Wednesday Evening League, 26th April

With the Lecht this week receiving more snow this week than has fallen all winter the topsy turvey winter season in Scotland ends but the summer training continued this Wednesday at the Stade de Alford.

Some of the athletes were working on their own specific skill development as identified by them whilst others focused on developing and refining stance balance and pressure control. The Alford mat was dry in areas due to atmospherics necessitating a rather direct and straight course set. Supplies of Pledge (other brands of furniture polish are available) certainly contributed to quick times for all concerned. Equipment and ski preparation does improve race performance.

It was the battle of the families and ‘Newmachar Squad’ in the timed runs. Hamish Alexander took the lead comfortably ahead of Nathan who put in a fantastic 3rd run which significantly improved his overall time. Graeme C had another solid night pulling into 3rd ahead of the run of Newmachar contingent. Older brother William lead younger brother Kieran by 0.19 seconds with Andrew H hard on their tails who was 0.01 seconds behind Kieran. Ollie B finished off the 15sec grouping to come in 7th. Kathleen then held the middle ranking with a low 17sec combined time with Josh then leading the next pack of Michael and Keira who could barely be split with 0.1 between the two of them. Both Louisa and Finlay S were holding their own as the younger members last night and both scored excellent times. Joe and younger sister Jera were very close last week in times but this week they couldn’t be split at all and both came in with a combined time of 24.75. Definitely some very close family rivalry amongst the members now.

Regards

Wednesday Night Team

Gordon Skiers Party Postponed

We are sorry to have to announce that we are postponing the Gordon Skiers Party.  There has not been enough interest to warrant going ahead with it at the current time.  A number of families are away and a lot of the older skiers are studying for exams.

We will look at finding an alternative date later in the year.

Summer Dry Mat Training, April 23rd

Tonight, saw the first of the summer Sunday training sessions at Alford with 12 skiers attending with many of our older kids now into revision for exams.

With it being the first week back after Easter there was some uncertainty on how many would attend but hopefully the numbers will grow over the next few weeks. Rachel B stepped up to the mark and was coaching a group of the younger kids tonight with guidance from James who had the group of older children.

It was great to welcome along two new skiers to the race training scene, Alistair and James, who have come through a lesson programme at Alford Ski Centre and want to take their skiing to the next level- fantastic to see the links between the club and centre starting to merge. We also welcomed Stuart and Liam, who also train with ASC, and want to increase the amount they ski so have joined in with our training programme also.

The mat was slightly dry tonight but everyone worked hard on the various drills they were given and all enjoyed the head to head races at the end.

Emails and posts will follow shortly about Mid-Week League this week and the trip to Braehead next Sunday.

We would also like to wish fellow coach Andrew C the best of luck on his coaching course this week.

Summer Wednesday Evening League, Week 1

Last night saw the first session of the Summer Mid-Week League take place at Alford where we welcomed 14 members including adding another skier to our team of 5 year olds with Jera Nicholson joining us for the first time.

With the mat being a little bit dry and sticky it meant there was plenty opportunity to work on refining some of the finer details in individuals skiing, working on a variety of aspects from matching the skis with some of the younger skiers through to working on increasing the pressure throughout the turn with the older athletes.

We had to set a fairly straight course to cater for the dry mat otherwise it may have ended up with a skating race to get through the finish. Andrew C took top honours tonight with a healthy lead over fellow coach James, who narrowly beat Hamish by 0.02 seconds. Andrew H then lead the next charge with a small gap ahead of Ollie who in return had William and Graeme hot on his heels. Kieran took up centre of the ranks with Kathleen behind followed by Daisy who leads the U12 girls so far. Michael and Kizzy were skiing well and had some tight times with Josh behind having a slight slip in his final run increasing his combined time. Louisa was ‘Miss Consistent’ with 0.02 seconds splitting her two times with the two Nicholson children having a very close battle to round off the rankings with 0.03 seconds splitting them (there will be some tough family rivalry going forwards).

A great night was had by all and was great to see some new additions to the Wednesday night scene. Look forward to seeing the numbers increase in the weeks to come. Big thank you to Caroline and Gregor for doing the timing tonight.

GDN Wednesday Night Team

Snowsport Scotland Movement Preparation and Gymnastics Sessions.

Please see the below email from Louise about the Snowsport Scotland Movement Preparation and Gymnastics Sessions.

"As you know, the Snowsport Scotland Movement Preparation and Gymnastics sessions at Etko Sports Academy are due to kick off again on Saturday 6th May, and will run each week 2pm – 4pm

for 8 weeks. These sessions are open to all skiers and snowboarders born in 2009 or earlier who are members of a Snowsport Scotland affiliated club and part of a regular training programme.

