Taupo Ski Club October 2016 Newsletter

What a month it has been since the last newsletter. Actually it has been a month worth forgetting as far as skiing has been.
In summary the weather has been lousy since the weekend of the club champs with the following school holidays (2 weeks) virtually a write off. The weather was warm with consistent rain.

We have three events on the immediate calendar being the final (of three) 60th celebration in Taupo on Saturday 5th November, a lodge workparty on the weekend of the 12th November and finally the AGM on Sunday 11th December at the Taupo Yacht Club. You can find details on these events below.

A couple of reminders being that season passes are available for the 2017 season and submissions are open on the renewal of the Turoa skifield license. Again you will find details below.

With only a week to go at Whakapapa it would pay to make the effort to get up there and experience some great spring skiing. There is still plenty of room in the Lodge for the long weekend so we will see you up there.....

CLUB 60th CELEBRATIONS
To wrap up the clubs 60th celebrations the club President and Secretary are hosting an afternoon get together at 10 Wheretia St, Taupo on Saturday 5th November from 2:30pm through until 6pm. As this is free to members we require RSVP’s to facilitate catering and you can do this now by clicking here.

This is an opportunity for all members to get together to celebrate/reminisce/recall/reflect on the last 60 years as well as talk to some of the older members who may not be as active as they once were. If you have any memorabilia from past years (photos, news items, equipment) we would love to see them on the day. Contact the club secretary.

More experienced (read older) ex members are welcome so if you are in contact with any these please pass on an invite to them (or even bring them along).
The venue is being given an upgrade which will be ready for the event so book in now and we will see you there.

END OF SEASON WORK PARTY
Saturday and Sunday 12/13 November
This is the first of the 2 main work parties that we hold in the off season. This is the opportunity for all club members to help towards the general up keep of the Lodge.

The Work Party is over the 2 days of the weekend with free accommodation available on both Friday and Saturday night. The Works Officer will assign jobs for the weekend and in most cases this revolves around a spring clean. Duties include cleaning (windows, storeroom, bathrooms kitchen, exterior etc), firewood stacking, minor painting/touch-ups, possibly installing 2 new windows and so on.

This is the opportunity for new members to get to know the workings of the club as well as new senior members meeting their membership criteria.

We see the work parties as an extension of each individuals ‘ownership’ of the Lodge and as each member treats the lodge as they would their own home then we will easily see another 60 years of use(well some of the juniors will).
Book in now.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Put aside Sunday 11th December 2016 at the Taupo Yacht Club. The meeting will start at 11am followed by a light lunch. Details to follow in the next newsletter.

CLUB CHAMPS REPORT
The following report has been 'borrowed' from the clubs Facebook page.

The weekend started with the usual weather report of rain. No surprises then when everyone arrived on Friday night to rain, warm temperatures and foggy conditions.

Saturday dawned with some potential as we could see the Knoll on a couple of occasions. With lunch made, lots of competitive talk, everyone made their way up through the rain to meet at the Knoll Ridge café. There were 4 other club races booked for the day so with bad viz and conditions RAL had a little bit of trouble finding safe places to run the races. We finally got a course running down off the Valley Traverse.

In spite of the conditions we had a really good turnout of approx. 40 people for the racing. We know for sure that there were at least 4 gates in the course as that was the most we could see from the start. Most of the time it was between 2 and 3 gates that we could see. Everyone got 2 runs and thanks must go to the starter and timers (Monique, Vicki and John) for their labours even though they got my times wrong.

Everyone (mostly) adjourned to the Knoll Ridge Café for lunch and then back to the Lodge. By then conditions were pretty bad although a few hardy people had stayed out and skied part of the afternoon.

Prizegiving got underway later in the afternoon (at the Lodge) and not being weather dependant went off really well. What was great this year was quite a few new names to go on the trophies and a rising tide of juniors coming through to challenge some of the older ones. Thanks must go to Gordons Ski Shop (Hendon and Kim) for providing a massive supply of spot prizes which were distributed amongst a whole host of lucky club members. So, please support Gordons this coming year.

There was still more to come with a great looking (and tasting) Club 60th birthday cake which was blessed by the Club Patron who blew all over it (putting the candles out). Dinner followed a little later as was a tribute to the cooks and everyone else who helped. The party then carried on….

SKI CLUB APPAREL
A reminder that we have softshell jackets and merino tops available with the club logo embroided on the left breast These are available here. Hoodies and T-shirts will be available from April next year in time for the 2017 season.