With over 40 years of experience, Disability Snowsport UK (DSUK) has been helping disabled people hit the slopes through adaptive skiing and snowboarding. Operating across the country, they offer a team of highly trained coaches and volunteers plus specialist adaptive equipment tailored to the participant’s individual needs, which allows their club members to embrace the freedom, confidence and community feeling that participating in physical sport enables.
Disability Snowsport UK’s tireless work in getting disabled people back into the snow sports community has seen them crowned the Every Body Moves powered by Toyota Club of the Year for 2024. To celebrate this achievement, Toyota GB Ambassador Billy Monger was invited to a special handover ceremony at The Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead. There, he had the chance to speak to club members to discuss how the club has impacted their lives and what this award means to them, plus take part in a group ski session – his first ski session in five years.
CEO of Disability Snowsport UK, Virginia Anderson, was present at the handover ceremony and spoke to Billy about how important this recognition is for DSUK and what the club means to her.
Billy: I am super excited to be here with you to witness Disability Snow Sports UK becoming Club of the Year with Everybody Moves. So, tell us all about the exciting work that you do.
Virginia: “Disability Snow Sports UK works across the UK from the snow centre here in Hemel Hempstead, right the way to the mountains in Cairngorms. We teach disabled people to ski and snowboard, we run a holiday programme, and we run recreational activities across the country.”
Disability Snow Sports helps to teach the fundamentals of how to ski out on the slopes themselves. What has that process been like for you to see that from your role?
“My job feels like the greatest privilege in the world. I get to meet people who have overcome huge things in their lives. They are out there, they are living well, they’re having fun, they’re challenging themselves, and it’s just a massive privilege to be alongside people while they’re doing that. The thing I love about skiing and snowboarding is that it doesn’t matter who you are. You and I would use different kits – we’re different heights, we’re different weights, we’re different levels of ability, everybody on a ski slope has a different set-up from somebody else. So, it doesn’t matter whether a skier is a disabled skier or a non-disabled skier; we all ski differently anyway. It’s a real leveller.”
Building a sense of community is so important, isn’t it? It can be quite daunting to take up a new sport with someone as a disability. That’s at the forefront of what you do.
“It’s really important. Having that support keeps people active because you’ll turn up on a Tuesday night or a Sunday night or whenever because you know you’re going to see your friends, you’re going to be doing something in an environment where people have got your back. They’re helping you learn, you’re helping other people, and it keeps people engaged in a way that, for example, going for physio by yourself can’t do. There’s something about the social part of sport and exercise that is brilliant at keeping people active over the long term, and particularly for somebody with a disability.
Keeping your physical mobility going is important and if there’s ways that that can be done in an environment that’s challenging, that’s fun, that helps you keep your core strength, helps you keep your body moving in a way you want it to, has a massive knock-on effect in terms of long-term kind of health and well-being, long-term confidence. And if you can ski, if you can snowboard, what on earth else can you do?”
Disability Snow Sports UK is the Every Body Moves Club of the Year. How nice does it feel to get the recognition for the hard work that goes in behind the scenes?
“It feels amazing to be Club of the Year. Our staff and our and critically our volunteers work so hard to provide opportunities, whether it’s one-to-one tuition, whether it’s recreational groups, whether it’s adventures abroad, the amount of work that goes into that behind the scenes is huge. And we wouldn’t particularly be here without our volunteers. And so, to have that recognised is amazing. And it’s also given us a showcase for telling the story of what we do, so that more people can see what it’s about, and we demystify some of what goes on kind of behind the scenes a little bit. And it just feels it feels like a real honour. And I’m proud of our team, whether they’re staff, volunteers, members, clients, or skiers.”
Disability Snow Sports UK have a vision, you want to get people back on the slopes and to give them those opportunities. What does that process look like for people thinking, how do I get into, sit skiing in the first place or any form of disability skiing?
“The best thing you can do is just get in touch. If you think it might, it looks like fun, get in touch, book a lesson. The first thing that we do is we spend time talking to somebody, understanding what they can do, what they need from us, and what their ambitions are. What do they want to achieve? Why are they here? Are they here because it’s fun? Are they here because they’ve had an injury or a diagnosis that means their body has changed, and maybe they used to ski or that they’re looking to put a bit of thrill and joy and challenge back into their lives.
So, from that very first thing we do is we listen to people. We get to know them, understand what they need, and then we get them out with the right kit, and we see what they can do. And after several lessons, what we hope to do is to help people move into what, like, into kind of more recreational skiing, and we have recreational groups as well as ski schools across the country. So that becomes a real social thing, moving beyond the one-to-one support and the one-to-one tuition to getting to know other people, skiing alongside other people and being part of a kind of community.
Everyone knows the importance of moving your body on a day-to-day basis, and your club is one of many that Every Body Moves works with. How important is it for you to be part of the Every Body Moves initiative?