The aim of these sessions is to support club programmes by providing facilities and coaches to aid the development of physical literacy to become well rounded athletes. Coaching will be conducted by qualified gymnastics coaches with regular input from SIS S&C coach. Sessions will include the development of fundamental keystone movement patterns as well as acrobatic training. This will be the main route to earn the right to gain access to the additional Strength and Conditioning sessions at RGU.

There are approximately 30 spaces available per session.

The sessions cost £90 for the block of 8 weeks OR £15 per session. These sessions should be booked and paid by using the Snowsport Scotland Membership system. To do this you should sign into your Snowsport Scotland profile to book (this may require setting up a profile if the attendee doesn’t have one already). The rest is fairly straight forward but if anyone has any problems Emma in the SSS office can help"

https://snowsportscotlandmembership.azolve.com/workbench/public/events

Gordon Skiers Easter to Summer Plans

Nathan Giving It Everything At Firpark 2016

Hope you have all had a great Easter and those that have been away skiing have had a great break.

Its back to business at Gordon Skiers this week with various training opportunities and events coming up, details are as below.

Wednesday Nights

Wednesday night training starts this week, 19th April and will be running for 9 weeks from 7-9pm at Alford with training for the first hour followed by 3 timed runs with results then being accumulated to form a league. Cost is £12 for the session, payable on the night. For this Wednesday please email racing@gordonskiers.com to note your attendance.

Sunday Evenings

We have managed to secure Alford for 5 Sunday evening sessions running from this Sunday 23rd from 4.30-6.30pm. This is open to all members and will be a good block of training sessions prior to the Summer races but also to keep the ‘ski legs’ going over the summer.  We will send out a sign up form for the sessions shortly but the charge is £12 a session.

Training Trip to Braehead

On Sunday 30th April, the club are heading to Braehead for a 3hour training session in the afternoon with 2hours in gate training.  Plan will be to depart Westhill at 9am and arrive home about 9pm. Transport, lunch, training and lift ticket are all provided for the total cost of £40- the club is subsidising the transport and coaching costs. Non-skiing parents/siblings would be asked to pay £10. Please email racing@gordonskiers.com to book a place.

Gordon Skiers Party & Awards

Saturday 6th May at Westhill Golf Club with a 7pm start. Food and disco provided with drinks to be bought at the bar. Tickets are £15 Adults, £10 Child and Family £40. Great end of season get together with the awards for Most Improved Skiers being presented.  Get your tickets bought either by emailing admin@gordonskiers.com or getting them at one of the training session where they will be on sale.

Twin Peaks Race

Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th June. We are still awaiting entries to go live. Saturday is at Tillicoultry, Stirling with Sunday at Hillend, Edinburgh. Gordon Skiers will be providing race support for this event and would encourage as many members to enter. There is always a great club atmosphere amongst kids and parents and it’s an enjoyable weekend for all. Cost for race support is FREE.

GB & Scottish Indoors

Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th June. Entry form and details can be found at

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeQMuNYzAT2ZQOLhhCaaCQVUhHMdZEjWdvM08Ar8onct8Xirw/viewform?c=0&w=1.

Again, we would encourage members to enter these races, they are open to all ages and abilities with the weekend being a great social event for athletes and parents as well as being an enjoyable race to be part of. Gordon Skiers will provide race support for the weekend for FREE.

If you are wanting to book training, Braehead trip or party tickets please email racing@gordonskiers.com.

We will notify you once the Twin Peak entries are live but encourage you to get entered for the GB and Scottish Indoors – please email us to let you know if you are entering events.

Kind regards

Gordon Skiers Committee

Gordon Skiers Trip to Braehead, Sunday 30th April.

We have been lucky enough to get a booking at the Indoor Snow Dome at Braehead on Sunday 30th April. The committee have agreed for the club to help subsidise the trip for our members and therefore the cost per head is £40; this will include 3hrs lift pass with 2hrs gate training, lunch, coaching and transport to and from Glasgow. The session will run from 2-5pm with departure from Westhill about 9am and returning at 9pm.

This is a fantastic opportunity to get some training on snow, which we have lacked this season, plus a great chance to see what Braehead is like before the Indoor Race Weekend in June. We hope that several members take up the offer of this trip and make it a successful day plus hopefully persuade folk to enter the Indoor Races which will be fully supported by the club.

