Story by: Glyn Mon Hughes
Listening to Irene Wagner list the resorts she has visited alongside Rotary colleagues is like flicking through a high-end brochure of luxury ski-ing venues.
For the less adventurous (or, to be honest, terrified), it’s akin to settling down for another edition of Ski Sunday. Fans may still experience those glamorous resorts on a show describing itself as showing ‘high-octane, high-altitude winter sports from across the world’. It’s all about the thrills without the spills.
For those still seeking those undoubted thrills, bands of intrepid Rotarians take to the slopes on an annual basis.
Irene is president of the European chapter of the International Ski-ing Fellowship of Rotarians. The other, older, chapter is based in the United States and held its first annual meeting in Vail, Colorado, in 1974. The European chapter followed three decades later, in 2005.
“We organise a ski week every year,” said Irene, a German businesswoman who regularly crosses the Austrian border to attend her Rotary Club in Salzburg.
“I joined Rotary in 2011 and then the Fellowship in 2014. I am a widow and one of the problems people like me face is holidays. How do you ski alone? Once I heard about the Rotary ski week, I knew that was perfect for me.”
Since joining the Fellowship, Irene has skied at St Moritz, Scuol and Saas Fee in Switzerland, Zell am See and Bad Kleinkirchheim in Austria, Oberstdorf in Germany, Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy and Jasna in Slovakia. Global warming may have caught up on one occasion when, last year, the planned week at Rocarasso, Italy, was cancelled due to a lack of snow.
Winter sports enthusiasts travel from across the globe to join the European ski-ing weeks.
“I can tell you that, in Verbier, we had 120 people from 15 different nations – from America, Australia and from all over Europe,” noted Irene.
“The biggest community is from Germany, Switzerland and Austria – the big ski-ing nations – but there are participants from Greece and Spain as well as Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia. And we always have visitors from Turkey.”
There are, however, some countries which are not represented in the Fellowship.
There is one couple who pitch up regularly from Sweden but there are no members from either Great Britain or France. “That is something I want to change,” added Irene.
Skiers are all Rotarians, along with friends and families. “We don’t usually see any children because we always organise the week outside the holiday season. As a result, we don’t set up a programme for children. We have had people bring small children along but it does mean that they miss out on a large part of the programme.”
Participants are split into various groups, according to ability. “This is good for couples, especially if one is a very good skier and the other is not so good,” explained Irene. “It means everyone can ski at their level. We meet up for lunch and then we meet up again in the evening. And, if someone does not ski at all, that is not a problem, as we always have a separate programme for non-skiers.”
Skiers must have some level of proficiency as coaching is not available, so newcomers to ski-ing might need to think twice before signing up for the trip. “We do have local hosts who show us the ski-ing area but if someone wants to have a teacher, they must book that separately,” said Irene.
Published in Rotary Digital - January 2025