GBS Backing BSSNF’S New Funding Drive
Following the launch of BSSNF’s New Summer Crowdfunding Campaign, GB Snowsport Chief Executive, Vicky Gosling, explains why GBS is getting behind the charity’s fundraising efforts.
"As the world prepares for Beijing, it’s time to cast our eyes forward to the years ahead. Who are the athletes that will be representing the nation in 2026, 2030 and 2034? Where are they today? And what are the barriers which could prevent them from achieving their potential
These questions matter, not only because they’re key to us building on the incredibly successful past year in our sport, but because we want to make sure that any young athlete – whether they’re representing their nation now, or could be in a decade’s time – is given the best support in the world to achieve their potential.
The reality is we do know that many of our young athletes need support and assistance, especially compared to some of their global counterparts. With the greatest will in the world, a young British athlete (and often his, her or their family too) is likely to need to travel further and dedicate more time in the early parts of their career than many of their international contemporaries. As a nation with a limited number of domestic training and competition settings, we are always overcoming more obstacles than our competitors. Those pressures can be fiercest for our youngest athletes.
The pathway systems – ours, the Home Nations’ and many Academies’ – do their utmost to accommodate that support, but sometimes more is needed. And it’s that “something more” which makes the British Ski and Snowboard National Foundation (BSSNF) so important to our country’s future success.
Their support – to young athletes and to disabled athletes – is vital in helping to address some of those barriers and challenges that British snowsport stars can face, particularly early in their careers.
This summer, BSSNF are launching a new crowdfunding appeal – their first – to help ensure that more of our nation’s most talented athletes are able to benefit from their life-changing work and much needed support. over the past decade, dozens of athletes, many of whom are now regularly competing for Britain on the global stage, have been quietly backed by the foundation’s incredible work.
Knowing their vision for supporting ever more athletes in the years to come, it was a simple decision for us to get behind the campaign, to offer our support, and to say without hesitation that we believe in their ability to make a meaningful difference to the lives of British athletes now and in the future.
Courtesy of our athletes, coaches, sponsors and partners, we have been able to secure some amazing, once-in-a-lifetime rewards to help incentivise people to give as generously as they can to support the work of BSSNF. This is our way of saying ‘thank you’ for their incredible work and encouraging anybody that can to help them go even further in the years to come.
I hope you’ll agree with me about the importance of BSSNF for British snowsport. If you do, and if you can, I hope you’ll join us in supporting their fundraising campaign. In doing so, know you will have the gratitude of the whole national snowsport community behind you."
