CUSSC Celebrates Another Year of Success.

The Canterbury University Ski and Snow club held their highly anticipated annual snow and ski sale on May 3rd.

With lines forming onto the street of Ilam road as early as 8am, New Zealand’s largest snow sale again saw success, with the line not ending until the afternoon.

Though the two were busy, a day out from another huge event for the club in the Amazing Race, I was able to speak with Vice President Anise Maclean and Club captain Zac Bonnici about some of the behind-the-scenes antics of the sale.

Maclean described the club’s role as essentially being a short-term TradeMe, acting as a middleman for the people and stores looking to sell their old gear.

“We don't really get many donations, as this can encourage an influx of older gear that is less likely to sell. We aim to fill our sale room with well-kept gear at various price points so there is something for everyone," the executives said.

The sale as a whole had roughly 2000 items on sale, worth over $500,000.

The sale is incredibly important to the club. With their Temple Basin lodge and many other events requiring funding throughout the year, it is always vital that the snow sale can generate enough revenue to assist this.

“With most of our events we don’t even aim to make profit we just aim to break even, if it's expensive we just take a hit and try to get people there. A lot of the events actually lose money,” Maclean and Bonnici explained.

Both were relieved to see their work on the snow sale finally completed. Though an exciting time for the club, Bonnici described it as a full-time job, and showed some rare excitement to catch up on his school work.

All 24 members of the exec were involved in organising the sale, and a further 75 volunteers helped out across the weekend.

“The committee is divided into groups based on tasks, so the publicity and social teams work year round. Fundraising’s whole job across the year is snow sale, so they have a really intense few weeks leading up to the sale,” Anise said.

But for CUSSC, the work doesn’t just end after the day of the sale, with admin jobs extending weeks after the sale in order to sort the equipment.

“Our labelling system has to be manually entered for public sellers, and of course there’s some people who make mistakes,” Maclean said.

The executives always encourage more volunteers for those who want to get involved in the University’s snow and ski scene.

Not only does working at the sale help to meet and catch up with other avid skiers, but Maclean and Bonnici both found that even though it’s extremely tiring, the sale is actually quite rewarding.

PHOTO: Samantha McClendon, Dupe.