British Ski and Snowboard, the governing body of elite snowsports in the UK, have a conundrum.
Virtually all of the British Team's success in recent years has been in the so called 'Park and Pipe' disciplines, and thus under 'reward and invest for success' criteria for sports funding, all the money recently announced to fund elite snowsports athletes in the UK is allocated to Park and Pipe.
Historically however British Ski and Snowboard has been, and continues to be, dominated by representatives of the traditional Alpine disciplines – downhill and slalom – a proportion of whom are unhappy about this situation and they may have the voting power to undermine the funding allocation to Park & Pipe, and threaten the funding or all snowsports from UK Sport, if they so decide.
So, in order to try to balance things out, the British Ski and Snowboard Park and Pipe Squad have come together to encourage people to "get involved" and join BSS to help Park and Pipe get better representation in the organisation.
That means anyone who is already in some way involved in freestyle or freeski should consider joining British Ski and Snowboard via: https://memberdesq.imgstg.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main&OrgID=8260 …and anyone who isn't now but was once, or who would like to become involved, should do so now, …then join.
"The GB Park and Pipe Team have a strong foundation and we are keen to build on the recent successes in Sochi, maintaining the progression and to be able to challenge for multi medals in Snowsports in the upcoming years," said Lesley McKenna of British Ski and Snowboard, who added,
"We need as many people with an interest in Freeski and Freestyle Snowboard, no matter how small or how seemingly outdated, to come and get involved whether as an organiser, supporter of the local scene, coach, filmer, or other role, we would love to have you engage with our growing community, and we need those already involved to become members of BSS to give us a voice within the organisation."
The Park and Pipe Squad have come put together a short video encouraging membership – see link: http://ripperz.co.uk/wp-content/themes/auctionpress/thumbs/Ripperz-BSS-Interactive-Flyer.pdf