Latest news:

Racing

The John Clark and East of Scotland Children’s Race to be held at Glenshee has been postponed until the weekend of 28 February/1^st March 2009.  Although there is lots of skiing at Glenshee, the Cairnwell race piste seems to have missed the deeper cover and remains thin. If you have not already been assigned a job by Tony Wright and would like to come along and help out, just email us on info@aberdeensnowsportsclub.org.

Performance Coaching

Training underway for the season

The Glenshee Performance Squad, of which ASC is a member club, had a great first weekend of the season on 24^th and 25^th January.

Our groups

The squad runs one masters (adult) group and one kids group on a Saturday. On Sundays we have five kids groups, with high performance racers in the top two groups.

Around half the lifts were open on Sunday and we found a good space to the skiers right of the Claybokie piste for some slalom training for the two racing groups. The other three groups toured the mountain to get ski legs back as it was the first time on skis this season for some. Conditions were surprisingly good and there were no big queues.

Rumour has it that Glenshee dug the Glas Maol lift out this week, which was buried 6 feet under the snow in places – so fingers crossed for a good weekend to come.

New coaches

ASC has successfully recruited two top quality Aberdeen-based coaches to join the Glenshee Performance Squad coaching team. 

The first is Laura Wood a former ASC racer and full time skier who recently graduated from Glasgow Uni. Laura holds an Alpine Performance Coach qualification and is also currently teaching at Aberdeen Snowsports Centre.

The second is Florence Magnin. Florence is a former international standard racer and French qualified instructor on a one-year exchange at Aberdeen Uni.

We are very fortunate to have two coaches of this standard, as anyone watching their demonstrations on the course will agree – welcome to both Florence and Laura.

This year’s GPS open race will be interesting – watch out boys!

Interested in joining?

If anyone is interested in joining the Glenshee Performance Squad, please see the GPS website http://www.glenshee-performance-squad.co.uk/  or email us with any queries. There is a great social scene now around the GPS and we are looking for more families to join. If you have friends who are not members, but might be interested – spread the word!

Co-operation with Gordon Skiers

The Lecht has missed of the January snow and as a result Gordon Skiers had to cancel their training on 25^th January.

Conditions remain marginal at the Lecht so we have invited Gordon Skiers to come and join us for training at Glenshee this weekend (31^st Jan/1^st Feb). GPS have plenty of training equipment and the hill has enough space. Gordon Skiers have offered us similar hospitality at the Lecht at times when the conditions don’t stack up for training at Glenshee. This is an exciting step in cooperation between the clubs. 

Aberdeen Snowsports Centre would like to offer all Aberdeen Snowsports Club members for the month of March the opportunity to participate in any of their coached sessions for a special one month offer.

The following special offers for members are either.

Þ    One 2 hour coached session for free

Þ    Block booking of 4 coached sessions 50% off normal price e.g. Adult Performance Block of four cost - £56 offer £28. Once joining each member receives 10% of future block bookings.

This offer does not apply to those persons that are already members of the centre.

The idea behind this offer is to encourage:

Þ    Kids already in race training to participate in an additional race training or freestyle training every week – thus enhancing their skills.

Þ    Parents to get more actively involved in skiing on a regular basis, there are sessions for everyone!

·         Ladies Only – Intermediate/Advanced

·         Adult Performance Intermediate – improving your parallels

·         Adult Performance Advanced – race training, freestyle, instructor training [get a better understanding on what your kids are learning and enjoy the fun yourself]

Lifts to the slopes

Stuck for a lift? Aberdeen Snowsport Centre has a minibus that regularly goes to the Scottish ski centres. Join their loyalty scheme (£5) and sign yourself up! First come, first served! Contact the centre for more details (01224 810215).

Social events

We are arranging a date for a ski social event one evening to be held at Aberdeen Snowsports Centre where members come along ski (or not ski!) and have some gluhwein, food and plenty of chat!

Ski Mart

Thanks to everyone for their support at the ski mart. Despite the last minute organisation of this event, it proved to be a small but successful event with some great bargains to be had on some very nice equipment. The club made ca. £200 after costs. We hope to build on this for next year to make it a much bigger and a more social event with plenty of advance notice.

Don’t forget to keep a look out at our website for updates and information! We have a useful links page with links for snow reports, webcams etc etc. If there is a link you think members would benefit from using, please let us know!