It is open to any age (kids and parents), we will have parents on the bus to accompany kids travelling without parents. Non-skiing parents would be asked to pay £10 charge for transport on the bus.

We would be grateful for a prompt response for attendance for this trip as we will need to organise a size of bus depending on the numbers. If we have space, we may look at opening it up to Aberdeen Ski Club members as well.

We do realise this is a week before the exams start for our older members but hope they might look at it as an option for some relief from revision.

Please email racing@gordonskiers.com to book your place, we will look for payment once we confirm your booking.

Regards

GDN Committee.

Summer Wednesday Evening League

Due to several members requesting we continue the mid-week sessions after Easter the committee have considered it and we are delighted to announce that we will continue the sessions during the next term. The sessions will run on Wednesday evenings at Alford from 7-9pm and will be running on the following dates, we will then stop in the middle of June for the AGM the week after and a slight break before the summer holidays.

• April- 19th & 26th
• May - 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th and 31st
• June - 7th & 14th.

We will create this as an event on the Facebook too and would encourage as many members to attend but would also be delighted for you to invite friends along too- they must be able to ski the Alford Slope competently.

The sessions will form part of a league as before with each skier’s top results counting towards the overall league results.

We would be grateful if you could give us an early indication of which dates you may be able to make- each week will then look for more definite numbers to allow us to arrange coaches. Please email admin@gordonskiers.com to note your intention to attend and if so which sessions. To bring the charge in line with other training sessions the cost per person will be £12 a night for members and £15 for non members

We are also planning to run some Sunday evening sessions at Alford in the run up to the Summer Races which happen in June, hopefully details on this will follow shortly.

Regards

GDN Committee.

Snow Training Rebates

The one positive thing to come out of a difficult season is that at least you will get some money back!  James and Philip have been correlating the attendance at the Sunday Alford sessions with snow training fees paid and hopefully this is now just about finalised.  It has been a lot of work so many thanks to the two of them for sorting that out.

Philip as treasurer will be actioning the rebates so you will be receiving these over the coming two weeks.  Thanks for your patience whilst we have been organising this.

Gordon Skiers Committee.

A Successful End Of Season for Alex Tilly

Dates for the Calendar

Saturday 6th May - Gordon Skiers Party and Prize Giving

7.00pm at Westhill Golf Club. Open to all members, family and friends. This is our annual end of season disco and gathering as well as our prize giving. It is a great way to finish off the winter season and have a club get together.

Tickets are £15 for Adults and £10 for U12 (Family ticket for 2 Adults + 1 or more kids £40) – this includes the disco and a snack buffet. Drinks can be bought at the bar.

Tickets are on sale and can be ordered through admin@gordonskiers.com or at a training session. Payment to be made using paypal with treasurer@gordonskiers.com as the payment address. Tickets will be released after payment is received.

Saturday 3rd & Sunday 4th June – Twin Peaks Race

Saturday at Tillicoultry, Stirling and Sunday at Hillend, Edinburgh.

Entries will go live shortly and we will publish more details once they are available.

This is always a great event which the club will provide race support for and on the Saturday evening in Edinburgh we all try and meet up for a meal. Friday night folk tend to stay in various locations prior to the race at Tillicoultry but on the Saturday night the majority of folk stay at either the Novotel or Premier Inn at The Gyle. It would be good to get a good contingent from the club for this weekend.

Saturday 17th & Sunday 18th June – Scottish and British Indoors Race

Both days in Braehead, Glasgow.

Entries will go live shortly and we will publish more details once they are available.

Again, as a club we will be providing race support for our members at this event. We try to make it an enjoyable weekend for all participants and parents and often have a big meal on the Saturday night. Some members have friends and family in the area so stay with them but the hotel of preference (if available) is the Premier Inn just behind Ikea- about a 5 minute drive from the ski slope.

If anyone has any questions about the races and if they should enter then please feel free to email racing@gordonskiers.com or speak to any of the coaches. The race weekends are a great experience and although it may all sound very daunting to parents it really isn’t (just asked some existing members). The coaches will take care of the kid’s right from the start of the race day through to the end of the race whilst you socialise with the other parents (and watch your kids of course).

Wednesday 21st June – Gordon Skiers AGM
Broadstraik Inn , Westhill.

We will be holding our AGM at the above venue on 21st June, the committee would like to invite and encourage as many members as possible to attend. It is a members club and your views and opinions matter. The procedure for the AGM is for the current committee to stand down and then all roles are up for re-election. Some of the existing committee will be looking for re-election but other roles will be vacant for new members to join. More details on the committee roles and the AGM plan will follow but please save the date and come along.