2024 Progress, 2025 plan - NL #8
December 23, 2024
Happy Holidays everyone!
Thanks so much for being with us. I believe we have something truly special here with Ski Club Uganda. From the start, we’ve been touched by serendipity.
Today, we’ll
recap 2024 accomplishments
outline 2025 plans
ask for your help!
Phase 1: Infrastructure is done!
Ricky built our Website :)
Pauli made our Wikipedia site. Big thank you to Pauli for staying on top of approvals.
Morgan submitted our 501c3! The beast is finally done. She put in a lot of work, we’re very grateful.
Lucas made a wonderful recap of our trip.
SkiClubUganda_recap.pdf
Klemen & Lucas found us a Merch partner to make Team Ski Jackets, who is willing to market Ski Club Uganda across their 2000+ Club network.
Lukka, amid a tough semester, reached out to many Middlebury professors and finally found one who wants to support our project.
Max and I tested interview setups for the documentary. The barebones iPhone setup worked well, and we’ll be reaching out to folks soon.
Dr. Bob Nakileza is facilitating an academic partnership with Makerere, connecting us with the local government in Kilembe, and the govt. organization running the dams there.
Hannington is spreading the word about Ski Club Uganda in Kilembe, and tells us that he’s seeing more support in the community for his tree nursery than ever before, even from the local authorities.
Dr. Sarah Ivory will support our project and could potentially come for a first pilot tree planting trip in June with a few students from Penn State!
John Hunwick is making some connections for us with videographers who have high-quality footage for the documentary, as well as new people interested in skiing the Rwenzoris.
Nicole Dreon donated $200! Thank you so much, that helps us keep our website alive for 6 more months. It really makes a difference.
I (Florian) finally connected with USAID’s Uganda office. Also, connected with a family friend who runs a volunteer tourism office. She’d love to sell volunteer opportunities for our project once we have a pilot running. Also, through pure chance, I just connected with Brolin Mawejje, the only Ugandan Snow Sports Athlete! He’s a RedBull athlete, and tried to get in the 2022 Olympics for Snowboarding. I’ll talk with him soon, see if/how he may want to get involved. I also connected with a drone pilot who’d be happy to join a second trip in June.
Lucas & Pauli have also posted some images onto our social media. This is a huge help, thank you.
…
You know what’s incredible here?
Everyone is pitching in. And so much good is happening.
Before I continue, these are Ski Club Uganda’s goals:
Collect & share the stories of the legendary Ski Club Uganda.
Bring the world to ski the Rwenzoris while they still can.
Plant a tree nursery with the local community to help the people & the ecosystem.
So how do we grow in 2025?
Phase 2: Iterative Testing
At this point, we haven’t figured out what works on social media. We haven’t decided on a pilot project for the tree nursery. We also haven’t figured out fundraising.
So let’s keep it simple.
Max interviews our members for a documentary on Ski Club Uganda that we can share with small film festivals. (Look out for an email from us)
Pauli sends our story proposal (needs revamping) to publications across US/Europe. Seeing where we get positive feedback.
Ricky and I double down on social media. That means a lot more videos and content.
We plan a pilot tree nursery project in June. Morgan (and I) will work with Dr. Bob, Dr. Ivory, John Hunwick, Eddson & Hannington on it. Let’s start small, see how it goes, and learn from it.
We fundraise! Here’s where I need your help:
Please tell everyone you know about Ski Club Uganda.
People love it! And they’re happy to make amazing, unexpected connections for you, even donate (use the link below).
We’re still early in the fundraising process. At this point, we haven’t settled on the scope of a June pilot project, and what the costs will entail.
We’re also not sure just how many people will come. It could be as few as 10. It might be as many 30.
It depends on how many US & Ugandan students want to come, as well as how many new people we attract who want to Ski mount Rwenzori. Klemen and his family have expressed interest, a handful of my friends want to join, John has a contact, and that doesn’t even account for people we haven’t reached yet.
This takes planning, so if you’d like to join, please email me (florian@skiclubuganda.org).
Even though we don’t have a fixed fundraising goal yet, your early donations now help us show momentum when we go for grants & corporate funding.
Thanks again Jotam, Nubia, Anne, and Nicole for being our trailblazers!
If you haven’t supported us yet, find the link below.
Thanks again for being with us. We love doing this with you!
Look out for emails, I’ve got a backlog of followups that I shall be getting to as I can.
Happy Holidays,
Florian & Ski Club Uganda
