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So long story short I chose to go to school in the flattest place on Earth (Notre Dame, Indiana), and turns out there's no ski club here (technically there is but its a race team with 40 kids, 20 skiers, 20 snowboarders, 10 of each gender).
shitty situation but gotta do what you can to make the best right?
So I want to start a ski club. Problem is I know absolutely nothing about it whatsoever, and I need answers, and I assume you guys have a lot of those answers.
I have the motivation and the time to do this...I just need some help. And I know its doable, Purdue (a couple hours south) has a ski club with hundreds of kids in it. So give me what you got...anything at all.
Get in touch with the student org association at Notre Dame. Requirements for clubs vary a lot, but they can run you through what you need to make it official, if there's any funding, etc.
Then, once you're official, promote yourself at student org fairs, any campus events, social media, whatever.
If you've got decent interest, you might want to try and hit up the closest ski resorts to see if they'd do discounted passes if you get a certain amount of people. Also talk to the student org association about any rental van options that the university might have for students if you get enough interest to justify vans.
I don't know the area around Notre Dame, so hopefully some more local people can chime in, but this advice is coming from helping run CSU's Outdoor Club and planning the annual ski trip.
I went to ball state and basically pulled our ski club out of the ground. I would start looking for student life or student clubs and get in contact with them. For us, we needed to go through the athletic director.
Getting members to join is easy, getting members to ski is tough. We charged $40 for dues and said everyone would get a free lift ticket at least once. Like patagonia said, try to find college/group deals. This really encourages members to join.
We marketed at the activities fair, which is during fall semester - find out if notre dame has something like that. All the freshman basically find things to do. We were also pretty successful setting up a table in the rec center where we put some skiing pics on one of those 3 panel poster boards. Made some notches in the top and stuck a snowboard in. Also brought a laptop and played art of flight and after dark. If you can figure out who the redbull rep is on campus, get in touch with them. They will hook you up fat with redbull which makes people happy to join.
We ended up having 40 people join and only 10 or so were active. Those of us who were active ended up skiing like 4 times each for free because nobody else was using their dues money.
I know a company that will hook you guys up with really cheap ski trips if you go as a "college", even if theres only 10 members. Slopeside condos (breck, winter park, jackson, pc, big sky, etc) and 4 days of tickets normally for around $500 pp. Bus is about 150 more and requires ~40 people. If you get 20 people you go for free.
patagonialukeGet in touch with the student org association at Notre Dame. Requirements for clubs vary a lot, but they can run you through what you need to make it official, if there's any funding, etc.
Then, once you're official, promote yourself at student org fairs, any campus events, social media, whatever.
If you've got decent interest, you might want to try and hit up the closest ski resorts to see if they'd do discounted passes if you get a certain amount of people. Also talk to the student org association about any rental van options that the university might have for students if you get enough interest to justify vans.
I don't know the area around Notre Dame, so hopefully some more local people can chime in, but this advice is coming from helping run CSU's Outdoor Club and planning the annual ski trip.
Thanks for the advice!
tallteesteezeI went to ball state and basically pulled our ski club out of the ground. I would start looking for student life or student clubs and get in contact with them. For us, we needed to go through the athletic director.
Getting members to join is easy, getting members to ski is tough. We charged $40 for dues and said everyone would get a free lift ticket at least once. Like patagonia said, try to find college/group deals. This really encourages members to join.
We marketed at the activities fair, which is during fall semester - find out if notre dame has something like that. All the freshman basically find things to do. We were also pretty successful setting up a table in the rec center where we put some skiing pics on one of those 3 panel poster boards. Made some notches in the top and stuck a snowboard in. Also brought a laptop and played art of flight and after dark. If you can figure out who the redbull rep is on campus, get in touch with them. They will hook you up fat with redbull which makes people happy to join.
We ended up having 40 people join and only 10 or so were active. Those of us who were active ended up skiing like 4 times each for free because nobody else was using their dues money.
I know a company that will hook you guys up with really cheap ski trips if you go as a "college", even if theres only 10 members. Slopeside condos (breck, winter park, jackson, pc, big sky, etc) and 4 days of tickets normally for around $500 pp. Bus is about 150 more and requires ~40 people. If you get 20 people you go for free.
tallteesteezeGetting members to join is easy, getting members to ski is tough.
This is super true.
I restarted the club at my school. It was never "official" as far as the school ges, but I didn't think that really would've added much. I showed up to the Club Fair event and stole half of someone else table and pretty much pretended to be real.
