I hope you’re all having a great summer. Your coaches and board are busy preparing for an exciting season ahead, and I want to give you an update on some things to look forward to in the next few months.
First, I want to publicly thank our outgoing President Kate Cudney for her leadership of the club over the past two years. Under Kate’s leadership the club has gone from strength to strength. Our athlete numbers and on-snow performances have been strong and the club is financially secure. Most of all however, Kate’s dedication to the development of the culture of our team has been inspiring. I am committed to continue the work that Kate has started and look forward to serving you as your Board President.
As you know this year there was a change in leadership at Stevens Pass. Both Dave and I have individually had several meetings with the new GM and VP Ellen Galbraith over the past couple of months. As an ex-racer herself, Ellen is big advocate of ski racing and has been very interested to learn about SPAC’s programs. We are in the process of negotiating our operating agreement for this year and are looking forward to partnering with Stevens Pass on a number of initiatives which I’m really excited about and will provide you with more details on as they unfold.
Registration for this season will open the week after Labor Day (September 6). I am very excited to announce that for the third year running, we will be holding tuition costs at the same level. Although many of the club’s operating costs are increasing, it is a credit to Dave’s leadership and the financial management of our club’s finances by our Bookkeeper Lee and Treasurer Jeff that we are able to hold our tuition costs at the same level. The club’s stable financial footing has also been underpinned by some amazing work by our fundraising and sponsorship team as well as some solid race revenue this past season.
On Sunday September 11 I want to invite you all to the second annual ‘Clean up Stevens Pass’ day. We will be partnering with Stevens Pass on this initiative this year. A similar event to last year, we will meet at the pass at 1pm and clean up some designated areas of the mountain (we need to stay clear of the bike park this year) and meet for a team BBQ in the G lot after the clean-up. This is a great team building activity for the whole extended SPAC community. Look out for an email from Kristin for more details in the next week or so.
On Saturday November 5 we will hold our annual Fall Parents Party from 6-9pm (location to be finalized). The Fall parents party kicks off the season and is an opportunity to spend time with coaching staff and the SPAC community to answer any questions you may have and talk about the season ahead.
We are excited to announce that the uniform store is open. Last year we made a positive step in standardizing our uniforms across the club for both coaching staff and athletes. The difference in our team photos between this past season and the season before is stunning. I had a lot of feedback from other clubs as our team travelled throughout the PNW last season highlighting the big step forward we made in presenting ourselves as a unified team. This season we enter the second year of our transition. We are requiring all athletes to wear the current team uniform. The uniform consists of the current Sync jacket (mighty mite or junior) that are listed in the team store, and black pants (either those in the uniform store or a pair of black pants of your own choice). There is also an extensive range of new swag items that you’re going love. See the attached the flyer. If you have any questions please reach out to uniforms@spacracing.com .
Password: [check your email, or reach out to uniforms@spacracing.com]
Last, I want to thank Shawna Cohen for organizing two very successful summer camps again this season. Dave is in the process of finalizing the venue and dates for our Thanksgiving Camp for our Junior athletes (U14 optional, strongly encouraged for Juniors). More details will be available from Dave in the coming weeks.
See you on September 11 for cleanup day!
Best regards,
Michael
