NDU’s Skiing Society becomes NGO

The outdoors activity group will come out of university, non-profit and apolitical

BEIRUT - Badih Chayban

November 2003

The Skiing Society, a club that kicked off a year ago at Notre Dame University (NDU), decided to become a public non-profit association that organizes sports events on a national level, according to the club’s president, Joseph Salameh.

At the beginning of the 2002-2003 academic year, Salameh and a dozen of friends from NDU launched the Skiing Society.

The club now has more than 400 members from NDU and hundreds who were not registered at NDU and who participated in most of club’s events.

According to Salameh, the purpose of the club is to organize events that young people and students were not able to organize by themselves, and offer them better prices than those on the market.

“Most young people are too busy studying or working, they don’t have the time to plan entertainment events, and if they did, they will have to pay more money because the club’s sponsors pay most of the event’s cost,” he said.

The club organized dozens of events last year, including an off-road trip from Faraya to Bsharri on All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs), a trip on snowmobiles touring the high terrains of Kesrouan’s mountains, a four-wheel-drive off-road expedition, extreme skiing days, group skiing days and several sports tournaments.

The Skiing Society offered participants the required logistics for “symbolic fees,” Salameh said. The group also managed to offer club members a discount on a skiing day fee at the Faraya Mzar slopes during the last skiing season, in addition to special prices on purchase and rental of skiing equipments from a number of shops.

Hundreds participated in the clubs events last year, but most events were restricted to NDU students, Salameh said. After the success of the ATV trip, which was the club’s “starting point” as some 60 participants on 30 ATVs participated in the 12 hours journey, “we knew we were ready to go.”  

“This is what triggered the idea of growing and going on the national level,” he said, “our events shouldn’t be restricted to university students, and especially not only to NDU students, even if NDU supported us and played a key role in making us what we are now.”

During the ATV trip, a couple of bikers went off road and fell into a 10 meters valley, which caused them serious injuries. “But when every member and participant insisted on going all the way and we proceeded with the program, we knew that with such perseverance, the club was heading toward success.”

Salameh said that he has considered launching a Skiing Society in each and every university as an attempt to allow more students to take part in the club’s events, “but some universities’ by-laws do not allow the establishment of clubs. We had no choice except to act on our own.”

He said the Skiing Society had appointed representatives in charge of representing the club and recruiting students in the American University of Beirut, the Lebanese American University, the Lebanese University, the American University for Science and Technology and others.

Salameh said that he planned to register the club as a public non-profit and apolitical association at the Interior Ministry this November. “We want to establish an association that is far from politics and sectarianism, where young people are bound through sports, fun, entertainment and their hobbies.”

The club considers its “apolitical identity as vital,” he added. “We are not against young people and university students who are involved in political and social movements, but we are trying to offer them something new and different.”

He said the Skiing Society would publish in November a yearbook and distribute it in all universities. The yearbook would include all the necessary information on the club and a general invitation calling on people to join.

“If the number of recruitments will be as we are expecting, sponsors will provide us with more support and we will be able to organize a larger number of events this year,” Salameh said.

He said the yearbook would include a summary of all the events that took place last year “to tell the readers what they have been missing.” “But they still have a chance to make it up,” he added.

The yearbook would provide the “potential” members with an idea about the special offers they could get in sports equipment shops that are located in the different parts of the country, Salameh said, adding that it would list the events that the club planned for year 2004.

“If things will turn out the way we planned, the club will organize a number of events including trips on ATVs and snowmobiles; inter-members football, basketball, pool and table tennis tournaments; extreme skiing days; group skiing journeys; inter-members Carting championship and four-by-four vehicles off-road trips,” he said.

Members would receive a “significant special discount” on the fee of skiing days at the Faraya Mzar slopes, he added.

Salameh also said that the club was in the process of launching a website to keep all members informed about the scheduled events, adding that even if the number of the members was expected to rise significantly, each member would receive a newsletter via email before each event, “which would keep things under control.”

Salameh said the club’s “success” was the fruit of its members and administrative committee’s hard work, adding that NDU’s unconditional and imperative support of the club since its establishment was “highly rewarding.”