We did some Taco Thursdays. Drinking beer, watching ski movies. Getting people to show up was surprisingly hard, so it turned into mostly just my non skier friends boozing on a thursday haha. I'd ski with the same crew anyways.
If you want to plan big trip and stuff, you'll be surprised at how easy it is, and it will teach you a lot probably.
Hey hope you can get a club going! Your student association would be the first place to start. They will most likely give you some funding to get started and generally be there to help out with running a club. The cheaper you can make it for students the more commitment you will get.
I'm an exec on the ski club at Carleton in Ottawa and we have 2 trips a week during most of the season. We have our usual sunday trips to a resort 2 hours away and take a coach bus there. We charge $25 for the bus and if you need a lift ticket (many seasons pass holders) we get them for $45. The $70 trip ends up beeing cheaper than walking up and buying​ a ticket so this helps us get new skiers on the trips! We party pretty hard on this bus which is also an attractive offer for most club members.
A flat membership fee of $10 will get a $5 discount on the bus and discounts at the local ski/skate/snow shops. This flat fee is nice to get the club some extra cash.
We also run night skiing trips to a much closer hill for $30 all in. The cheap price was a huge hit this year and makes it really easy to get students involved in ski/snowboard club.
As for on campus stuff I'm not sure how much snow ND gets but we have a jib set up on campus with a few permanent rails. If you can't afford the bus every week we still offer skiing on campus. A railjam is a pretty cool way to generate interest whilst having a blast. Scaffolding set up on campus with some good music will definitely generate interest and hype for the club.
Social media is huge to get the word out and stay connected with club members. Facebook/instagram are the biggest to spread information about the club.
Sorry these thoughts may be all messed around however feel free to message me if you have any questions!
Being the president for the mens lacrosse team at university of wisconsin stevens point I have alot of expierence in dealing with student org and campus admins. The first thing you need to do is create a good relationship with whoever is organizing your club, on the admin side that is. If you cooperate with them things are 100x's easier, paperwork gets done quicker and also they can answer quickly. Its also important to have a good member base, the school wants to make sure that any accredited clubs they have are actually being utilized, and will sometimes want to see interest before they sign you onto a fully verified club. Make sure you dont discredit any of the time that goes into running a club, from meetings, making a budget and just organizing general meetings things can eat up alot more of your time than you would think. But like I said the biggest part is having a good working relationship with the full time staff member through the student orgs. PM me if you have any questions.
SklarThis is super true.
I restarted the club at my school. It was never "official" as far as the school ges, but I didn't think that really would've added much. I showed up to the Club Fair event and stole half of someone else table and pretty much pretended to be real.
We did some Taco Thursdays. Drinking beer, watching ski movies. Getting people to show up was surprisingly hard, so it turned into mostly just my non skier friends boozing on a thursday haha. I'd ski with the same crew anyways.
If you want to plan big trip and stuff, you'll be surprised at how easy it is, and it will teach you a lot probably.
thanks for the advice man. Like you said, it would great to learn a lot and get experience in the process.
DBLHey hope you can get a club going! Your student association would be the first place to start. They will most likely give you some funding to get started and generally be there to help out with running a club. The cheaper you can make it for students the more commitment you will get.
I'm an exec on the ski club at Carleton in Ottawa and we have 2 trips a week during most of the season. We have our usual sunday trips to a resort 2 hours away and take a coach bus there. We charge $25 for the bus and if you need a lift ticket (many seasons pass holders) we get them for $45. The $70 trip ends up beeing cheaper than walking up and buying​ a ticket so this helps us get new skiers on the trips! We party pretty hard on this bus which is also an attractive offer for most club members.
A flat membership fee of $10 will get a $5 discount on the bus and discounts at the local ski/skate/snow shops. This flat fee is nice to get the club some extra cash.
We also run night skiing trips to a much closer hill for $30 all in. The cheap price was a huge hit this year and makes it really easy to get students involved in ski/snowboard club.
As for on campus stuff I'm not sure how much snow ND gets but we have a jib set up on campus with a few permanent rails. If you can't afford the bus every week we still offer skiing on campus. A railjam is a pretty cool way to generate interest whilst having a blast. Scaffolding set up on campus with some good music will definitely generate interest and hype for the club.
Social media is huge to get the word out and stay connected with club members. Facebook/instagram are the biggest to spread information about the club.
Sorry these thoughts may be all messed around however feel free to message me if you have any questions!
