At the Congress at Chatel, France in 2012 FIPS established medical and avalanche special interest groups. In 2014 at the Big White Congress they added the Technology group. Since conception several other SIG groups have been added. They included Disability, Risk Management & Legal, and Rescue Dog.
In their respective areas these groups will act as a conduit for the collection, assessment and distribution of world best practice information for FIPS members.
To participate in a special interest group you should register and apply to the community group, where the SIG coordinator will review your information and contact you with further details. Instructions to use the FIPS Communities are located here.
Disability
Moderated and Managed by Luca Sardelli (FISPS )
Email: [email protected]
What is the Disability SIG about? The Disability SIG is about learning and improving how ski patrollers help skiers with disabilities, both physical and intellectual.
Our behaviour, from the way we approach skiers with disabilities to the procedures we follow to assist them in case of need, can improve through the exchange of experiences a knowledge.
What types of patrollers are we looking for? All patrollers interested in improving how we act on ski runs to better help this population of skiers are welcome.
What is involved with the Disability SIG between congresses? Between congress, the members of this SIG can carry out sharing information and best practices via web calls.
Local groups are welcome to work in person if feasible.
Medical
Moderated and Managed by Terry Abrams (CSP)
Email: [email protected]
The Medical SIG is an international gathering of medical and allied health professionals and non-health professionals who all share the same objective; providing the best possible patient care in the ski patrolling environments. All are ski patrollers or have ski patrolling experience in their backgrounds. We seek interested members with wide experiences and ideas, who also don’t mind doing some work.
The Medical SIG is responsible for developing, producing and delivering two days of information at the FIPS World Congresses. The material is often delivered by lecture, group discussions, demonstrations and skill stations as appropriate to the topics. Hands-on participation by the delegates gets the best accolades.
In this period between congresses, we will be developing a FIPS guideline document of the qualities and skill sets of patrollers for the benefit of other organizations and newly forming national patrols. This is in response to requests from the Olympic Organizing Committee of the Beijing Winter Olympics and from new patrols seeking membership with FIPS.
The Medical SIG meets online the first Sunday of each month at 1200 hours UTC. Typically we meet every other month until we are closer to the date of the next World Congress at which point we meet monthly.
If your interest is piqued, please contact Niels Giddins, the SIG Secretary at [email protected]