“It’s really important. I think the profile of the Paralympics in kind of recent years has helped raise awareness of disabled people in sport and what people can achieve and the vast range of activity that’s out there. But it’s also important that we see everyday people out and being active and taking part and doing things. Every Body Moves is brilliant because it showcases those opportunities so that we can tell the story of what that looks like. If people can see a bit of what it looks like, see people like them, understand a bit of what’s out there and if you fancy it, you can come and have a go rather than thinking that it’s about an elite thing that’s not for me. It is for everybody, and everybody does move, and we all need to keep moving. So it’s just a fabulous showcase for the everyday opportunities that are out there across the UK that anyone can get involved with.”
Billy also got the opportunity to chat with Andrew Haugen, one of Disability Snowsport UK’s members, about how the club has impacted his life and why it’s important for disabled people to be allowed to get into physical sports.
Billy: I’m delighted to meet you, Andrew. Tell me what it’s like to be a member of Disability Snowsport UK.
Andrew: “There’s a nice sense of belonging. They know your requirements, what you need, what your limits are, and they cater to those limits, and it’s just a friendly atmosphere to be in.”
That’s a hugely important part of someone with a disability wanting to sign up to a club like this, how do they make you feel welcome when you try sit skiing for the first time?
“They’re full of encouragement and wanting me to do more, to push my limits, but with that in mind, they knew how to take my direction, they knew what I needed to work on and what I could leave and work on another time because with my problem, doing too many things at once, it just doesn’t work. I’ve got to concentrate on one thing and then move on to the next, and they took that onboard, and they made it all possible.”
How did it feel the first time you got yourself in a sit ski and you experienced that feeling of being on the slopes again?
“I’m 60 years old and I’ve never skied before I went into the sit ski. I used to ride motorbikes when I was younger, and I’d lost that because I’d been in the wheelchair for over 30 years, and once I got back on there, everything just came back to me from when I was younger. The freedom was just an amazing feeling. And then learning and progressing and getting it right, it’s beyond words, you can’t describe it. It just gave me so much self-confidence, and DSUK is a big part of that.”
It’s great to have that progression in the sport and be focused on your journey of learning how to sit ski, I imagine quite a big part of being a member of a club like Disability Snowsport UK is the other people that you meet along the way who have overcome similar challenges.
“We do a meet-up every month as well, so we get to ski with a lot of different members, and we make friends, and it’s just a good support network. We give each other tips and ideas, and everyone’s involved. The staff are very understanding, they’re very patient as well, and I think they need a lot of that with us.”
What is it like when you’re going full speed down the slopes on your sit ski?
“It’s just a big buzz. It’s hard to describe until…I crash! Oh yeah, if you don’t crash, you don’t learn. It’s just the speed and the control, and it’s awesome. It’s very freeing. Being stuck in a wheelchair for all this time and then being able to go and do things by yourself and have the freedom to do that, that’s the best feeling ever.”
And freedom, you mentioned it there, but you’ve kind of been someone who’s gone through the whole experience of being a member of DSUK because you’ve come here, you’ve learned to sit ski from scratch, and now you’re going off on your own trips away from the club. Is it the confidence that the club has instilled in you?
“I feel a bit sad, because I still want that partnership. You say going off, let’s get it right… It’s okay going off, but you still come back. You still want that support network, you still want that friendship with the club. So, no matter how many times you go off, you still want to come back.”
Even though you go away and do your own thing, you always come back to the club. Do you now feel that involved with a club that you want to spread the message, spread the word and get as many people into sit skiing as you possibly can?
“When I talk about sit skiing to other disabled people, I always encourage them to come to DSUK. That’s the starting point to learn how to ski, and I tell all my friends to get in contact with DSUK. I went on the trip last year to the [La Plagne] with Blesma, and I encouraged Blesma members who wanted to carry on skiing to get in touch with the DSUK wherever they live.”
You strike me as someone who loves that community experience, and you get that from multiple different sources, but Disability Snowsport UK is a big factor in that.
“Yes, it is. You can’t come here without the DSUK staff just coming to welcome you with open arms, and it’s just a good feeling. It’s that feel-good factor that’s that the DSUK give you, and it translates onto the slopes and further out.”
Disability Snowsport UK have won their Every Body Moves Club of the Year award. As a member of that club, how does that make you feel to see the club getting that sort of recognition?
“It’s great to see the recognition. I think it’s well deserved. I think what they do as a club for adaptive skiers is beyond the pale. They’re fantastic and I’m proud to be a member of them.”
Every Body Moves is developed by ParalympicsGB in partnership with Toyota as part of our commitment to creating sustainable mobility for all, with no one left behind. Every Body Moves believes there’s a sport or activity out there for everyone – and by highlighting inclusive activities and one-off events which non disabled and disabled people can do together, Every Body Moves can inform and inspire people to discover something new. Find out more about Every Body Moves by clicking here: https://everybodymoves.org.uk
All information was correct at the time of publishing.