Thanks for the advice man I'll shoot a PM your way
Cheekers69Being the president for the mens lacrosse team at university of wisconsin stevens point I have alot of expierence in dealing with student org and campus admins. The first thing you need to do is create a good relationship with whoever is organizing your club, on the admin side that is. If you cooperate with them things are 100x's easier, paperwork gets done quicker and also they can answer quickly. Its also important to have a good member base, the school wants to make sure that any accredited clubs they have are actually being utilized, and will sometimes want to see interest before they sign you onto a fully verified club. Make sure you dont discredit any of the time that goes into running a club, from meetings, making a budget and just organizing general meetings things can eat up alot more of your time than you would think. But like I said the biggest part is having a good working relationship with the full time staff member through the student orgs. PM me if you have any questions.
SammyDubzYou guys are the best. Already making progress. If anyone has anything to add please do! Never too much advice
IDK if somebody has already said this buy you have to get people excited to 1. Join, and 2. Learn to ski. The club itself should be at a good time accessible to most students. PR is generally a big issue when starting these things you have to totally sell the idea to the students, I know personally when I was in charge of my high school ski club I got a few (30-40) kids to join who were all super into it and we all try and recruit people to join. In terms of getting people excited to learn that's kind of hard as it can be a bit intimidating but I'd recommend that you find some skiers with experience who can give up some of their on mountain time helping the newcomers.
What you are doing is awesome dude, the more skiers the better.
patagonialukeGet in touch with the student org association at Notre Dame. Requirements for clubs vary a lot, but they can run you through what you need to make it official, if there's any funding, etc.
Then, once you're official, promote yourself at student org fairs, any campus events, social media, whatever.
If you've got decent interest, you might want to try and hit up the closest ski resorts to see if they'd do discounted passes if you get a certain amount of people. Also talk to the student org association about any rental van options that the university might have for students if you get enough interest to justify vans.
I don't know the area around Notre Dame, so hopefully some more local people can chime in, but this advice is coming from helping run CSU's Outdoor Club and planning the annual ski trip.
Do you guys do vans or buses up to summit county at all?
We don't but another club called Snowriders does. They're specifically focused on skiing/snowboarding, and do shuttles and stuff for I think like $20 or so.
We are more of a general outdoor club, but a ton of us are skiers so we kind of just do our own thing during the winter, except for a big ski trip over winter break. Then early fall and late spring we do a ton of assorted trips.
JWillySkeezIDK if somebody has already said this buy you have to get people excited to 1. Join, and 2. Learn to ski. The club itself should be at a good time accessible to most students. PR is generally a big issue when starting these things you have to totally sell the idea to the students, I know personally when I was in charge of my high school ski club I got a few (30-40) kids to join who were all super into it and we all try and recruit people to join. In terms of getting people excited to learn that's kind of hard as it can be a bit intimidating but I'd recommend that you find some skiers with experience who can give up some of their on mountain time helping the newcomers.
What you are doing is awesome dude, the more skiers the better.
thanks for the advice homie I'll shoot a PM in your directions with some questions if ya don't mind
I would try to get in touch with a president of another active club on campus. I helped restart the ski and snowboard club at my college and was on the executive board for 2 years. There are rules and oversight once you become a club. Other people who already run clubs will better understand the culture at your school. Our club got in trouble multiple times our first couple years for dumb social media posts and advertising parties. As the president you can be personally held responsible by the school for club actions.
RRhighriderI would try to get in touch with a president of another active club on campus. I helped restart the ski and snowboard club at my college and was on the executive board for 2 years. There are rules and oversight once you become a club. Other people who already run clubs will better understand the culture at your school. Our club got in trouble multiple times our first couple years for dumb social media posts and advertising parties. As the president you can be personally held responsible by the school for club actions.
The only thing I foresee potentially happening is the student organization asking why you are trying to create a new ski club if one already exists. Have you tried to meet with the existing club to get a sense of what their goals and purpose are, and see if there's a way to collaborate and expand? That's what I did for for the ski club at my college eons ago. If you play your cards right you can then ask for more funding from the student organization. Existing members of the stagnant club will be stoked and new people will flock to you.
RRhighriderI would try to get in touch with a president of another active club on campus. I helped restart the ski and snowboard club at my college and was on the executive board for 2 years. There are rules and oversight once you become a club. Other people who already run clubs will better understand the culture at your school. Our club got in trouble multiple times our first couple years for dumb social media posts and advertising parties. As the president you can be personally held responsible by the school for club actions.
This. No one can really help with that part unless they know how your school works and all that.
