Dear Friends and Supporters,

 

Welcome to the August Newsletter! It's been a very busy month but we have just come out the other side of 10 back-to-back Snow-Camp London beginner programmes run at Chatham and Hemel Snowcentre - and it's been a fantastic summer season. Over 30 different youth projects participated, we met hundreds of positive young people and saw again the impact of exposing them to the world of snowsports. Read more below!

 

We also got our heads around Facebook and Twitter this month - and launched our new Facebook Fan page - the only Facebook page now in use for up to date Snow-Camp info! Please 'Like' the page at the link  www.facebook.com/snowcampcharity and if you are a Twitter fan, follow us at @snowcampinfo!

 

Enjoy this month's update.

 

The Snow-Camp Team

This summer's Snow-Camp London beginner programmes drew to a close last Friday, after 10 two day courses incorporating the usual blend of ski and snowboard lessons and youth life-skills sessions. Day 1 of each course was held at Chatham Ski Centre, a great venue to help the young people to learn the basic techniques, before heading to the snow at Hemel on Day 2.

 

For the first time this year, after running Snow-Camp London programmes since 2007, we had our own newly trained youth instructors employed to support the lessons which was very inspiring to young people starting out on their Snow-Camp journey. Each course closed with an awards ceremony presenting certificates and medals for every young person and a nationally recognised AQA in Basic Snowsports! Well done to everyone involved - next stop the Graduate Programme for young people who want to progress with snowsports, beginning late October. Sign up now!

It added a significant challenge to our summer programmes when the riots broke out across many of the areas in which we work. Youth projects were worried about bringing young people on the courses, especially as they knew other youth projects would be attending and that this could potentially cause friction. Despite these issues, Snow-Camp reassured youth programmes of the even greater need to get their young people on the programmes, and ensure they engaged in something positive against the backdrop of so much negativity and violence.

 

Since most of the Life-skills sessions were focusing on the riots anyway - we decided to interview 30 young people for their views on why the riots happened, who was to blame and how they could be prevented in future. Take a look at the link below..

Riots Interviews and Press Release

This month we begin a very exciting programme of bursaries in memory of Miles Kemp, a keen snowboarder who died in April this year at the age of 34 after a snowboarding accident back in 2006 left him in a coma from which he never fully recovered. His father, David Kemp, kindly got in touch to find out how a fund in Miles' name could be used to support inner city young people who otherwise might not be able to enjoy the benefits of the Snow-Camp experience. As David said, "Miles loved skiing, snowboarding and the mountains, had a huge affinity for young people, and had a great sense of civic responsibility and social fairness. I believe that the whole Snow-Camp concept would really appeal to him."

 

Initially the fund will make available £3,000 a year for the next 5 years to provide bursaries for two young people each year to embark on the full set of Snow-Camp courses from beginner to Snowsport England level 1 instructor. We are very grateful for this fantastic support and look forward to enabling more young people to have this life changing opportunity in Miles' name.

Read the Evening Standard article on Miles here

As part of our commitment to trying to understand the impact of Snow-Camp programmes we carried out an independently facilitated Youth Worker Evaluation Day last month, asking experienced youth workers who have brought young people on Snow-Camp activities whether they felt our programmes made a difference. Thank you to the Samworth Foundation for sponsoring this work and helping us improve the impact of our work. Read the results below:

Youth Worker Evaluation Results

Places have started to get filled on the the 2012 Snow-Camp Everest Challenge - a unique 2 day charity snowsports event run in the French Alps designed to give you a skiing and boarding experience you will never forget! If you fancy the challenge of skiing or snowboarding a total of 150km over 2 days, including a night ski session and a night mountain hike - the Everest Challenge is for you!

 

The 2012 Challenge is now confirmed for the 26th - 29th January 2012 in Portes du Soleil, France. Why not get involved as a team or individual! Find out more below:

 

http://snow-camp.org.uk/everestchallenge/

Please join us on Facebook to receive the most up to date Snow-Camp news, competitions, events and links to other interesting news..we only launched 3 weeks ago and have over 200 fans, please 'Like' our page below, and join in!

www.facebook.com/snowcampcharity

 

We are looking to put together a team runners to Run for Snow-Camp on next years Brighton Marathon. If it's something you have considered, or perhaps it's on the 'must get round to at some point' list...maybe now is the time! You have until April 15th next year to train and get ready, you will have loads of support on the day and you would be helping Snow-Camp support more inner city young people! Please let us know if you would like to sign up to be part of Team Snow-Camp or give us a call if you would like to discuss further. Minimum sposorship has been set at only £300....we look forward to hearing from you!

 

Find out more about the Brighton Marathon here!

Do you know a company that runs a ski trip for staff or clients? The Good City Ski Company can now book pretty much any hotel, flight and package...if your group then books a ski trip through us, not only will Snow-Camp get half of the profit, but you will get commission for each person in the group! 

 

For more info on this opportunity please contact Dan on 07930 695384.

 

We are having a sell of of a fair bit of older kit, all still in great condition, but no longer being used - if you are an ebay whizz and can help us raise some money from this process (and get paid too!) we would love to hear from you.

• Dez and Gary at Nubian Ski for the forthcoming Photo Exhibition in aid of Snow-Camp, more on this next month
• All the youth workers and volunteers who worked so hard to bring young people to Snow-Camp London courses over the past 5 weeks.
• The family of Miles Kemp who have b ecome our most recent generous supporters
• Benedicte for volunteering on Good City Ski Company work
• Richard, James and Ski Solutions for Good City Ski support
• Rude Chalets for their planned 'Rudeville' party supporting Snow-Camp
• Chris Newlands of the FT for riots interview support
• Ed Leigh and Chemmy Alcott for some fantastic interviews - watch this space!
• VOS media for another great helping of support with our ski show stand
• Claire and Hannah at Norton Rose for work around our Everest Challenge day next month!
• FBBB, Ski Club, Basecamp, World Snowboard Guide, Snowsport England, SCUK, Hemel Snowcentre, Ellis Brigham and Skiers Trust for putting the word out there about our events this month
• Dan Jarvis - for some excellent graffiti work! 
• Our new youth ski and snowboard instructors - for working so hard on the Snow-Camp London courses
• Emma, our Programme Manager - what a great job over summer
• All the Peak Potential young people for completing their first placements - and Liv for organising them! 

 

Please get in touch if you're raising funds for Snow-Camp so we can feature you in the newsletter. And if you would like to get involved with our work we would love to hear from you. Please contact Dan at dan@snow-camp.org.uk or 07930 695384 / 01273 241 383.

That's all for now, thanks as ever for your support and interest.

 

The Snow-Camp Team

T: 01273 241383
E: info@snow-camp.org.uk
Web: www.snow-camp.org.uk
Registered Charity Number: 1101030

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