Message from the President
8/27/2015
Fellow Patrollers,
We had a awesome spring clinic at Mammoth Mountain. Our big thanks go out to Eric Diem and the Mammoth Mountain Staff for allowing us to have a great time on their mountain. Every day we had educational opportunities as well as social mixers. Since that time your board of directors have been meeting monthly reviewing our last seasons clinics and certification testing in each of our regional venues. We have also been evaluating the way we do business, financials, budgeting, looking for more sponsors, reaching out to our members to keep current with membership registration, SCHOLARSHIPS, and interacting with other ski industry groups. We made major inroads with the NSAA (National Ski Area Association) where we have been asked to give input to their initiatives as well as receiving several sponsorship/scholarships to some of their trainings this year.
We are looking to put on a technical rope rescue course at Taos, New Mexico this winter. Also the possibility of a course in the Pacific Northwest and one at our 2016 Spring Clinic. We are hoping to get some of our industry partners to assist us with these clinics. Cascade and Petzle are two such sponsors.
Our Avalanche Mitigation/Explosives seminars have been a hit and we are looking to have a course this winter. Locations have yet to be determined. Planning for mini certification clinics are being drawn up. We are attempting to have these clinics in each of our memberships regional areas as before. If your area would like to host one of these clinics we are all ears.
Membership registrations continues to be a challenge for us. With our new Wild Apricot site and Paypal on line registration, we are trying to make signing up/renewing membership a lot easier. Our organization is partially funded by our industry sponsors however we count on our membership to help finance us. We currently have averaged 10% of our budget to scholarships for patrollers to go to Dog Schools, Avalanche School, ISSW, etc. We would like that % to exceed 15%. This would only be possible with more funding from all our sources.
One of our goals is to have a more dynamic website. Getting articles from our board members, head judges, and industry information is all part of the plan. Some of our sponsors have expressed an interest in writing articles relevant to their products and philosophies.
In short, your board of directors have been busy planning for the upcoming winter and hoping for full participation of the membership in assisting in our mini clinics, seminars, and the upcoming Spring Clinic.
Please be apart of your organization. Assist in judging, hosting a mini clinics, and give us your input to make our organization the best it can be.
Best,
Rich Bailey
APP President