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Adaptive Sports committee launched at Mountain Creek

| 17 Nov 2014 | 12:58
    Chuck Wallace, Advisory Committee member demonstrates proper adaptive skier evacuation from a chair lift.
    Chuck Wallace, Advisory Committee member demonstrates proper adaptive skier evacuation from a chair lift.
    John Swartwood, PSIA Adaptive ski examiner and advisory committee member gives evacuation instructions to Mountain Creek Ski Patrol.
    John Swartwood, PSIA Adaptive ski examiner and advisory committee member gives evacuation instructions to Mountain Creek Ski Patrol.
    John Swartwood, PSIA Adaptive ski examiner and advisory committee member, gives last-minute instructions to Chuck Wallace, a Mountain Creek ski patroler.
    John Swartwood, PSIA Adaptive ski examiner and advisory committee member, gives last-minute instructions to Chuck Wallace, a Mountain Creek ski patroler.
    Chuck Wallace is assisted by Mountain Creek Ski Patrollers in proper chair lift evacuation procedure.
    Chuck Wallace is assisted by Mountain Creek Ski Patrollers in proper chair lift evacuation procedure.
    Members of the Advisory Committee - Front: Vice President Dan Monzo, Secretary/Treasurer Buffy Whiting, President John Whiting, and John Swartwood. Back: David Rowan, Tim Stone, Chuck Wallace & Susanne Ebling.
    Members of the Advisory Committee - Front: Vice President Dan Monzo, Secretary/Treasurer Buffy Whiting, President John Whiting, and John Swartwood. Back: David Rowan, Tim Stone, Chuck Wallace & Susanne Ebling.

VERNON — The Vernon area group working to provide an adaptive ski program for special athletes with handicaps and disabilities took another step toward achieving its goal on Wednesday, Nov. 12, with the adoption of a set of bylaws and the election of officers for the Ad Hoc Adaptive Sports Program at Mountain Creek Advisory Committee.

Following the unanimous adoption of the organization’s bylaws the group elected John Whiting to serve as president, Dan Monzo to serve as vice president and Buffy Whiting to be the organization’s secretary and treasurer.

One of the first orders of business was to expand the interest of the group by making a change in the name of the organization from just an adaptive “ski” program to and adaptive “sports” program anticipating that the success of the initial program’s focus on skiing and snowboarding will expand to include other sports.

The group made up of the original program development group of Susanne Ebling, Tim Stone, Dan Monzo, David Rowan, John Swartwood, Charles Wallace, Buffy Whiting and John Whiting have been joined by Matt Castelluccio, the adaptive sports coordinator at Helen Hayes Hospital, Cindy Tempelton, Darren Tempelton, John Tempelton and Mat Yarossi from the Windham Ski Resort’s Adaptive Ski Foundation, all experienced in adaptive skiing, have teamed together to become members of the newly formed Advisory Committee.

The Adaptive Sports Program at Mountain Creek Advisory Committee has two basic goals, the first to set up a more formal 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation to receive contributions and donations and to derive the tax benefits associated with being a non-profit corporation. The second goal is to begin to provide adaptive ski and snowboarding instruction as early as this ski season on a limited basis to local special athletes.

Progress has already been made in the achievement of this goal by the efforts of the Mountain Creek Ski Patrol Director and Committee Adviser Susanne Ebling, assisted by John Swartwood and Chuck Wallace, working with the Resort Ski Patrol staff to practice safe evacuation of a special athlete on a bi-sled stranded on a disabled chair lift.