The Board has approved a long-term plan to strengthen programs at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Club (SLNC). The Board’s work is guided by the SLNC 2018 Strategic Plan. This plan outlines five goals and within these goals, 11 objectives, with three of the five goals directly related to Club programming needs.

In January 2021, our Programs Director, the GM, and the Board identified the need to focus on these three goals of the Strategic Plan that address our long-term needs for Bunny Rabbits through to Masters programs. The group has prepared a Programs Plan that addresses how SLNC will meet the targets set forth in the Strategic Plan. This new plan will help guide the Board’s decision-making over the next three years (2021/2022 through 2023/2024).

The Plan provides much-needed staffing horsepower to grow programs, enhance the culture and community of Nordic skiing at Sovereign Lake, and create a new and engaged Programs Committee that focusing on skills development, competitions, events, and volunteers.

SLNC will accomplish this by hiring 4 key programs-dedicated positions. Our Head Coach will be supported by:

• A new part-time Masters High Performance Coach,
• A new part-time Biathlon Program Coach,
• A new part-time Skill Development Program (SDP) Lead Coach to grow the program for kids ages 5 through 12, and
• A part-time Programs Administrator will act as our program registrar and communication lead.

These new positions will be supported through a small increase in programming fees, revenue from competitions, fundraising, and directing $10 from each Season Pass sold to support Programs. This means that
every single club member is a direct supporter of the long-term growth and sustainability of our programs.

The Board is also providing a one-time contingency from our cash reserves if needed to offset shortfalls during this expansion of Programs in the 2021/2022 season.
Budgeted programs expenditures for 2021/2022 will be double what they were in 2019/2020 in support of Programs. The Head Coach position is also now being funded through the new Programs Budget Framework, a
change from past seasons.

We are excited for this new chapter of growth at Sovereign where attention has been focussed primarily on Club operations for the last number of years. We want to thank all those who helped out with the creation and implementation of this new plan. The job descriptions for these 4 new positions will be posted on the club website shortly. The plan is to fill these positions by May 15th and hold the first new Programs Committee meeting in June, to plan for the upcoming season.

Season Passes and Programs Registration open on June 1 st. All registrations will happen through the website and a notification will go out the week prior to launching sales.

Have a wonderful spring.

Your SLNC Board of Directors.

Well… better late than never!

AIM Contracting has finally made it up to Sovereign Road and we have a fresh grade just in time for closing weekend. It is still not great but we will take what we can get.

We have reduced our operating hours effective immediately from 9am to 4pm due to increasing slushy conditions in the afternoon and lack of skier traffic. You are welcome to ski on the trails after lodge operating hours and use the portables for washrooms.

Thank you.

Keep those skis fast and fresh next fall by getting a summer storage wax done at Sovereign Lake. For $20 we will summer prep your skis with a steel brush and a universal glide wax, plus we will even scrape them for you in the fall when you are ready to hit the trails again. We will accept skis until April 9th with all skis being picked up by April 11th.

Summer Storage Brush and Hot Wax:  $20.00 + taxes. 

Thank you for your generous donations made by our members and the public in celebration of International Women’s Day. All Day Ticket proceeds and donations were in support of the Archway Society for Domestic Peace.

The Archway Society provides a wide range of supportive services for survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Services provided include; safe shelter (transition house program), counseling, child and youth advocacy, outreach services, and collaborative community projects.

We are proud to support this essential service in our community with a donation of $1286.10

This is the best time of year to stock up on nordic supplies as we are offering 25% off everything in the lodge including Bliz Sunglasses, Sun Bum sunscreen, Kombi merino clothing, Swix / Vauhti waxes, and more!

Also, don’t forget we are offering great discounts on lesson bookings all through Spring Break! Call us today for more info.

Sovereign Lake is excited to announce that we are the first club to fully integrate and embed the new Nordic Pulse Grooming App in Canada within their website.

Nordic Pulse was born out of a desire to make grooming reports easier to find for skiers and to help clubs share their trail conditions. Julien Locke (SLNC website developer and former NST athlete) believed strongly that deciding where and when to ski should be a quick, easy, and fun experience. After years of wading through outdated websites, online spreadsheets, snow phones, user-reported blogs, and the like, it was time to create a new platform.

Nordic Pulses’ objective is to make grooming reporting easier for ski areas. Grooming teams work long nights preparing the corduroy for the coming day’s skiers, and the last thing the groomers want to do at the end of a long shift is to fiddle around with logging in to a website or updating a spreadsheet with cold fingers.

