If you are a veteran in the ski racing community you may remember when there was only one race club based at Silksworth, but for as long as I’ve been skiing there were two: Ravens and Tigers. I’ve never seen a rivalry between the two clubs, simply an opportunity for me to train more - racing and training at both clubs for many years, however I have never quite understood why there has been two clubs based at the same slope especially since they have had many common members over the past 3-4 years.
With Ravens dating back to 1975 and Tigers being founded in 1995, its safe to say that both clubs have a lot of history and individual identities which the committees and members are insistent to uphold.
Nevertheless, in 2017 the clubs made the decision to create a joint membership, seeing that many athletes attended both and paying double membership to ski at the same slope with many of the same people seemed unnecessary.
This decision worked wonders for the involvement in North East skiing with combined membership of Ravens and Tigers increasing from 133 to 193 in 2018.
But the story doesn’t stop there. Joint membership was just the beginning of a great partnership between the two clubs and by 2018 not only were the participants in the clubs made up of mostly the same people but also the committees with David Chapman and Martin Forster acting as Chair and Vice Chair of each club.
In my personal view there was no reason for the clubs not to become one in a merger - with the members of each becoming a close nit community and what quite frankly feels like a family. That being said, the decision is ultimately up to the members and in November 2018 a vote was raised amongst the clubs and what the club would be called in case of a merger.
On 13th December 2018 the decision was finalised with 104 of 107 members who voted, voting to merge the clubs together, and the decided name is ‘Ravens Tigers Ski Racing and Development Club’ or RT Racing as I like to call it. This is a great move forward for North East skiing and I hope that the region will flourish. Gone are the days of having to change the club we race for in inter club competitions. Gone are the days of having to decide which club we race for despite being members of both. But not gone are the days where we remember what great clubs both Tigers and Ravens are and the history and achievements they have.
I am proud to be a part of ‘Ravens Tigers Ski Racing and Development Club’ and can’t wait to see what the future holds – onwards and upwards!