It’s amazing how quickly Friday comes around. Leeds has been bathed in sunshine for the past week which has seen the Alpine Ethos team with hedgetrimmers and strimmers in hand meaning our garden is now tidied and ready for a BBQ on Sunday. In addition our tans are topped up and England are through to the last 16 (as optimistically predicted in last weeks’ blog).
The sun being out has also been an inspirational force in the kitchen this week. Griddled aubergine and courgette pasta with mint and lemon dressing has been a particular highlight, (summer in a bowl!) as well as a little experimentation for next season. Gooey banana flapjacks should be a firm favourite during afternoon tea and the homemade chocolate sorbet Heather knocked up on Wednesday night is competing for a place on the menu too.
This week Heather’s been speaking to one of our February half-term bookings for next season who were enquiring about suitable ski schools in Meribel. Whilst it may seem early to be thinking about this now, peak weeks, especially half-term book up much quicker than most and now is exactly the right time to be making enquiries and bookings if you want to ensure the type of lesson, instructor and time-slot you want.
Some of our half-term guests are a party of 3 adults and 5 children and rather than putting their children into group lessons, they are exploring the option of a few private lessons for them. Price-wise it works out similar to a week of group lessons and but they are guaranteed an instructor all to themselves and can book the times and days they want allowing them some whole days on the slopes as a group as well as some children-free skiing time for the adults.
If you are looking to book lessons for peak weeks (or any other skiing/boarding hols for that matter), it is worth doing a bit of research before you go. Many French resorts now offer a much wider variety of ski schools than ever before. Two schools that we recommend to our guests are Parallel Lines and New Generation in Meribel who were set up by and are run by Brits. Both have gone to great effort to differentiate themselves from the standard ESF (Ecole du Ski Francais) offering. Their instructors are largely native English speakers (a real differentiator in the eyes of many of our guests last season) and they pride themselves on their variety of lessons. You can choose from the usual group classes for various abilities and ages, technical classes to improve your piste performance and/or skills sessions where you choose your area of focus. This choice goes a long way to ensuring that everybody, regardless of age and experience can improve their skiing whilst on holiday.
Snowboarders visiting Meribel aren’t left out in the cold either. Snowboarding school Cab9 are ready on hand to provide expert tuition by experienced snowboarding instructors. Note the distinction – these guys are not ski instructors who snowboard but people who live and breathe snowboarding and provide second to none tuition in all aspects of the sport.
So, if you’re planning a trip to the slopes this winter, why not check out what lessons are available to get the best out of your holiday and don’t forget to book early!
Heather, Andy and Benny
Friday, 25 June 2010
Friday, 18 June 2010
Small is beautiful
Having arrived back to our house in Leeds after 7 months away we’ve had a busy week in the garden, trimming, tidying, mowing, cropping and lopping. The harsh Yorkshire winter didn’t stop our herb patch attempting its annual takeover of the garden nor the privet hedge from expanding upwards and outwards.
Alpine Ethos work has been on the back burner a little this week while we wait for our broadband to go live (why does it take over a week to sort out for a house with an existing phone line?) but some really promising enquiries and another deposit cheque cashed make for a very positive week despite that.
We said last week that we wanted to talk about some of the key issues facing us as business owners and as chalet operators in the ski and snowboard industry. We thought that a sensible place to start might be what got us into the business in the first place.
Independent vs. package holidays
We have always been keen independent travellers, with the planning and research a key aspect of any holiday we take. We have been on snowboarding holidays with both package operators and independents for roughly the same price and have always been blessed with good snow and sunny weather.
What we found with the big tour operators was that we were dealing with a one stop shop, with all travel and transfers included. Whilst this saved us time in the booking process we found that we were tied to timetabled travel times (and type of travel) which often involved early morning trips to the airport. In resort we found ourselves in the hands of young and inexperienced chalet and resort staff which led to varying standards of organisation, hit and miss meals and without wanting to sound too negative, poor quality of wine.
Whilst these things didn’t ruin our holidays, it was on the flight home from our last package holiday that we hit upon the idea that we (armed with our knowledge of what we think makes a good ski holiday together with our catering and hosting skills) may be able to provide a better standard of hospitality whilst maintaining excellent value for money. We felt that as an independent chalet operator we would be more invested in making our guests’ holidays a real success than the package companies and decided to stake our reputation on just that.
We now pride ourselves on providing consistently good food and wine, a warm and friendly atmosphere in the chalet and practical advice whenever it is needed. Skiing and snowboarding holidays can be expensive and we aim to ensure that when you leave it will have been money well spent.
With regards to the independent travel aspect we believe that it is easier to organise your trip than ever before. Flexibility is the key meaning you can choose a travel option that suits you, be it train, plane or self-drive. Sites like Snow Carbon for train travel and flight comparison sites allow you more flexibility should you want to squeeze that extra day on the slopes into your holiday or just fly at a more sociable hour than you might otherwise.
If you’ve never tried an independent ski chalet holiday before, try it, you may never look back.
Heather, Andy and Benny.
Alpine Ethos work has been on the back burner a little this week while we wait for our broadband to go live (why does it take over a week to sort out for a house with an existing phone line?) but some really promising enquiries and another deposit cheque cashed make for a very positive week despite that.
