Snowsport England Prioritised facilities and Clubs

Snowsport England received £985 000 in grant funding for the delivery of their whole sport plan for the 09-13 period. Since receiving the funding in July 2009 Snowsport England has employed 2 Sports Development Officers and has researched the best way to prioritise this funding and implement our interventions to Grow, Sustain and develop Excellence in our sport.

Snowsport England does not have the resources to work with all facilities and Clubs effectively so we have to prioritise where we will start to work to get the maximum effect. A consultation event was held at the British Ski and Snowboard Show to explain how we would initially prioritise our efforts and the interventions that we would use. We have been in touch with various facilities and have decided on the 10 facilities we will be working with as a priority. We will be drawing up action plans for each facility in the near future.

This is only a starting point and we will be looking to expand the number of facilities and clubs we are working with once we have progressed with the initial 10 clubs and facilities using this initial work to identify successes and difficulties to help shape how we work with clubs and facilities in the future.

This does not mean we will ignore all other clubs as any club who wants to gain Snowmark accreditation will receive support from the development officers to a help them achieve this and we will be working with the regions to deliver their development plans. We will also be engaging with County Sport Partnerships to identify any additional local support which may be available to clubs and facilities.

The prioritisation used the following criteria

1. Willingness to engage with Snowsport England
2. Snowmark
3. Geographical Location
4. Mixture of slope type (indoor/Outdoor)
5. Mixture of facility ownership (Council, trust, club and private)
6. County Sports Partnership support
7. Local authority priorities

The Facilities and clubs prioritised are:
Alpine Snow Centre (Aldershot), Snozone Castleford, Chill Factore (Manchester), Gloucester Ski and Snowboard Centre, Kendal Ski Club, Midlands Ski Club, Norfolk Ski Club, Rossendale,
Sheffield Ski Village, The Snow Centre (Hemel Hempstead) For further information contact Tim Fawke " Tim@snowsportengland.org.uk