View - Alpbach Visitors Ski Club

The Chairman’s Letter 2013Dear MemberAlready my first year as Chairman has come to an end but I have to say how much I haveenjoyed being involved with the Committee and with life generally in the beautiful Villageof Alpbach.After my first Committee meeting last June, my year began with the Autumn Drinks partyin London where I was able to meet new members and renew many old acquaintances. Jojoand Guy Scott discovered the Bluebird Cafe in London and it was such a great success that weare there again this year on Tuesday 19 November.Christmas in the village is really a most magical time and one of the highlights for me isour Christmas Carol Service in St Oswald’s Church. The warm welcome from Fr Franz, theguidance by the Army Teams and the lesson readers all combine to make this a very specialannual event. The traditional welcome last year was done by Mike Brennan due to MurrayWildman being unable to attend. I hope to see him this Christmas when he will be celebratinghis 50th year in the Village.Our support for BLESMA (British Limbless Ex-Servicemen’s Association) and CSDST(Combined Servicemen’s Disabled Ski Team) continues and, whilst attending our Half TermWeek in February, I was fortunate to visit their skibob week in Sölden with Mike Brennan. Iwas overwhelmed by the motivation and determination of these guys and their stories areparticularly heart wrenching when you hear them. Their spirits are so strong and very similar toour special friend Sepp Margreiter of the Alpbach Ski School.It has been a pleasure to spend more time with Sepp in the last twelve months after theearly days of AVSC when we were both part of the training team. His work, and that of hisInstructors, for AVSC is most greatly appreciated, as we wouldn’t be able to carry out halfof what we do without it. Whilst talking about our sponsors, may I also thank most sincerelyConny Sport and all the support we get from the Village.It would not be correct for me to end without saying a huge thank you to my Committee.The amount of time and effort they each devote to our Club is immeasurable and particularthanks to the JTC team - John, Mike and Stewart for their work on our various training weeksand races. Thanks also to James Ferguson for his continued running and development of ourwebsite so please make sure you use it as much as possible.Before I conclude, I would like to make special mention to Linda Klotz who sadly steppeddown as our Secretary due to her work commitments but may I record our thanks to her forher help in the past and I know she has offered to help when she can in the future. Taking overfrom Linda Klotz is Linda Reichsöllner – nothing like keeping things simple by finding a newSecretary with the same Christian name! A very warm welcome to Linda R, she has started welland I am sure you will all get to know her and help her ease into her new duties.Finally, thank you to our Members for your continued support of AVSC, our training weeksand social events. I look forward to seeing you all either in November in London or Christmasin the Village – or better still at both! Alicia and Vee have worked extremely hard on thisnewsletter so I do hope you all enjoy reading it.Best wishes,Keith Howells2