Downhill Ski Club Inc Newsletters

Position	Name	Home No	Work No	Mobile
President	Peter Thomson	479 6969		0274 366 797
Past President	Ross Sutherland	09 425 7217		025 728 332
Secretary	Grant McTavish	828 9498	358 6495	027 279 1608
Treasurer	Ivan Findlay	575 5235	355 3103
Club Captain	Marie Holmgaard	838 9683	820 4859	025 223 1125
Booking Officer	Adie Simpson	473 0563	414 6022	025 604 1914
Committee member	Bernie Prendergast	838 9683	378 1326
Committee member	Chris Hatton-Carr	577 1151	273 3222	021 894 983

Hi all you ski bunnies

The season is fast approaching and I am personally itching to get back on the snow and carve up that mountain!!!

I have taken over the role as Club Captain this year after Mike Fitzmaurice, who has been doing such a great job over the last year. I hope I can provide as good a service to the club as he has. You can always contact me either by email or phone wtih suggestions, questions etc. Further down in this News letter there is a list of names and contact details for the whole Committee for 2003.

This is the latest from RAL (3rd July)

"It�s exciting times with fresh snow down to 800m on Tuesday night, and 10cm overnight. Plus there is more in the forecast through to Saturday. With School Holidays starting this weekend, we are expecting a busy fortnight ahead. More facilities will open as soon as the snow arrives. ."

School Holidays are coming up this week, so you should think about taking the kids down to enjoy the snow for a few days, it is filling up fast at National Park, so get your bookings in quick. The club has stocked up on breakfast cereals, bread etc so we are ready to roll. If there is an overflow of bookings and the snow conditions are good opening the Whakapapa Lodge will be considered.

Give Adie a ring today and book your spot for the hols

Adie Simpson has taken over the booking officer's job from David Meek this year and her full contact details can be found further down in the news letter. You can email the booking officer and also use the booking form, which can be found on the club webpage. Please fax or ring before 9pm.

This year the club has purchased a cell phone for the booking officer. It makes it a little easier to get hold of her. The booking cell phone number is 025 604 1914.

The accommodation rates for this year are unchanged.

If you haven't paid your club subscription yet, now is the time to do it. The season is fast approaching and we would love to see you down in National Park again this year.

This year we had the same offer as last year; if you paid your subscriptions before 5/6 you got a $30 ($60 for families) accommodation credit. If you missed out on that fantastic offer this year, it is something to think about for next year. The subscription fee for this year is unchanged at $130 per person and $260 for families.

The offer of accommodation credit applies to all new members regardless of when they join. We are hopeful this will aid in bringing in some new members to our club, so tell your friends about us and bring them down for a stay.

We have persuaded Fiona to come back as a cook at the Ruapehu Lodge again this year, which is really great. The plans are for a GRAND OPENING WEEKEND on the 16th and 17th August with the Midwinter Christmas Party. We are in need of a few helping hands Saturday the 16th in the morning to help with transporting food up to the Whakapapa Lodge. This is all weather and snow dependant, so keep a look out for email updates closer to the date.
Put a mark in your diary for the 16th & 17th August and join the famous Midwinter X-mas Party.

Everybody should make it a priority this year to stay at the Ruapehu Lodge and enjoy Fionas cooking and the great view and the good company of the many people who come up and stay. It is a truly worthwhile experience.

If you have an email address and you are not on our mailing list do join it so you can recieve all the news letters by email and all the other news that is sent out this way.

Join the email list here.

Don't forget to visit the website from time to time. There will be news posted on it regularly during the season.

There are great tools available on the website; like the booking form, map of overnight parking at the top of the Bruce,links to other useful sites (and do let us know if you know of any good links we can put on it or there are any that doesn't work),summary page to print out etc. Go have a look.

Well, enough said for this time. I look forward to seeing you at National Park very soon.

BRING IT ON!!!!!

Ken from www.predictweather.com has this to say about the ski season (30th June 2003):

"Overall the winter should turn out to be warmer by about a degree for most
areas, but things will not start to feel significantly warmer until after
July 19th, with August favoured to be a mild month. Overall, winter will be
warmer. because much precipitation is expected in August, some of that will
turn to rain because of the temperature increase. Some snow will disappear.
Skiers are advised to not leave things too late but get down to the
mountains as early in the season as possible."

I am very please to say that Schnapps have finally got a big screen in the corner of the room. (We sampled it this weekend with the All Black - France test, it is superb), so no need to stay at home now to watch the All Blacks and the Warriors!!!!

Eivins Bar & Cafe is now open for dinner, looks like a very nice menu, and the place is looking very "Ponsonby"

The Station is a new restaurant in .... you guessed it ....... the station building, which has been renovated. It looks fabulous and the menu is mouth watering. I bet they will be busy. They are open from 11am to 11pm.

Basecamp across the road has still got the good value burgers they had last year. They were planning on opening a sit down pizza restaurant in the other half of the building, but are at the moment being held up by the council (who wants them to provide 17!! carparks).

There is plenty of choice as you can see for food if you do not feel like cooking.

	Members		Non-Members
	National Park	Ruapehu Lodge	National Park	Ruapehu Lodge
Single Night	$15	$27	$25	$54
Multiple Nights	$12	$20	$25	$35