From our President:

Jim Kelly and I had the privilege of attending the Mountain Travel Symposium last week in Aspen. This is essentially a trade show that is heavily subsidized by the vendors (ski resorts, condos, hotels, travel agents etc.) Jim and I personally paid for the unsubsidized portion of the trip and no AASC funds were used. The event is a great way to mingle with other club reps and discover new places to go.

Here are some of my takeaways.

• NO club (and I mean absolutely no club) subsidizes parties and meetings like we do. Most just meet at a bar and it’s every wallet for themselves. Some may throw in a drink ticket. Nobody does bands, DJs food and drink like we do.

• AASC is a “larger” club. Many have one to two hundred. A very few have over a thousand, and also have paid staff and rent offices.

• AASC is ALL volunteer. This makes me proud of our club. Nobody is leading a trip to get a comp. Nobody is complaining about trip leaders getting comped.

• Every club is struggling with reduced interest, aging demographics etc. We are responding by adding additional non-skiing activities. (When there is no snow, of course). Our limiting factor here is people to run events. So, if you want to go to a Tiger Game, Christmas carol, kayak up north or take a bike trip, please consider volunteering to lead the event and make it happen

We also met with many suppliers, hotels etc. Ski areas we may consider in the future include: Copper Mountain, Whitefish, Purgatory and Sun Peaks (Canada). We like to switch it up a bit and we are trying to avoid Sierra Cement as much as possible. As always, we are interested in where you want to go skiing.

Todd Newman