January Club Update
BBTS WINTER FIESTA 2019
Buy your Tickets Now!
TICKETS ARE GOING FAST!!! BUY THEM TODAY!
LIVE Auction!
Get excited for the Auction on February 9th
with MC Tom Gross
Arrive in style to the U.S. Tennis Open! A once in a lifetime opportunity to attend the U.S Open in New York, on your own private jet. Enjoy the action in two amazing seats.  
Win a ride on a Waterville Valley Snow Cat! Get the beautiful view of the White Mountains from a whole different perspective! A once in a lifetime opportunity!
Win the opportunity to ski with our new Executive Director Tory Amorello! Get to know Tory on a one-one basis while skiing/riding! 
Own your very own High Country Chair. Bid on this piece of Waterville Valley history!
Tory's Update
The Annual Fund Demystified…
 
One of the questions I’ve gotten most often since taking the reins here at WVA/BBTS is What is the Annual Fund? Where does our money go?

An Annual Fund is the yearly fundraising push where our entire community is asked to make a (tax-deductible) gift to support our program. This includes not only current parents, but also grandparents, alumni, staff, friends of the program, and regional partners. The purpose of the Annual Fund is to reduce or offset the gap between tuition/fees and the actual cost of our program. At WVBBTS, this gap is around $315,000, or more than a thousand dollars per athlete. We establish our budget in the spring, determine what we need in terms of coaches, equipment, scholarship, what we anticipate needing to cover our overhead expenses such as mortgage payments, utilities, and maintenance, and then we set our annual fundraising goal.

A conference I went to this fall which was hosted by the New Hampshire Center for Non-Profits described an Annual Fund as “housekeeping” – you do it, you finish, you feel accomplished for a minute, then you look around, and you start doing it…again. That’s pretty true!

When can I make a gift to the Annual Fund?
Right around Thanksgiving, everyone received a letter from me officially kicking off our Annual appeal. Our fiscal year ends June 30 th , so anytime before the end of June is great! Realistically, most of our fundraising has to happen over the winter, but we don’t need to collect money until the end of the fiscal year. A pledge counts just as well! Or, if you want to get it done right now (Great! Thank you!) you can donate on our website here: https://wvbbts.org/give-today/ or send a check.

We also have events which are associated with the Annual Fund, most significantly the World Pro Ski Tour Winter Fiesta, coming up fast on February 9 th . We’ve put a ton of time into planning a fun evening for everyone – Dinner! Drinks! Dancing! Live band! Live and Silent Auctions! Raffle! - but we also have high hopes that through the auctions and raffle the night will be a successful fundraiser. We have phenomenal prizes lined up, and huge thank you to everyone who has donated!

How else can I give?
We are able to accept stock donations, and some gifts-in-kind (within reasonable restrictions; just because you want to get rid of that treadmill doesn’t mean we necessarily want it!) We also have members who are able to utilize their company’s corporate matching programs, which we are always thrilled to accept! We do also apply for grants to the greatest extent possible, and are constantly shaking the couch cushions to look both for savings and for opportunities to fundraise. Ultimately the most productive way to fundraise is also the simplest: to ask you for your support.

Thank you in advance for all that you do and give to help our kids succeed in this wild and wonderful sport. We literally could not exist without our incredible families, and I appreciate anything you can give to help us meet our goal.

Best,
Tory
Save the Date:
BBTS Winter Fiesta - Saturday, February 9th
Mass Vacation Week 80's Night Party - Thursday, February 21st
Alumni Mixer - Saturday, March 23rd
SAT Prep Camp - June 23rd - 28th
Waterville Athletic Calendar:

February 8th-10th - World Pro Ski Tour
February 15th-17th - Rosemary Bowl
March 15th +16th - U.S. Freestyle Championships
March 23rd-25th - U.S. Alpine Nationals
March 27th-29th - U.S Junior Nationals
March 30th - Dan Bean Memorial GS
Help Keep the Club House Clean!
I’m sure we’re all growing uncomfortably accustomed to the state of anarchy and disarray in our lunchroom, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels like it’s a bummer! I’m sure you can all come up with a few other choice adjectives to describe the state of the lunchroom on an average weekend day, and not too many of them are going to be positive.

