club trips to Pragelato Club Med in Italy, Jasper, Tremblant, and for the first time the new Charlevoix Club Med in Quebec, I admit to being a bit jealous. Thank you to Kim Wiebe, our Director of Long Trips and her Long Trips Committee for planning and executing such a fantastic collection of trips.  Looking forward to seeing what is being planned for next season!

The end of our season also signals the club Election night when new Directors are elected.  Election night this year is April 26 and we will again be conducting a hybrid meeting, in person at the National Yacht Club and online via Zoom.  The bios of those running for the open spots will be published in the next SnoBiz. The official notice will be sent out in the next couple of weeks.

I want to acknowledge and congratulate some outstanding recent achievements by members of our Snow School.  David Manning, our current Director of Snow School, achieved a long-time goal of obtaining his Level 3 Instructor certification. Laura Shepherd, successfully achieved her Level 3 Teaching certification.  And Kerry Kupecz received her Level 2 certification.  Congratulations to all of you!  And to all of our members of the Snow School and cross-country instructors for doing such a great job teaching our members.

And finally, it was also a pleasure meeting and talking with so many members at our St. Patrick’s Day event at the Quail and Firkin.  Thank you for coming out and supporting the club social events.  In my view it is one of the things that binds together the various parts of our club!  I want to thank our Social Director, Jennifer Beatty for organizing such a successful event.  

Justin Graham

President, High Park Ski Club

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Trip Report: Banff

The Banff trip is always popular with members, and for good reason! This year, 43 lucky members travelled to Banff with the club, and enjoyed a myriad of fun activities. Spa treatments, skating, cross-country skiing, museum visits, shopping, dining, live entertainment and of course, world-class downhill skiing and boarding were a hit. Banff is a fun playground, attracting people from all over the world, and HPSC members certainly took advantage of all the area offers. The weather felt a little cold at times, but the warmth of HPSC members and their joy of life will live warmly in our memories for years to come.

Caro Thompson, Trip Leader

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A Great Year for Long Trips!

The last 3 trips will depart soon… Jasper, Club Med Charlevoix, and Mont Tremblant.

Please show some love to your HPSC trip leaders this year! After several years with limited trips and limited social activities on the trips, this was a year of ramping things up. Our experienced trip leaders had to get back into the groove of what is required, and we were lucky to have some new trip leaders step forward this year. Some après-ski venues and restaurants were still not staffed up to handle groups, making it difficult for the trip leaders to organize social events.

While the long trip committee plans the trips, organizes the contracts, details, descriptions, and overall management of trips before, during and after the season, the trip leader role starts on sign up night. They handle the administration, member emails, itinerary, leadership during the trip and trip reports. Trip leaders are volunteers and have paid for their vacations just like other members on the trip. They receive compensation that helps offset the cost of their trip and the valuable work they do, once the trip is complete and a final report is done. We could not run our trips without them!

Next year we plan on more great trips, but in order to run them we need trip leaders. If you have enjoyed your experiences on HPSC trips, have an enthusiastic attitude, great communication and Excel spreadsheet skills, you may have what is needed. It can work well when two people team up to share the role. Training is provided and attendance at the sessions is a requirement. Watch for news on the trip leader application process later in the spring.

Kim Wiebe
Director of Long Trips

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President’s Message – Winter is just too short!

Dear HPSC friends

Despite what your non-ski friends insist, winter is not that long in southern Ontario. In fact, we have just a couple of weeks left in our season. Skiing in the sunshine of March is the payoff for the cold and darkness of January. Luckily for our cross-country and snowshoe members the weather in the last couple of weeks means that they will likely be able to run trips to hopefully for a few more weeks. On the downhill side, we have scheduled trips on the weekends and on Mondays till the end of March so long as there are enough butts in the seats.

We are once again participating in the Ikon group sales program for the 2023/24 season. Purchasing through the HPSC group program will enter you into the possibility of earning back the value of your pass (the number of winners depends on the level of sales through our group program). If you are a current pass holder and plan to renew or plan on purchasing a new pass this year, please send a message to ikon@hpsc.ca. We will send you instructions on how to purchase through the group program.  

And finally, we are re-establishing our St. Patrick’s Day pub night tradition.  Except this time, we have a set space booked at a pub – The Quail on Yonge St, north of Rosedale subway and south of Summerhill station. I hope to see many of you on Friday night!

