Hello Fellow Snow Pros!
I am pleased to announce we had 21 instructors pass their Level 1 exams last Friday February 24. Having conducted many Level 2 and Level 3 exams myself, it was very pleasant to see how well prepared this group of Level 1 exam participants really were. If you see these fellow instructors out and about, please congratulate them!
Our Newly Minted Level 1s – Congratulations!
Whitney Anderson, Ashley Kastner, Michael Jung, Angela Mosier, Troy Hall, Derek Cardinale, Cole Williams, Francesco Gentinetta, Kyle Donahue, Douglas Bender, Gabriel Stoltzfus, Heidi Schmidgall, Evan Rajbendarhi, Eric Skutch, Nic Clow, Spencer Burguan, Stephen Cantwell, Timo Macke, Cody Boland, Joe Parker, Phil Halvorson and John Chiarini.
Our next Level 1 exams for Alpine and Snowboard are on March 18
Telemark Level 1 Exam – March 9
Greg Dixon has graciously setup a Level 1 Telemark exam for our free-heelers! Space is limited to a maximum of 8 people per exam group. You must be a member of PSIA-AASI NW to participate. You must sign up in advance for this exam on-line and complete the on-line exam prior to the on-snow portion of the exam.
Work with Kids? Best $10 you’ll ever spend!
I highly recommend picking up The Children’s Skiing Games Reference and/or The Children’s Snowboarding Games Reference books that are for sale in the Day Care for $10. In fact, the first 3 people that go into the Day Care and ask to purchase one of these, I will personally cover your purchase (1 book per person). I want you to have one of these and share it with your fellow instructors.
Does the “Bubble Chase” or “Un-demolition Derby” or “Fire Drill” sound interesting? Or how about one of my games, not in the book, called “Yellow Light – Purple Light” … Wait a second, that doesn’t sound like Red Light – Green Light! Right because on “Yellow Light” you go a little slower, then on “Purple Light” you turn around and go the other way! You can easily take any of the games out there and make them your own! Just let your imagination run wild!
Early Load (Voluntary) Clinics – What is this?
Say what? Yes! We tested this out last Friday February 24 and it worked! So starting Friday March 10 at 7:45am you can attend an Early Load Clinic where we board Stadium Express at 8am, then head over to Shooting Star and get an hour or so of training before you start work. These will be offered Friday, Saturday and Sunday on an ongoing schedule. You must sign up no later than 3pm the day before on the Instructor Portal to be added to the roster. There are strict guidelines that must be followed in order that we may continue to offer this training opportunity to our staff. To get more information and to signup go here:
Instructor Scholarships – deadline for applying is March 15
Mt. Hood Meadows has a scholarship program that helps our instructors attend PSIA-NW Certification Exams, Specialist Accreditations and Educational Events. The financial support is for the registration fees associated with the PSIA-NW event you wish to attend.
Mock Exams
We will offer this all day mock exams to prepare you for the real deal. The clinic day will be modeled after the actual exam format. The morning session will be led like the on-snow skiing/riding modules. The afternoon session will be lead like the on-snow teaching module. This will be a great opportunity for you to perform the skiing and teaching tasks in an exam-like format with specific feedback relative to your performance as it measures up to the PSIA National Standards.
Many of our trainer staff are at Stevens Pass this weekend attending clinics to help us get better at what we do (myself included), so I’ll be missing you all this weekend, and can’t wait to share with you what I have learned over the weekend on my next clinic with you!
Have a great week / weekend and see you soon!