First - please , parents, help by chaperoning or supervising your own kids, and kids in general, while they’re in the lunchroom. If you see kids – anyone’s kids! – stomping on ketchup packets or swinging from the sprinkler pipes, (for instance), it’s safe to say that’s a no-go, and I ask, encourage, and implore you to ask them to desist! I don’t think any of our kids, who are generally great athletes who are being well-raised, would be surprised if their energies were redirected from such activities.

Secondly , we’re adding some worker credit hours to the “Keep The Lunchroom Sanitary” effort: Dan is working on programming in a half credit for each weekend day through the end of the season for someone to help keep order in the lunchroom. This entails being present for about an hour during the morning rush, fully engaged during the hour and a half spanning lunch, and present for about an hour as training is wrapping up (3.5 hours total). Beginning this weekend, those credits will be available through Volgistics. 

Thanks in advance for helping us all take care of our shared space.  

Athletic Update


Competition season is in full swing, and big races and competitions are nearly upon us! Great work by everyone so far and keep up the hard work. In January Waterville hosted the following events

  • Preston Cup
  • Soper Races
  • Master's Camp
  • The Rev Tour
  • Eastern Region U14 Slalom
  • New Schoolers Tell a Friend
  • U14/12 Qualifier

Thank you to all of the volunteers who made these events possible!

Here are some of the Awesome Highlights from this month
  • Hunter Henderson & Grace Henderson were 1st + 2nd respectively at the Rev Tour!
  • The Mitey Mites competed in a Big Air Competition!
  • The SL of the Soper Memorial Championship was the only race in the East to run on 1/20!
  • Nic Hotermans and Matt Ryan will represent their countries in the European Youth Olympic games!
80's Night Party!!!
Break out the fluorescents and leg warmers, and join us for an 80's theme party.Come out to Legends on 2/21, during Mass vacation week, for a fun WVBBTS mixer. Music by DJ Money!

What: 80's Dance Party. Dress to impress
When: Thursday 2/21, 8-11 p.m
Where: Legends WV Town Square
Who: DJ Money
Meet the Coaches:
Todd Harris
Head U19/U21 & Master's Coach
I started coaching with BBTS in 2006. I met Tom Barbeau in the early 90’s and started learning about BBTS. As I worked with other clubs and organizations, it always felt like BBTS had their priorities and values where they needed to be. Being a Western MA (Wilbraham) guy, it took me over a decade to figure out how to get all the planets aligned and make the move up here. I started teaching at Blandford Ski Area in 1985 and rose up through the PSIA ranks as an instructor, ending up with five years on the Race Department staff doing educational clinics for instructors and coaches. After Blandford, I coached and/or taught at Okemo, Mt. Snow and Stratton. I’m a current Level 300 USSA coach, and Level 3 PSIA instructor. 
 
Outside of skiing : I used to be a project management consultant, which mostly allowed me to take winters off to coach. In 2010, I started a design/fab studio. Most of our work is designing and building museum exhibits. We’re great at the hands-on interactives – science museums, children’s museums, natural science. I’m grateful every day for the opportunity to create really crazy fun things. Right now, we have a dozen or so active projects, including sculpting a 25’ whale head, and creating dioramas for a priceless WWII tank collection. It’s not boring!
 
Fun fact : I married my high-school sweetheart. We’ve been together since 1984, mostly due to her awesome sense of humor. Yeah, we still rock it.
 
Hobbies : Biking, running, hiking. Tinkering in the shop… woodworking, metalworking, electronics. I have a sawmill and love sawing timber.
 
Education : Double major in Music and Electrical Engineering at UMASS Amherst. I wanted to be a musician. Dad said do something practical. It all worked out. The funny thing is that when I coach, the first things I see are musical qualities: tempo, rhythm, dynamics, passing tones and bridges. After that, the engineering brain kicks in, and I look at geometry, vector forces, and differential equations.
 
What I LOVE about coaching : Ski racing is such a difficult sport to excel at, but it’s a great framework to learn about ourselves and how to be successful in life. Priorities are important… sure, the right wax * does * matter – but not as much as getting the line right or running the ski cleanly. 
Follow us on social media!
 
We've got WVA and BBTS athletes in the full swing of the season, so please check out our Instagram channels for photos and updates: @watervillevalley.bbts, @watervillevalleyacademy, and @wvafreeski and tag us in your photos!