I would like to this opportunity to help shed a light into how decisions are made by the officers of our club. A good example is our change in the deposit schedule for ski trips we made this year allowing early deposits for TSC trips in June and clubs trips in August. We know as of the last day of the Texas Ski Council Bid Meeting in April where our TSC trip destinations will be for that year but we don’t know who will run it, travel costs, lodging, etc. We scramble for trip leaders and assistants and club trips up to June, our lodging requests are submitted sometime in May and air can take seemingly forever to resolve and budgets are approved in early July. In past years we would wait till the entire schedule is set and approved and then go through a formalized deposit process using a set trip size and schedule.

We looked at this issue and found too many advantages moving the trip sign-up forward. We have a pretty good idea what the TSC trips will cost so we can give good cost estimates. By offering refundable deposits we could allow members to register which trips they are really interested in which allows us the time to increase or decrease the size of trips based on demand  during the planning process. This also allows us an additional 3 months to sell the Thanksgiving trip, which has been a challenge to sell in just a couple of months over the years. Another reason to move up the trip sign-up is if you were a member last year and renew early you should be the first to be able plan your schedule, “Membership has privileges”.

It was felt that there are to many uncertainties with club trips to offer up for early deposit. We have to first find trip leaders, who are willing to run a trip to an area, directly negotiate lodging and lift prices. We have to find airline connections, bus transfers and plan parties, etc. This can go on through June with destinations changing sometimes because of the previous issues. We often work from rejected TSC bids to come up with these trips but there are many problems that can arise when we go direct. After all this we felt we needed to wait till all these factors are resolved to offer up the club trips for sign-up. Since we split the sign-ups making the first one refundable will let the club trips compete equally by letting a member move to a club trip with no penalty.

As of this writing, we are yet to have two of our best summer activities. But, just like the great Carnac I can predict that they were both a huge success.

Sandy Perry and Christina Anderson hosted the Volunteer Party for all those who volunteered in the 2007/2008 season. The party was held in June at Marty Kaminsky’s house in San Leon. Many, many thanks to Marty for volunteering his home on the Galveston Bay to help us beat the heat. Award winning BBQ cooks, Bruce Lowther and Robert Clements were once again gracious enough to slave over a hot pit cooking fabulous chicken and brisket. Special thanks again to all our 2007/2008 volunteers and to those who volunteered at theparty. Volunteer in the 2008/2009 season and I will do my best to come up with a great “Thank you” party next summer!

We had our Annual Pool Tournament at Fast Eddie’s for our June Happy Hour. This activity was AC’d for the fourth year by Chip Stokes. I’ll have to let you know who won the bobble head trophies in the August Sitz. I will be the first to admit I am not quite that tuned into my crystal ball!

Well by now you have heard about next season’s trips. I hope they sound great to you! We have a nice variety to offer you. Most of us agree that the Rocky Mountains are a source of consistently good ski trips, so true to past successes, wehave planned 5 trips (7 when you count long and short options)at various Colorado locations. But to keep it interesting, wealso have trips going to Montana, Utah, Canada, Japan andFrance! How it that for worldwide variety!

The TCs and ATCs have all been selected, trained and are off and running in their planning stages. You will see themat the summer happy hours and events with flyers to entice you to go on their trip. They will all be good trips and we are not competing with each other – we just want our SCSC members to go skiing somewhere with the club. So we hope we have chosen locations that will be places you have always wanted to go to, or if you have already been there, you still want to go because you know it’s worth returning to.

Utah has so much more than Park City or Snowbird and this year you can find out about Snowbasin and Powder Mountain – a powder hound paradise. We will have more ski-in/ski out skiing in Snowmass and there are the other 3 resorts in the area (Aspen, Aspen Highlands, and Buttermilk/Tiehack) that are definitely worth the short bus ride. And we have a nice short trip to Breckenridge – one of the more economical trips this season to an ever popular resort and with only 3 days of vacation.

And remember that little non-ski trip – Summer Meltdown in Port Aransas! And for even more advanced planning, a tropical adventure is planned in Panama – June 28, 2009! And we are looking for a trip coordinator for this TSC trip. Let me know if you can help.

Talk to the trip leaders for more info! You can find their names and email links on the Space City Website’s trips page.  in the meantime, if you know you are going on a TSC trip, don’t risk it being filled while you wait. Send the deposit in now – either thru Pay Pal or go to the mail-in form on the website.

• Summer Meltdown – Port Aransas – 9/26 – 9/28 - Craig Campbell
• Fall Roundup – Winter Park –11/25 – 30 - Cheryl May
• Traditional – Steamboat Springs – 1/10 -17 – Sandra McCunis
• Winter Expedition – Japan – 1/24 – 31 – Ross Baker
• Winter Shootout – Lake Louise – 2/14 – 21 – Jessica Halter
• Final Showdown – Big Sky – 3/14-21 – Cindy Moore
• TSC Summer Expedition - Panama - 6/28 - 7/5

• Vail – Short – 12/6 – 10, - Long – 12/6 – 13 – Judy Schiro
• Trois Vallées (La Tania), France – 1/16 – 24 – Leslie Caldwell
• Utah – Resort choice still under review -1/31 – 2/7 – George Lopez
• Snowmass – 2/7 – 14 – Thuy Rocque
• Breckenridge – 2/28 – 3/ 04 - Patti Finch

Barb Ehrlich, our fearless TC, dealt with major condoproblems on Sunday morning, then skied Steve Amy’s legs off in the afternoon! In the meantime, Don Molgaard (Walmart Man) got “in touch” with his inner boot and greeted everyone we met on the streets of Telluride. Flo Molgaard skied with her gorgeous form and found out how tough she really was when the operator didn’t slow Lift 7 and Flo skied right off into the wall to avoid hitting anyone. Patti Richards and Linda Walden had a blast skiing off Lift 10 and Dana Wardell couldn’t keep up on those long cruisers.

Keith “Trail Boss” Kirkman and Jim “The Face of Telluride” Hodges patiently waited on Melinda Hughes on top of Life 7 when the “Velcro snow” peeled her skis off. She managed to dive under the lift and retrieve them without stopping the lift. Chris Ubanczyk accepted a challenge to ski West Drain, a twenty-foot wide tree-lined river gulley and ended up in a snow bank when he lost his concentration. Hey, Frank Adams, we heard that you got caught up on a month’s laundry at the condo since your new Colorado home doesn’t have a washer/dryer yet.