We said last week that we wanted to talk about some of the key issues facing us as business owners and as chalet operators in the ski and snowboard industry. We thought that a sensible place to start might be what got us into the business in the first place.
Independent vs. package holidays
We have always been keen independent travellers, with the planning and research a key aspect of any holiday we take. We have been on snowboarding holidays with both package operators and independents for roughly the same price and have always been blessed with good snow and sunny weather.
What we found with the big tour operators was that we were dealing with a one stop shop, with all travel and transfers included. Whilst this saved us time in the booking process we found that we were tied to timetabled travel times (and type of travel) which often involved early morning trips to the airport. In resort we found ourselves in the hands of young and inexperienced chalet and resort staff which led to varying standards of organisation, hit and miss meals and without wanting to sound too negative, poor quality of wine.
Whilst these things didn’t ruin our holidays, it was on the flight home from our last package holiday that we hit upon the idea that we (armed with our knowledge of what we think makes a good ski holiday together with our catering and hosting skills) may be able to provide a better standard of hospitality whilst maintaining excellent value for money. We felt that as an independent chalet operator we would be more invested in making our guests’ holidays a real success than the package companies and decided to stake our reputation on just that.
We now pride ourselves on providing consistently good food and wine, a warm and friendly atmosphere in the chalet and practical advice whenever it is needed. Skiing and snowboarding holidays can be expensive and we aim to ensure that when you leave it will have been money well spent.
With regards to the independent travel aspect we believe that it is easier to organise your trip than ever before. Flexibility is the key meaning you can choose a travel option that suits you, be it train, plane or self-drive. Sites like Snow Carbon for train travel and flight comparison sites allow you more flexibility should you want to squeeze that extra day on the slopes into your holiday or just fly at a more sociable hour than you might otherwise.
If you’ve never tried an independent ski chalet holiday before, try it, you may never look back.
Heather, Andy and Benny.
Friday, 11 June 2010
What now?
In the last 12 months we’ve quit our corporate jobs, bought a ski chalet business in Meribel, learned how to run our own business, recruited staff and successfully run two chalets. We’re both about to turn 30 and neither of us have a job (as such). What do we do now?
That is the question we have been asking ourselves since the end of the last season and our return to the UK. So far we have caught up with friends and family, hit the mountain biking trails of the Kielder Forest and the 7 Stanes and relaxed a little but the nagging question has been how we drive our business forward and really make it our own.
Amongst our ideas so far was a decision to put pen to paper (well, fingers to keyboard) and write about some of our activities, concerns, ponderings, successes and challenges as we run the business. Alpine Ethos 2.0 is the result, a weekly blog about what we’re up to, information about the chalet and travel industry and snow business in general, cookery, economic and environmental issues and more. If all goes to plan the blog should be as informative as much as it is an outlet for our weekly travails.
This week has seen us knuckle down and spend a good proportion of our time in research mode. A new website has been on our radar since buying the business and having discovered the cost (ballpark £4k) of a shiny new one Andy has been geeking away. HTML and CSS have become his new specialist subject (previously pub quiz trivia) and he seems to be making some progress. Heather is writing copy for the site and reading ‘Anyone Can Do It’, the story of the founders of the Coffee Republic chain of coffee houses. It’s a story and entrepreneur’s handbook and judging by the amount of time spent scribbling down notes while she reads it is proving useful.
The next blog is due this time next Friday by which point England will be safely on their way to qualifying for the next round of the WC, we’ll be back at Alpine Ethos HQ in Leeds and a week closer to the big 30. Two of those are definitely going to happen anyway.
Andy, Heather and Benny.
That is the question we have been asking ourselves since the end of the last season and our return to the UK. So far we have caught up with friends and family, hit the mountain biking trails of the Kielder Forest and the 7 Stanes and relaxed a little but the nagging question has been how we drive our business forward and really make it our own.
Amongst our ideas so far was a decision to put pen to paper (well, fingers to keyboard) and write about some of our activities, concerns, ponderings, successes and challenges as we run the business. Alpine Ethos 2.0 is the result, a weekly blog about what we’re up to, information about the chalet and travel industry and snow business in general, cookery, economic and environmental issues and more. If all goes to plan the blog should be as informative as much as it is an outlet for our weekly travails.
This week has seen us knuckle down and spend a good proportion of our time in research mode. A new website has been on our radar since buying the business and having discovered the cost (ballpark £4k) of a shiny new one Andy has been geeking away. HTML and CSS have become his new specialist subject (previously pub quiz trivia) and he seems to be making some progress. Heather is writing copy for the site and reading ‘Anyone Can Do It’, the story of the founders of the Coffee Republic chain of coffee houses. It’s a story and entrepreneur’s handbook and judging by the amount of time spent scribbling down notes while she reads it is proving useful.
The next blog is due this time next Friday by which point England will be safely on their way to qualifying for the next round of the WC, we’ll be back at Alpine Ethos HQ in Leeds and a week closer to the big 30. Two of those are definitely going to happen anyway.
Andy, Heather and Benny.
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