Cheers!

Justin Graham

President, High Park Ski Club

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Be in the Room Where it Happens!

To paraphrase the hit musical Hamilton – you want to be in the room where it happens! 

High Park Ski Club is a volunteer run organization managed by the elected Board of Directors. It is the Board that decides club policies and ensures that the club runs smoothly. For younger members, being on the executive is a great item to be able to include on your professional resume.

This coming April there are three executive positions that will be open to the general membership for election for a two-year term:

  • ·         Director of Administration
  • ·         Director of Finance
  • ·         Director of IT

To qualify you need to be a member in good standing for at least the current membership year.

In addition to managing the specific portfolio, directors are required to participate in the monthly executive meeting (mostly conducted via Zoom), submit a monthly report, as well as an annual report for the AGM.

As a director, you are eligible for one Front of the Line trip access (for you and a travel partner) for one charter or overnight trip per season. As well, Directors receive a cash honorarium as approved by the membership at the AGM.  Election night is scheduled for Wednesday, April 26 at the National Yacht Club.

For more information on the roles, please contact me at President@hpsc.ca

Be in the room where it happens!

Justin Graham

President, High Park Ski Club

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Long Trips News

It’s been a great season so far with trips to club favourites like Mont Tremblant, Holiday Valley, Killington, Jackson Hole and Whistler, along with two trips to Club Med Serre Chevalier in France. Our cross-country group travelled to Orford in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.The Sun Peaks trip has departed, with Banff, Jasper and Club Med Pragelato, Italy soon to follow. After that, Club Med in Charlevoix, Quebec and our final Mont Tremblant trip will depart in late March. All in all a great season so far!

The trip leaders are all doing their best to plan but as we have discovered in many resorts, the travel industry is experiencing staffing issues.This means that restaurant hours may be limited and shuttles may not run as in prior years.   

Thanks to those members who have been filling out the post trip surveys as it gives us planning data for future trips. It’s been great to hear feedback from both new and experienced members. The planning for next year has begun and we hope to have another great line up of trips for you. However, we need you to consider becoming a trip leader. Please reach out to me and I will put you in touch with our trip leader manager.

Kim Wiebe,

Director of Long Trips

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Bringing a guest? Here’s how to register them:

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On some trips, members are allowed to bring a guest. Guests are allowed to come ONCE per season (even if they know multiple members) and members can bring one guest per trip. If people are keen to ski with us, we encourage them to join. The club is only able to run because of its membership-based structure. But guest days are a good chance for people to try us out.

Registering you and your guest happens separately. First, register yourself on the trip. Then, when guest registration is available (typically the last day of trip registration), you can register your guest. Find the trip registration module again and click “Register”. On the next screen click the “New Registration” button. The next page will show the email associated with your account. If it is filled in, click “Next” (if not, fill it in with the email you used to sign up for the club and click “Next”). Then you can choose “Guest” and proceed with registration and payment. Essentially, you are just registering that you are bringing a guest; there is no place where you actually put in their name or other identifying information.

You pay for your guest and your guest pays you back. Remember that you are responsible for ensuring that your guest follows the policies and procedures of the club. You must also ensure that your guest brings a signed copy of our waiver (link to it), or you must bring it for them to sign on the bus. No waiver means they will be denied participation.

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President’s Message – Butts in the Seats

As we enter the last month of the season, it appears that we are finally getting consistent winter weather!!!! Which means that we should be able to run as many trips as we can so long as we have sufficient numbers of members on the bus – aka Butts in the Seats! 

This season has been challenging with less than ideal weather and a continuing concern among some members to take the bus. After two years of restrictions, we have tried not to cancel any day trips despite having lower than breakeven numbers for many of the day trips.The club has always been willing to run some buses at a slight deficit based on small surpluses on other trips. However, this year we have not had has many surplus trips as in the past, which means for the remaining trips we need to be as close as we can to breakeven. 

Given the consistent conditions, please register early for trips to ensure we are able to run as many of the scheduled trips as possible. If conditions and interest continue, we will look at adding additional trips later in the month.

Have a fantastic time on the remaining trips of this season.

Cheers!

Justin Graham

President