I have been one busy puppy lately! I’m not complaining, because as I tell clients and potential clients nearly every day – I’d much rather be busy than to be sitting around twiddling my thumbs. Seemingly that’s just "life" these days as we’re tugged in a bunch of different directions. Hopefully YOUR busy schedule isn’t keeping you from hitting the slopes on occasion as this has been a great season to date.
That said, we JUST got around to talking about and promoting the SkiNC Summit which we’re hosting this Saturday at Beech Mountain Resort. Typically we try to talk up these things at least a month in advance, but things kind of snuck up on us and so we just got some promos posted up this past Sunday and then Monday AM we started inviting people via emails, etc.
As of Thursday AM we’re now at 130 of my closest friends (some of which I haven’t met yet!) who will be meeting up on Saturday to simply chillax, share some brews, make some turns on the mountain and simply have a good time. There’s talk of doing the biggest tailgating party ever held at any of the previous summits and we’ll see how that turns out.
From humble beginnings…
It all Began in 2005 with a couple of messageboard members with names like TeleDave, Snowbird, Ga Tom, afrobigfoot, skiatlanta, skiing rules, Tmiller72, Ga Tom and others who had joined the messageboard forum. For the record, "TeleDave" was the eighth person to sign up membership to the board. The first non-owner-staffer member was "Mark" who still posts on occasion nine years later – but who only has 236 posts. By comparison, Teledave has posted 10,110 times (as of this writing), and he ranks second in total alltime posts to SkiCop who joined the board nearly two years later but who has posted more than 13,000 times.
"Royalty" is almost afforded to the top posters on the board, even though TeleDave holds an honor bestowed him by some of the other top posters. That honor? "The Don". For those uneducated as to the hierarchy of messageboard or forum submissions…it is NOT ONLY the number of times you post; it is the quality of posts and Dave stands atop the mountain made up of a ton of colorful messageboard members who have posted at least 3000 messages.
However that 3000 post mark doesn’t carry the only "weight" on the forum as perhaps one of (if not THE) most prolific posters has been "SkiPink" who joined the board in March of 2008 (coming up on her 3rd year as a member) and who has posted 2740 posts to date. Frances (SkiPink) is an unabashed fan of the website’s ability to pull like-minded people together to hit the snow as newfound friends. SkiPink’s smile is infectious and as such is a great ambassador to SkiNC/SkiSoutheast and all things skiing in the region.
Other top posters in terms of comraderie if not in quantity are people like GreshamB, GaTom, MellowYellow and jeffryc (who as of this writing was one post away from hitting the 2000 post mark.)
The SkiSoutheast.com/SkiNC Messageboard forum participation pales in comparison to some national ski forums but it also is far and away the most productive, interactive ski forum East of the Rockies. By comparison the second most visited ski forum in the region has only seen TWO posts to threads in the last twenty four hours and the top posters on the board only have 2287 posts. Only four members have more than 2000 posts. Compare that with the SkiSoutheast and SkiNC forum that has TWO posters with over 10,000 posts, five with over 6000 posts, and thirty-one members with more posts than the top poster on the second most visited ski forum in the region!
That’s loyalty and we try to reward that loyalty where possible and hope to do even moreso in the future.
We are currently working to GROW the membership of the ski forum with some front page invitations to join. We began marketing the growth of the forum last month and have seen it grow by more than 70 members in that time. Of course NOTHING grows the membership better than holding Summits and while MANY join to simply take advantage of the discounted lodging, free and discounted skiing and other things – we’ve certainly seen and met many new friends through the forum and related summits.
One way to look at it is that there are a lot of people who visit the site all the time and simply don’t post up. We’ve received truckloads of emails from people saying that they enjoy reading the forums but that they just don’t have anything to post.
Regardless we’re glad to provide some discounted fun and some entertainment in various forms. We hope that all who signed up and who plan on attending Saturday will take the opportunity to at least come by, hang out a bit and meet us. Some great friendships have been made via the forum and we can always use some new friends. Right?
If you’re not doing anything this Saturday, why not join us for some brews, some fellowship and some fun.
WEATHER UPDATE FOR SUMMIT SATURDAY LOOKS PERFECT!
As we get closer to Saturday the weather is looking like it will be a Chamber of Commerce kind of day with some sun and clouds (no precip) and highs around 28°. Winds will be calm (4-7 mph) so I don’t think it will get any better than that!
Slope conditions at Beech should be AWESOME – maybe the best that we’ve seen in a couple of years as MORE NATURAL SNOW (1-2") should be falling tonight and Friday. On top of that we’re looking at great snowmaking ops with lows tonight and Friday night in the teens. So the slope conditions should be marvelous with all slopes and trails open.
COME JOIN US. Visit the Summit page at: https://www.skisoutheast.com/2011_SkiNC_Beech_Summit.htm
Go over to the messageboard, read up, join us (it’s free) and get ONE HALF PRICE LIFT PASSES THIS SATURDAY ONLY AS A FELLOW SKINCer.