Talking tour, snowcials and sick slopes with the Exeter snowsports team

We’ll start with a very important question. How fast can you down a pint?

Luke: I show a pretty poor effort – six seconds, but our social sec Tom Bond has a license to chug it in 1.5 seconds.

Lauren : Nine seconds.

What’s the craziest thing ever to happen to you?

Luke: No comment.

Lauren: I once woke up naked in a snow scoop during ski season in Canada.

Where is your favourite place to have your snowcials?

Luke and Lauren: We like having pres at Vaults and then going on to our sponsor Timepiece.

What is your BNOC rating out of ten?

Luke: 10/10, only joking I actually hardly know anyone.

Lauren: 3/10.

How much is it to join Exeter Snowsports?

Luke: Membership is £30 and for that you get a goody bag with a beanie, lanyard, sunglasses and T-shirt.  It also then allows you to come on the trips – we have two a year. It also allows you to come on all of the socials and take part in any racing or freestyle lessons.

What is Freestyle?

Luke: Freestyle is any kind of jumping with tricks and backflips in the air or on rails. Kind of like skateboarding in snow.

Are your lessons subsidised?

Luke: We basically spend all of our money on lessons in freestyle and affiliation costs for competitions.

Are the trips quite good value?

Luke: The trips are really good value because the more people we take the cheaper they are. The two trips we do to the French Alps at Christmas and Easter (Val D’Isere £389 and Val Thorens £399) include your accomodation, lift pass and transport out there. Normally a lift pass is like 280 Euros.

The tour operators know how to get the best deals. Basically you can go skiing for under £500 which you wouldn’t normally be able to do.

Do you have a lot of members?

Luke: Yeah last year we ended up with 1,300 members and this year in the first two weeks we’ve currently signed up just under 1,000 people.

So how much money did you take at the Freshers’ Fair?

Luke: I’d say £30,000.

Do you really have a Landrover?

Luke: No we don’t have a Landrover. That’s quite a good thing to clarify. There is a Land Rover that exists but it belonged to our president from last year. He worked in the summer for an engineering firm, bought the Land Rover and then branded it up because he loved Snowsports and thought it could be useful.

Unfortunately it has now gone but it was a great asset. We can still use it when we phone him up though.

Do you think Snowsports attracts the Exetaah crowd?

Luke: We try to make the club not elitist at all. I genuinely think £30 pounds for a membership is really good. If you went out and bought a lanyard, t-shirt, beanie etc. you‘d be paying more than that anyway. All of our socials and trips are discounted for the whole year. Skiing is an expensive hobby but around 20 per cent of our members don’t go on the big trips but  just go on the Freestyle, racing and Snowdome trips, have lessons and come on the socials.

Lauren:  Also I think we try to broaden the range of our members. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never been skiing before or you just want to come on the socials. You can really take part in whatever you want.

How would you sum up Snowsports soc in one phrase?

Luke: The most engaging, well-rounded, friendly and EPIC society for £30. Going on the ski trip is the most fun you’ll have at Exeter.

Lauren: Probably the best society in the world.