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I’ll admit up front there is probably no easy answer to this. A PR campaign telling people how much fun it is to be outside in the winter (showing smiling faces outside on the hill, having fun, etc.), reminding them how healthy it is and how warm one is when they are active, only goes so far with most people. That is true especially when news and weather folk are constantly warning their viewers and listeners to stay inside and hunker down when there is even a slight chance of snow. How we counter that is just one more challenge to add to the list. But somehow, we need to address it!

There’s another big challenge the article fails to address: the lack of programs—both in schools as well as within the community—to get kids on skis and snowboards. They exist, of course, but they are competing with much more organized, and better funded, school sports programs for soccer, basketball, etc.

I have long thought the answer for our sport is not to leave the organization of school ski/snowboard programs to the schools and community, but to take on the effort ourselves through the awarding of grants to local school programs as a way to fund the effort, whether than means fees, gear, or transportation. We need to just look at what the other sports are doing and copy their programs, with a few changes to suit the needs of our sports and participants.

Bernie Weichsel,

President, BEWI Productions, Inc.

Bernie, you have lots of company in your thinking. Several New England areas are trying to organize a “weather summit” to address the way meteorologists portray winter weather and to explain that winter really can be a time to have fun outdoors.

There are answers to the school program issue you raise as well. While many resorts nationwide work with local schools to get elementary school students on snow, more could do so. Such programs are extremely successful in the Midwest and East.  In addition, Burton has developed a highly effective program for schools and public groups to introduce snowboarding in schools and communities. Its Riglet School Kit provides specialized Burton gear and tools designed to introduce kids to the movements and skills of snowboarding, indoors or on playgrounds, as part of schools’ physical education curricula and/or at local events.

As is often the case, funding is the big obstacle, as you have suggested above. Among those “other sports” you mention as potential examples, the golf industry has recently seen good success with its PGA-funded Get Golf Ready and The First Tee programs. But winter resorts have been averse to that sort of national effort since the ill-fated “Ski It to Believe It.” In light of golf’s success, though, and the ongoing success of Learn to Ski and Snowboard Month—which served 160,000 newcomers this past season—perhaps resorts can develop new and rewarding means of collective action. —the Editors