Figure out the set up of your club. Will you just be a group of homies who go skiing together on trips/weekends? Will you offer members a pass? Will you have events? What will make you guys stand out so people want to be a part of your club vs just skiing by themselves?
Spread the word. Start up social media accounts. Put up flyers around campus. Work with your student life/governing body to do things around campus. Link up with other clubs for events to get your name at least familiar on campus.
Trips: You can do them on your own or you can use a travel agency. Travel agencies will help you get a lower price than you could on your own assuming you have a decent amount of people. Our club specifically sends busses(55 people) to the mountains 4 days per week, we do a trip to Vermont every February(45ish people) and send like 50 people out west(Whistler, Park city, Summit county/breck, mammoth, big sky, etc.) every January during winter break.
Events like ski waxing nights, learn to ski programs, and movie premiers are super super easy. Rail jams are super fun but a little harder to organize.
There's probably a ton I can't think of right now but if you have any specific questions, those are always easy to answer haha.
bump. it's been a minute, but I got my shit straightened out freshman year and now I'm in the process of getting this off the ground. maybe some of y'all can help me out again.
currently need to fill out a proposed budget and officer list. for the officers, what did your club have (pres, VP, treasurer, etc.) and what are their responsibilities? as for the budget, did you have funding from the school? what were your dues? I attached the budget sheet below if y'all want to take a look and give some input on the other categories.
thanks, I'll keep this thread updated on how stuff is going
Hey bud here again. So as far as officers would go they basically were ones who helped drive rental vehicles, co-sign on hotels and stuff like that. Now with this make sure your officers are trust worthy folks, people you can rely on and can get shit done on time. As far as budget goes we got super lucky only because we had a pretty solid track record with SGA and never had to collect dues. And from the sounds of it you wont have a killer budget just due to the fact that youre a new club. So collecting dues will probably be needed, as far as how much, im not totally sure for a ski club. Hope this helps
SammyDubzbump. it's been a minute, but I got my shit straightened out freshman year and now I'm in the process of getting this off the ground. maybe some of y'all can help me out again.
]
yo bud.
i ran my schools club for 3 years. been the president, treasurer and all the other responsibilities in-between.
budget looks on-par but all depends on how you want things set up. we took our club from 60 people with a lot of member-funding activities to a 150+ mad house (hottest club on campus rn baby). we consistently have 40 people staying at a condo every weekend sending it on the mountain, in town and at the condo. and yes, we rent a condo now for the season. we also have an integrated race/freeski team within the club.
so, PM me? i can share our budget and how we make it work with the school. ski club has been my life at university so hope yours gets going soon.
there is also tons of organizations that sponsor ski clubs with just a simple sign up. getting 50% off gear for members is not only a great motivator but it gets a lot of kids skiing more. making money from dues off members that are getting started is low key how you as a club can get shit done.
SammyDubzbump. it's been a minute, but I got my shit straightened out freshman year and now I'm in the process of getting this off the ground. maybe some of y'all can help me out again.
currently need to fill out a proposed budget and officer list. for the officers, what did your club have (pres, VP, treasurer, etc.) and what are their responsibilities? as for the budget, did you have funding from the school? what were your dues? I attached the budget sheet below if y'all want to take a look and give some input on the other categories.
thanks, I'll keep this thread updated on how stuff is going
I'm the current Prez for the sk'lub at my Uni, last year was kinda tough because we had a small exec team (four people) but we made it work. This year I have a crew of 6 (including myself), the duties break down like this:
-President: Oversees the direction of the club, primary contact for larger sponsors (like clothing brands, drink companies), works with the touring company to organize trips throughout the season
-Vice President: Works with mountain resort to organize student lift ticket sales, point of contact for local skiing-related sponsors (ski shops, in town hills), helps with trip planning
-Treasurer: Workin with the dollarz, makes the budget with the Pres. Makes sure we stay within it.
-Marketing: Manages the clubs social media, creates posters for advertising, organizes marketing campaigns for club events
-Events: Works with bar sponsors, plans the party nights and social non-skiing related events
-Member Relations: Responds to the messages/emails the club gets, writes the monthly email newsletter
Our budget comes from membership dues ($10 to join the club), and money that comes in from sponsors and trip kickbacks from the deal we have with the touring company that we use. I've applied for some grants from my university but I haven't had much success with gaining funds through that. Another big source of income is selling lift tickets to students, mountains let us sell tickets on a consignment basis with an agreed upon price. I would definitely look into seeing if you can get a program like that going with some nearly resorts.
