Five Skills Your Snowmobile Club Needs in 2023

Over 70,000 hours are contributed by BC snowmobile club volunteers every year.

Traditionally, these tasks have been showcased as boots-on-the-ground jobs including constructing shelters, splitting firewood, and completing maintenance on trail grooming equipment. Our social feeds have been dominated by burley ‘old dudes’ on the end of an axe or a hammer quite literally building our riding communities from the ground up.

These trade-based roles will always be essential, but many are struggling to fill an emerging administrative skillset void. Club operations now include digital communications, mapping, board governance, health and safety, increased reporting and permitting requirements, to name a few!

Here are 5 remote-based skills your snowmobile club needs right now that will have a lasting and meaningful impact where you ride:

Content Creation:

If you love taking photos or putting together those banger edits - consider sharing with your local club. Tag the club and permit them to share. Great content helps clubs convey conditions, raises the stoke level and gets you exposure as well.

Treasurer / Bookkeeping:

If excel spreadsheets get you revved up, those calloused-handed volunteers I talked about above would be relieved to have your skills behind the keyboard. Most clubs have basic accounting needs that require 2-3 hours a month. Or maybe it’s helping the club set up tracking spreadsheets for project budgets, volunteer hours, parts ordering, or trailhead tracking.

Grant Writing:

That new shelter, groomer, or signage program is almost always thanks to a persuasive sledder's exceptional technical writing ability. Curating grants that match club needs, organizing proposal budgets and quotes, and eloquently conveying funding needs is a highly sought-after skill in not-for-profits. This is a great task for those who like research, project management, and turning dreams into reality. 

Website Development, Graphic Design, and Social Media Coordination:

Less than a quarter of all snowmobile clubs in the province have a website. A few more may have regularly maintained social media accounts. Have you ever struggled to find conditions, a newsletter update, or event details for your favorite club? You can help with that!

Health and Safety / Risk Management:

Leverage your professional skills in the ‘real world’ to help set your snowmobile club up for success. The BCSF provides a variety of templates and guidance documents that require just a small amount of customization for local operations. Your experience reviewing policies, board governance documents, training manuals, or other foundational documents is needed to improve club efficiency, reduce risk, and support long-term planning for the club.

What are you waiting for?

Get started by reaching out to your local club or attending an in-person or virtual monthly meeting to learn more. Need some help connecting? Email office@bcsf.org.

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