NZSKI

In the first of our winter series Off Piste, profiling NZSki staff at Coronet Peak and the Remarkables, Heather Turnbull takes five minutes to fill us in on the ups and downs of her job.

Ten Wakatipu children have completed the Step Up programme at Alpine Health & Fitness, the first fully-sponsored health and fitness education programme in Wakatipu for overweight children.

NZSki is targeting locals to fill 500 positions on its skifields for the 2012 ski season.

By tomorrow, NZSki.com expects around 5000 people to have applied for the roughly 450 jobs it will have on its three South Island skifields. Business editor Dene Mackenzie talks to NZSki chief executive James Coddington about recruitment, retention and business goals.

Remarkables and Coronet Peak parent company NZSki has topped last year's record staff retention rate, and 63% of last year's staff will return for the 2012 ski season.

Coronet Peak and Remarkables skifields parent company NZSki is confident 2011 early bird layby sales "exceeding expectations" bodes well for 2012 season passes.

A bigger than expected response to NZSki's early bird pass eight-month payment option has the company predicting healthy season pass sales when they open to residents next month.

Hundreds of seasonal workers were treated to a free lunch by NZSki in Queenstown yesterday, culminating in the "world's biggest snow dance" which people desperate for an income hoped would result in a much needed snowfall last night.

"Frustrating" was the only word NZSki chief executive James Coddington could find yesterday to describe the complete lack of snow on skifields, which is now leaving 540 NZSki staff without income.

The unseasonably warm weather which marked the 2011 autumn has continued into the first month of winter, frustrating Southern Lakes skifield operators as they gear up for the start of the 2011 season.

Warm weather this week means NZSki's plan to open Coronet Peak ski area on Saturday is in doubt.

A storm may be brewing over the Queenstown Recreation Ground before two Rugby World Cup teams use it for training later this year, less than a month after the Parklife Invitational snow event is held there.

NZSki unveiled a raft of improvements at the Coronet Peak and Remarkables ski areas to the Queenstown business community this week, but could not predict how the Christchurch earthquake and the Australian market would affect the winter season.

NZSki skifield developments have been cited as part of the reason for a rise in the cost of early-bird passes this season.