That is the running costs, but my understanding is the revenue generated from the online advertising is substantially higher than that. My understanding is that it is something of a money spinner for the club.

Basically the club has leading brand recognition for snow sports in the U.K. which generates lots of traffic, which generates lots of advertising revenue.

The problem as I have stated before is that the reports are only updated Monday to Friday which means is a resort is closed on Friday then it stays reported like that till Monday. Not sure how that gets fixed, but I did notice that this year the Ski Freshtracks arm are open on a Saturday morning which is new.

A secondary problem arises in the late season as they simply stop their snow reports. Great snow at Cairngorm in May is simply not going to be reported.

Again - expressing this as a SCGB member - I don't necessarily expect the Club to report Scottish snow. I just want the Club to link to all available sources that generate the best reports (be they snow measurements, on-slope reports, video/photo reports, or snow/weather forecasts).

Hyperlinking is supposed to be the essence of the world-wide web, which can inspire the Wimbledon-wide SCGB.

As I have suggested before there is a better method which is a motion at the next AGM of the club. OK it needs club members to sign it, but I am willing. It does have the advantage of forcing a response from the club which an online campaign cannot guarantee.



Actually it's not that out of whack. Scotland is only 8% by head count of the U.K. and they account for 5% of membership. They also have members not resident in the U.K. which skews things anyway and I have a feeling membership in Northern Island is much lower, but they are not part of Great Britain anyway

Take into account that Scotland has 5 ski areas and the south of England has none, and most people who identify as British first have a very different experience/view of skiing to most people who identify as Scottish and I'd say it's well out of whack. You only need to look at SCGB's web content, or AGM minutes to see how irrelevant to Scotland they are - and reflective of other UK snowsports institutions. The actual figures are 8.3% versus 4.8% - out of kilter by 57%, not even taking into account the lack of real-snow facilities available in the UK outside Scotland.

The fact is most UK snowsports participants, in addition to having a different experience/concept of snowsports compared with most Scots, have never and probably will never ski/ride in Scotland.

"I have a feeling membership in Northern Island is much lower, but they are not part of Great Britain anyway"

Someone forgot to tell SCGB because they include both the north and republic of Ireland as part of GB, way to go SCGB! The skewing effect is a tiny fraction. Face the facts, SCGB is completely irrelevant to the vast vast majority of Scottish skiers (this is not a comment on their condition reporting).

[www.skiclub.co.uk]

Jabuzzard: "a better method which is a motion at the next AGM"

So, you think waiting 10 months to ask nicely even though they are well aware of the problem and have been ignoring it for at least 7 months (probably much longer) will be more effective than a public campaign?

I don't, and I don't think anyone who has ever campaigned for change would either. Indeed your motion would be much more likely to succeed if there was such a campaign.

It's no an accident there is no link to w/h on SCGB. Promoting Scotland does not square with the SCGB agenda. They may concede but I suspect not without a fight.

Which Northern Island are you referring to Orkney, Shetland, Iceland?

so a stuffy "old boy" type organisation in SE england does nothing whatsoever to help scotland, why does that sound familiar.....

could we focus the marketing effort on half term weekend though (so i can wash my hair or something instead) i'm already done with monster queues for this season

Queues of Loch Ness monsters?
[risky comment from SE England]

Well seeing as it appears David Cameron had this to say to Scotland yesterday:



Maybe now is a good time form the SCGB to start working on the Ski Club of England branding.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 11.21hrs Thu 31 Jan 13 by alan.

Well said Alan.

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For campervan hire in Scotland visit [www.albacampervans.com] - Bhanaichean Campachaidh ann an Alba

Bam...take that!

Who said Winterhighland wasn't political?

(ut) Would be good for everyone. Would be great for people to be able to represent Scotland in international snowsports competitions for one thing.

Don't tar all of us English folks with the same brush. OK, so I've got Scottish parentage and have spent a great deal of time in Scotland in my youth, but if you met me you would say I'm as English as they come. It's actually easier (and probably cheaper) for me to jump on a plane to Geneva or Grenoble than to make the 500 mile each way car journey to the Highlands...yet I do the journey to Aviemore, Blairgowrie or Fort William most years, despite the "unpredictable" conditions. I know plenty of others who do similar and plenty of people who follow this website probably fall into this category too.

There are many of us who cherish Scottish skiing and are prepared to make big efforts to support it as best we can from long distances away - just take a look at the Cairgorm Facebook page comments today - folks travelling from Essex and Liverpool, for example.

Whether "Britishness" even comes into is is quite another matter and I don't see the benefit in bringing nationalist politics into this myself (indeed I have no right to, beacuse I'm English, despite the parentage!). the fact is that SCGB is run by people more comfortable in Davos, Wengen or the wine-bars of Knightsbridge rather than Aviemore or Fort William (For that reason I think that many really committed skiers would never consider membership anyway because they can't relate to the way the club seems to be run by old class standards that really have no place in modern society). Can that be changed? Probably not. Does it really matter? Probably not, though I do agree that they should at least give our home grown skiing at least equal status with everywhere else when it comes to reporting. Not to do so is dishonest, ridiculous and in-credible (in the literal sense of the word).

This isn't about who is Scottish and who is English etc. This conclusion is always jumped to though. It's about which is the best system to do things for Scottish snowsports. I dont think it's the SCGB and personally I'd love to see Scotland compete internationally instead of going through Team GB.

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For campervan hire in Scotland visit [www.albacampervans.com] - Bhanaichean Campachaidh ann an Alba

Today the SCGB report the following for Glencoe:



This afternoon at approximately 3500ft in the Main Basin and at 3400ft in Happy Valley, using two sites marked and measured out in the autumn, the following depths were measured:

Happy Valley: 147cm (up from 95cm)
Main Basin: 312cm (up from 270cm)

Previous depths measured 24/1/13.

These two points which were predetermined in the autumn give an average of 230cm depth on the upper slopes.

SCGB data is also being used on the STV reports.

We are hopefully moving in the right direction with the SCGB reporting. After a couple of calls with Frank MCCusker this week he has agreed to look at how they can ensure the information about Scottish resorts is accuarate and timely. In the meantime until this is sorted they have added a hyperlink to direct people to the ski scotland conditions page for each of the Scottish resorts. It's not perfect but at least it's a small step in the right direction until we can work out how they can integrate the live trinum feed with there own website. Andy (Glencoe)



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 14.54hrs Sat 2 Feb 13 by igloo4you.