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World Snow Day Valiug 2019

20 January 2019 | Valiug | Romania
  350 Event Participants  

World Snow Day Valiug 2019


Valiug
 327415 Valiug 
Romania
(+407) 540 395 47
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World Snow Day Valiug 2019 was a real blast.
The event took place on the 20th of January, from 11am to 3pm. We celebrated thrice as this day was also the birthday of one of the ski instructors in our ski school and the birthday of one of the volunteers. It was perfect timing.
The day started shyly as the clouds were covering the area and it was pouring with rain, but luckily by the time the event started, the temperature dropped and we were able to salute the exact reason of celebration: the snow.
It was the fifth time we organized World Snow Day and the third time we officially registered our event and we can happily and proudly say that this day is beautifully growing year by year.
We are located in the South West of Romania, 120 km away form the biggest town in the area, in a village with little more than 700 inhabitants, at an altitude of about 500 meters above the sea level. This village has a slope of 800 meters, situated just nearby a lake. This is the place we call home. It is the place where we carry out our ski school activities and where, each year, we happily celebrate the World Snow Day. Thanks to this day, we are glad to mark this homey little village on the world map. Thanks to this day, we are elated to bring to the snow, as it happened this year, 120 children plus their parents.
Our ski school has 5 members who were the organizers and planned the event in detail. Having the pleasant past experiences, this year we had no more than 18 volunteers who landed a hand dealing with preparations before the event started, while the event was unfolding and after the event finished.
There were also partners which got involved and made everything smoothly possible. Our permanent host and slope administrator, Ponton Casa Baraj, offered to provide the sweet surprises that each participant child has received at the award ceremony and hot meals for the volunteers and dancers, Claris pension offered to accommodate the volunteers, Porsche Timisoara gave us a World Snow Day branded car and a bus to carry all the needed materials, county mountain rescuers and county constabulary have been present.
The head of the ski school was invited to radio and TV before the event, in order to present it, and on the celebration day, representatives of the regional radio station, Radio Romania Resita, and of the regional TV station, Banat TV, took part in the activities and gathered information for the news reports, also interviewing young participants and their parents.
For the World Snow Day, we created traffic signs with World Snow Day directing drivers in the village to the World Snow Day place on the slope. There were World Snow Day banners tied to the edges of the slopes, on the apres-ski, on the terrace of the apres-ski, basically everywhere one looked, there was a sign of the World Snow Day. Snow was also colorfully painted with FIS and World Snow Day signs. There were posters with the schedule of the event on the apres-ski and on the ski lift tickets house.
Registrations to the event started at 10 am at the bottom of the slope and during the first half an hour there were already 50 participants registered. The youngest participants were only 2 years old, shyly holding their parents' hands or satisfyingly standing next to their older siblings.
At 11 am the games, dances and fun activities started. There were two big special places for games, at the top of the slope and at the middle of it. Specialized funny animators took care of the atmosphere. They were dressed in characters the kids were so happy to recognize and they entertained the children for 3 hours, until 2pm. Their imagination was limitless as they carried out plenty of games which one could not image can take place on snow. One animator also face-painted the kids and made a small workshop where the kids painted snowmen and other winter small sculptures made out of a certain white material. Two of our ski school instructors and one volunteer were also costumed, to the joy of the kids that always wanted to take a photo with the cartoon superhero or ladybird.
At 12am, there was a special moment with traditional Romanian dances. Last year on the 1st of December, Romania has celebrated its centenary and we thought it would be a great idea to invite Barzava Resita folkloric ensemble to enchant the World Snow Day attendees. It was a master stroke as it snowed and it was a first-time experience for the dancers wearing traditional costumes to have a representation in open air, additionally while snowing, and all the viewers gathered around them and started dancing in the snow themselves. Not only the World Snow Day participants had a great experience, but also the dancers were joyful and after their bit has been done, they started trowing snowballs at each other and it felt like magic. The head of the ski school, Stefan Mircea, was also dressed in a traditional Romanian costume and many times throughout the day he skied while waving a Romanian flag. At 1pm, the local ski perfomance club, Adlernest Club, carried out a ski performance. The well trained children who are registered to the club and train all year round for competitions, went down the slope in a synchronized manner, to the joy of the onlookers.
At 2 pm, there was a funny ski contest. The children were grouped into two teams and had to go down the slope between the flags, carrying a balloon in any way they considered and when crossing the finish line, they were expected to pop the balloons, by any means.
After this fun ski contest, at around 2:30 pm, all the skiers went down the entire slope in the already traditional snake-shaped descent. Some of them were carrying umbrellas (blue, yellow and red - the colors of the Romanian flag), while we, all the organizers were blowing vuvuzelas making a looot of noise. Stefan Mircea, the head of the ski school, dressed in the traditional Romanian costume and holding the Romanian flag, was leading the descent. Every year, this is perhaps the most spectacular moment of the World Snow Day as the entire slope of no more than 800 meters length is grandly filled with more that 100 little skiers coming down in the beautiful snake-shaped manner, while the umbrellas make everything so colorful and the sounds of the vuvuzelas capture every attention. The moment looks marvelous from above, from the chairlift or from the drone, as the images captured by Ovid Teodoriu, one of the event photographers, show. Together with Ovid Teodoriu, Marius Ifrosa made sure to capture kids' and parents' emotions during the activities. We thank them so much!
Regional representatives have been present and apart from the live transmission from the event in Valiug, we made a live radio communication with our friends from Euroski in Vatra Dornei, Romania, thus bringing together two World Snow Day events organized by two ski schools in perhaps the most distant from each other two ski resorts in the country.
After the snake-shaped descent of the little skiers, little before 3 pm, there was the award ceremony on the apres-ski terrace. Each participant has received his or her World Snow Day diploma and a small paper bag filled with sweets. Immediately after, all the little prize receivers were waving their diploma in one hand, while already eating some sort of chocolate with the other hand.
This year, we prepared 150 diplomas and 150 paper bags with sweets. As we had 120 registered children, the remaining 30 bags with surprises have been delivered to the children of a school located in Ghiroda, a village nearby Timisoara.
All things considered, we can proudly say that World Snow Day was, once again, a huge success. We are happy to improve it and to grow it beautifully year by year. We are happy to be able to bring a cheerful day on the snow in the lives of so many children and parents.
We thank all participants and all volunteers and partners and we are looking forward to the World Snow Day next year. We'll reunite the forces again to make the 19th of January 2020 unforgettable.

Most relevant press links are below:
BanatTV show with the presence of the head of the ski school, before the event: https://www.btv.ro/cafeaua-de-dimineata-2019-01-19/?fbclid=IwAR1iNnoD9PiUPqcLggb4zZZWQJd032O0x4N1OxQknETtRVtZ8Z-kdSXqhu4
Radio Romania Resita article, also containing interviews with participants and organizers: http://www.radioresita.ro/330431/foto-ziua-mondiala-a-zapezii-a-strans-peste-120-de-copii-pe-partia-de-la-valiug?fbclid=IwAR0fwfaPrj2vrvIb94mCAQAfVY7KHma2-ygDvIEriQu4s0Tst2o042UFuuI#
BanatTV news article, after the event: http://www.btv.ro/veselie-si-dansuri-populare-la-valiug/

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1151911868293163/
Special Offers
- Free skis snowboards use
- Free entry tickets
- Free food and drink
- Free accommodation
- Free gifts and prizes
Great idea for game workshop on the snow
Young participant to the ski fun contest
Kids preparing for snake-shaped descent, led by the head of the ski school
Link to event video: www.facebook.com/buranschi/videos/1082635121939214/
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