Thanks for participating, taking pictures and a bib gone missing!!!!

Thank You to All Officials and
Participants at This years Marathon/Festival

A sincere thank you to 27 % of the membership who
participated in the Marathon and Festival. With 82 skiers from
Whaleback at the starting line, Whaleback certainly answered the call. Now
I am no mathematician, but when someone from Avalon asked me to do the math at
the banquet to see if Whaleback actually did win the Ernie Langins trophy
awarded to the club with the highest participation in the marathon, I
looked at them with that same look that your grade 6 teacher gave you
when you asked her if she knew what 3X3 was. So thank you, thank you,
thank you! This year's Marathon and Festival of Skiers was foremost a
"festival". Sure we had lots of fast skiers on the course, but we had
more recreational skiers, some doing short courses, some doing long
courses, some trying to fulfil a challenge, and some just going with the flow
and chatting with friends. In fact, there was more chatting done on the
trails than there were kilometres skied and that's saying a lot. In
my estimation, which is probably quite accurate, this was the biggest
marathon since Pasadena in 1979 so YOU accomplished a milestone. And
one last thing about Whaleback ... in addition to having 27% actually
skiing the trails, we had approximately 95% of the membership providing meals
for the banquet .... without the help of these members we could not
have fed the hungry army of famished skiers and friends who showed up at
Stephenville High. A sincere thank you to the banquet preparers, the
kitchen workers, Earl and gang who looked aftert the course, the inside and
the outside officials and every other cog in the wheel of success that I
missed.



Thank You to Photographers For Great
Snaps

Still on the marathon topic, thank you to Diane Hanratty,
Terry Hoddinott, Dan Rumbolt, Aiden Mahoney and Stephanie from the journalism
program at the college for the exceptional photographs that were
taken on the trails and and shared with the membership and friends of
Whaleback. Jack Lamond who is always volunteering to do one
thing or another has put a number of photos together in a poster format and we
are sending them out to clubs all across the province as a final thank you to
Colemans who sponsored this year's event. Have you looked in on
the website and had a peek at all the photos? We have had close to
10,000 hits on our website since Dec. and the numerous hits are directly
proportional to the time that Jack (and in house editor Diane) and
the rest of his elves put into it. And Daniel Rumbolt has become
the local RCMP on the trail, stopping everyone he sees and taking their
photo. Thanks to all for the promotion of skiing at Whaleback.




Looking for Bib
257

Bib 257 that was used in the marathon is missing and if anyone
knows where it is, please let someone at the chalet know. The bibs
are expensive ($20.) and are essential tools for hosting events, so have an
extra look around and see if we can find it.