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Reading and Riding?


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I don't have the paperwork in front of me, but all the libraries in the region recently received a letter from Sno Mountain with a 'deal' for young skiers and riders who also do some reading. Librarians are supposed to set up an incentive program in which kids read a certain amount of books and receive a coupon for a free lesson/ticket/rental package valued, I believe, at $60.

 

That's great, right?

 

The problem is that to "earn" the "free" package, parents must also buy a comparable package. So, it's basically a buy one get one free deal after a kid reads a bunch of books.

 

It just seems like someone came up with a good idea---combining literacy and a sport---but then the money guys decided not to give anything away. Heck, why wouldn't they just offer a few weekends where any juniors could bring a friend skiing/riding and get a free ticket with a full price purchase? They do that at a lot of ski areas, right? But a campaign to induce kids to read, but their only reward is if they also get a friend to spend $60?

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Interesting

 

Killington is letting local school kids who make honor roll first quarter or semester or something get a pass for $129. If they can't afford the $129 then they can get one for $50+ 20 hours of community service (not related to Killington).

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Interesting

 

Killington is letting local school kids who make honor roll first quarter or semester or something get a pass for $129. If they can't afford the $129 then they can get one for $50+ 20 hours of community service (not related to Killington).

 

Wow, that's a real deal.

 

Not ragging on Sno, but all the library directors my wife spoke to (she's one of them) had the same reaction, beginning with "Cool" when they first glanced at the offer, then "Bummer" when they read the details.

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I think anything that gets kids away from their ipods/gameboys/cell phones and gets their nose in a book is a good thing. Sno is a business after all and how can they prove these kids actually read the books anyway?

 

First: many libraries, including my wife's, run summer reading programs in which kids get tokens for each book read. At the end of the summer, they trade the tokens in for things like books and calculators, and stuff like that. So, unless children check out a bunch of books and lie to everyone, then I guess there is no proof. Or, maybe those corrupt library directors in charge of creating the programs will cheat. :rolleyes:

 

Second: would you be proud to 'sponsor' a program that had kids read for, say, thirty hours and be rewarded with nothing but a coupon for a free game for his/her friend if he/she pays full price? And it's not even a game he/she has to buy, but a full lesson package at retail price.

 

Yes, Sno is a business, which is why I had to pay $1200 for a family lift ticket. And, yes, getting kids away from their Gameboy is a good thing. Was that in dispute? What I'm questioning is whether this program is anything more than an attempt to get some free advertising out of public libraries. The kid doing all the work is rewarded with nothing, while Sno gets to send out buy one-get one free full price coupons using an 'educational' gimmick.

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The kids are rewarded with something....reading. I am not saying I would be proud to sponsor something like this. But, I don't know many programs that don't have some kind of catch to them. Someone from this MB pm'd me that Steamboat has a "kids ski free" program. When I looked into it further, I found out that they only ski free when the parents buy 5 or more days of lift tickets at $85 a pop. I'm not saying it wouldn't be great if Sno and other area mountains offered non-gimmicky programs, but I wouldn't hold my breath. They don't have to offer discounts at all. They could charge everyone full price all the time. Plus, as a parent, I would have no problem telling my kid that reading earns them a free lift ticket to a new mountain. They don't have to know there is a catch at all. They think they earned their ski day by reading books.

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The kids are rewarded with something....reading. I am not saying I would be proud to sponsor something like this. But, I don't know many programs that don't have some kind of catch to them. Someone from this MB pm'd me that Steamboat has a "kids ski free" program. When I looked into it further, I found out that they only ski free when the parents buy 5 or more days of lift tickets at $85 a pop. I'm not saying it wouldn't be great if Sno and other area mountains offered non-gimmicky programs, but I wouldn't hold my breath. They don't have to offer discounts at all. They could charge everyone full price all the time. Plus, as a parent, I would have no problem telling my kid that reading earns them a free lift ticket to a new mountain. They don't have to know there is a catch at all. They think they earned their ski day by reading books.

 

Why not just tell your kid they can ski if they read five books? Why not remove the lousy insentive of earning a free ticket for someone else and leave out having to feed your child some bullshit line? I'm just disappointed that Sno didn't make this a real discount for a kid. It was a good idea that they didn't pull off.

 

A mountain that offers a buy one/get one free on a full priced retail lift/rental/lesson package is in a total win/win position and is giving away nothing. Add two $10 tips for the instructors and its $80 for a couple of beginning skiers/boarders and that's without lunch.

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(Barb: please keep in mind that I'm not bashing this program for the sake of bashing the program. I want Sno to succeed in every way and I happily plunk down gobs of money to support them. In fact, there's a pretty fair chance that a friend of mine created this 'discount' program. But I also think it's crucial they get stuff like this right. My wife spoke with a half-dozen fellow library directors who were all in agreement that the plan wasn't something they cared to pursue. Done a little differently, all would have been happy to develop the program.)

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Why not just tell your kid they can ski if they read five books? Why not remove the lousy insentive of earning a free ticket for someone else and leave out having to feed your child some bullshit line? I'm just disappointed that Sno didn't make this a real discount for a kid. It was a good idea that they didn't pull off.

 

A mountain that offers a buy one/get one free on a full priced retail lift/rental/lesson package is in a total win/win position and is giving away nothing. Add two $10 tips for the instructors and its $80 for a couple of beginning skiers/boarders and that's without lunch.

 

Wow..............reading got expensive!

 

:ph34r:

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Hi there.

 

I recently moved her from CA and am a teacher in the Hazelton area.

 

JFBB has various school programs to get kids to learn the lifetime sport of skiing.

 

They offer a Field Trip and After School Program. They also offer a "Show us your grades" which gives all honor roll students a FREE snowpass. All I did was sign up for my class and I will need to fax a list of students at the end of the semester to receive the FREE snowpasses. Thats it. Very Easy and the JFBB representatives were very friendly and helpful. :rolleyes:

 

Mt High offered something similar to this and I took advantage of it there as well.

Check out - http://www.jfbb.com/school-program.asp

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Hi there.

 

I recently moved her from CA and am a teacher in the Hazelton area.

 

JFBB has various school programs to get kids to learn the lifetime sport of skiing.

 

They offer a Field Trip and After School Program. They also offer a "Show us your grades" which gives all honor roll students a FREE snowpass. All I did was sign up for my class and I will need to fax a list of students at the end of the semester to receive the FREE snowpasses. Thats it. Very Easy and the JFBB representatives were very friendly and helpful. :rolleyes:

 

Mt High offered something similar to this and I took advantage of it there as well.

Check out - http://www.jfbb.com/school-program.asp

 

Thanks for the info, I'm going to sign my school up today.

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