With Nordic Pulse, grooming teams simply enable the in-app GPS tracker while they groom and the app syncs the data to our server every few seconds. With both AutoSync and offline storage capacity, Nordic Pulse is optimized to work in a variety of scenarios such as sending real-time data through cellular data, bulk uploading whenever the snowcat passes through the stadium and briefly connects to the club’s wifi connection, or operating fully offline and out of service.

We are excited to offer this modern and sophisticated grooming reporting program to our website to provide our membership and visitors a quick reference tool for the latest groomed trails. Tell us what you think. We are excited to get some customer feedback.

Click HERE to check out the new Nordic Pulse Grooming app.

SLNC has opened ticket sales for March and April skiing and snowshoeing today with limited day ticket sales through Spring Break and Easter Holiday Weekend. Here are some dates to put in your calendar.

FAST AND THE CUIRIOUS
Jan 18 – Apr 4 

You are all invited to the new Fast and Curious virtual series.

The series has been designed by a small group of Masters club volunteers to get SLNC club’s 19 plus members and our masters out on the world class trails to challenge yourself or simply explore some different trails.

A big thanks to our SLNC staff, Manager and board members for their support to help launch the first ever Virtual series at Sovereign Lake Nordic Club.

You can ski designated courses starting January 18th.  Once you completed the first virtual fast ski or curious ski you are encouraged to continue skiing the Virtual series courses throughout the entire ski season.  Why? – Want to go “Fast” to test your new skis, cool clothing and improve your personal fitness. Or maybe you just want to be a bit “Curious” and explore the incredible variety of our world-class trails.  Your choice to be Curious or Fast.

So grab your skis for a chance to get some great prizes and join in some fun social distanced activities.  Oh yea – enjoy the snow, sun, peace and quiet and the world class grooming on the best XC trail system in Canada.

Organizer
Gerry Furseth
Phone:(250) 558-3036
Email: [email protected]

REGISTRATION

Curious registration

Fast Registration

COURSE MAPS AND INFO

FAST COURSE ROUTES

CURIOUS COURSE ROUTES

For more information: https://www.sovereignlake.com/event/virtually-sovereign-the-fast-and-the-curious/2021-01-18/

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How does Fast and Curious Virtual series work?

There are two options for the SLNC “Fast” and “Curious” virtual series.

1. 1. The “Fast” skiers will have a Strava trail segment/course to ski as fast as they can but only during the week days and night skiing. Their ski gps track will be uploaded to a free Strava account to register the result.
   2. The “Curious” skiers will have a kinda explorer focus (speed is not a big deal) so skiers can ski a designated course beginning with a popular route and gradually progressing to longer courses on different trails throughout the Sovereign Lake Nordic trail network.  They can record their ski distance easily on their registration page on Zone4! Its free … yep it is free because you are a Sovereign Lake Nordic Member or Masters member.

How do I find which course? – Basically a course will be provided by a club volunteer tech geek (nice guy) and open for a designated period of time via a virtual platform.  Paper course maps may also be available to download for us wiser skiers.  You will have a week or maybe two weeks to complete the course.  We will let you know more details as we ski virtually – figure all this stuff out!

NB – Remember you fast guys and gals skiers must ski the course during the week days only while our curious skiers can ski any day that they want during the designated time (calendar days) for the particular course segment.

Virtual series Fast skiers are only allowed on weekdays because weekends have been very busy at our club with many more new first time skiers and snowshoers throughout the trail network on Saturday or Sunday.  Many are new to the club so don’t scare em off eh!

It all starts with a FREE registration on Zone 4 so we can help keep (track/follow/record) times of our “Fast” skiers and help track distances of our “Curious” skiers.   Be eligible for some great draw prizes!!!!

Thanks to the sponsors

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One final request.  Hannah Mehain (an exceptional young Vernon woman)  has been selected to represent our club and our country at the Under 23 World Championships.  Hannah needs some financial assistance to cover her costs of traveling to Europe.  Please consider helping her if you can.

Go fund Hannah Mehain

Taking inspiration from Hannah’s scheduled races in Vuokatti, Finland, we have chosen a gentle 10k loop to start both series.

Reminder for all of us.

Please remember Covid 19 is still a significant concern for all of us at our club.  The safety of our members and staff remains our top priority so ski the virtual series individually or (in your immediate family bubble) following the social distancing by staying at least three meters apart from all other skiers. This expectation is from Via Sport BC, our Provincial sport authority for social distancing during XC ski exercise outdoors and (if you wish wear) your mask.

NB:  Please remember these outdoor exercise guidelines can change and we will do our best to keep you current.  You are reminded to check in with Via Sport BC to ensure you know what our current Covid 19 regulations expectations for all of us while we are xc skiing (playing outdoors).

Here is the link – https://www.viasport.ca/