Snow School

Learning to ski isn't just about looking good on the Slopes: it can be life changing. That's the philosophy behind snow camp

Featured February 12 Words by Matt Barr
Snow School

Dan Charlish can still vividly remember the moment that his life changed. He was running a local community project in London, when one day he noticed some of the kids playing snowboarding games on the PlayStation.

"They were talking about how much they wanted to try it for real and how out of reach it was," recalls the 37-year-old. It was then the brainwave struck: what if he could actually make it happen?

"We decided there and then to launch a charity," he recalls. The idea was simple: to give disadvantaged children the opportunity to learn how to ski and, potentially, even become instructors. To get things off the ground, Charlish roped in some friends to act as volunteers and things quickly, well, snowballed. "I asked one mate to run the website, got some more experienced youth workers to be involved and got a finance person to help out," he says.

It wasn't long before he was making his way to France with a bunch of kids who had never really seen proper snow before, let alone actually carved up a piste. "For our first trip, we took a small group out to the resort of Les Deux Alpes in France," he says. "We ran it on a shoestring, but straight away we could see the potential. Soon after we got back, we were given a �7,000 grant from UnLtd, the National Lottery's social entrepreneur arm, and were able to establish ourselves properly."

That was in 2003. Today, Charlish's Snow-Camp charity has one part-time and three full-time members of staff, and is in the process of recruiting a full-time fundraising co-ordinator. More importantly, they also work with 400 disadvantaged kids a year. For every one of them, the experience is life changing.

"We develop their snow-sports skills, while also looking at vocational opportunities in the ski industry, and giving them talks from seasonaires and instructors. We try and open up this world and let them see it isn't as closed to them as they might think. The idea of them becoming ski instructors is obviously outlandish when we start, but we want to show them that it is possible."

It's sure a sign of the fact that skiing is more accessible than ever. Of course, not everyone who participates in Snow-Camp is going to end up working as an instructor but, as Charlish says, "Even the kids who just do Snow-Camp London, the introductory two-day course we hold at Chatham dry slope and Hemel Hempstead Snow Centre [on the outskirts of London] get a lot out of it in terms of self-confidence and having their eyes opened to new opportunities."

There are currently four levels of the Snow-Camp curriculum, ranging from an intensive two-day intro at Snow-Camp London to the final Snow-Camp Excel course, run in partnership with Snowsport England, when the children are taken to the Alps. The total cost to complete all four courses over a year is �1,400 per young person, with each place subsidised by Snow- Camp's fundraising, alongside donations, bursaries and the youth projects themselves.

So how many actually complete the entire four courses each year? "Twenty young people a year reach the Snow-Camp Excel stage and they go to Les Deux Alpes to earn their Level 1 Instructor qualification. When the first batch of 20 kids qualified last year, it was truly a great moment. Of those 20, 11 ended up working for us and teaching their peers on the next round of beginner programmes," says Charlish.

Crucially, the kids on the course agree that it's a unique experience. Take Tony, a 17-year-old from Westminster. Previously, a games console was as close as he would have got to the mountains, but thanks to Snow-Camp, he's not only learned to "come down a massive mountain with speed, control and stability", as he puts it, the life-skills sessions have also taught him how to "control my anger in positive ways".

For Charlish, this testimony is proof that the actual experience of skiing or snowboarding can be extremely beneficial beyond the slopes.

"Snow sports really are uniquely powerful as a youth-work tool," he says. "Everyone is a beginner. Try it with football or climbing, say, and there's always the same hierarchy - the big kids will be good at it. But something like skiing is so foreign that the big kid might fall on his face and have to learn to laugh at himself, while the small kid might learn more quickly and his self-esteem will go through the roof."

Then there's the cool factor. "Engaging young people in the first place is the hardest part of any youth work. We've tried it all and it's always a challenge to reach these kids. They can be ambivalent and need motivating. The thing about this is that it seems such an outlandish thing for them that even the super-cool ones realise they have to grab this opportunity."

Unsurprisingly, the charity has found a huge number of supporters in the ski industry, including patrons such as Ed Leigh and Graham Bell, presenters of the UK television programme Ski Sunday and top Brit ski-racer Chemmy Alcott. Still, isn't the world of winter sports rather costly? How is it all funded?

"The trick is to have as diverse a range of funding streams as possible," he says. "So we apply to a number of grant providers and foundations, and we currently have three or four big supporters there. We also get funding from councils and youth services, although these avenues are decreasing."

Other revenue streams include a four-year funding agreement with Snowsport England, the national governing body, as well as corporate sponsorship, organised events and contributions from donors. "Obviously, skiers and snowboarders are usually our best supporters," says Charlish. "They easily get why the charity can make a difference, as they know what skiing and snowboarding has done for them."

Despite all this, trying to find enough money each year remains a challenge for Charlish - especially as the company grows. However, his latest idea might just solve the problem. He's designed a website that allows shoppers to search through a variety of snow-sports brands - a little like comparison engine GoCompare. Every time a buyer clicks through to one of these brands, Snow-Camp will earn a small commission.

"It's not a new idea," says Charlish of the site, SnowGiver.com. "But it doesn't seem to exist in the ski and snowboarding world, and I thought it might work if we can pull enough brands together, enable people to buy everything they want for snow sports at no extra cost and make something for Snow-Camp"

In short, it could just be a great idea that lots of people will benefit from - much like the charity itself.