From lemons to lemonade: Speed skiing society launched

While it was extremely disappointing to all involved to have to cancel the 2012 Subaru Velocity Challenge and FIS Speed Ski World Cup due to sponsorship funding issues, the sport of speed skiing at Sun Peaks Resort is long from dead, buried and gone.

For the last 20 years the Velocity Challenge speed skiing race has been organized and run under a corporate sponsorship model in which sponsors and suppliers provide money and product to the event organizers. The organizers then plan, advertise and execute the event on the sponsors’ behalf, which in turn provides local, regional and international exposure for Sun Peaks and the events sponsors and suppliers.

Inherently there’s nothing wrong with this organizational model. But, in this time of global economic flux, finding corporate sponsorship funding to meet ever increasing event costs has become more difficult. With the cancellation of the 2012 event the Velocity Challenge crew felt it was time to turn our lemons into lemonade, and that freshly squeezed change came in the form of the Sun Peaks Speed Skiing Club (SPSSC). The SPSSC is a newly incorporated non-profit society that will now take over all aspects of the Sun Peaks Velocity Challenge from the current organizer, Peaks Media Inc.

In realizing that we needed to look at new organizational models the SPSSC was formed to allow the Velocity Challenge group access to additional revenue streams and funding opportunities that were never available under the old corporate sponsorship model. In turn this will help secure the necessary funds to host this iconic annual event at Sun Peaks year after year.

The SPSSC will be run by the same group of speed skiers and volunteers that have been involved in the event over the past 20 years and will be made up of racing, non-racing and corporate members. As a non-profit society the SPSSC can also apply for local, provincial and even federal funding grants to host the FIS Speed Ski World Cup at Sun Peaks and also help support local speed ski athletes in their racing endeavours locally and abroad.

The SPSSC looks forward to working with the community of Sun Peaks and the many corporate sponsors and suppliers that have been involved over the past 20 years. We’ll also strive to raise enough money through these various new channels so that the terms “Sun Peaks Velocity Challenge and FIS Speed Ski World Cup” and “cancelled” shall never be spoken in the same sentence in the years to come.