Thinking about New Year’s resolutions? Many Revelstoke organizations offer opportunities to learn something new, brush up on your skills or expand your creative frontiers. Here’s some of what’s in store for 2024.
Survive 2024 with Avalanche Skills Training from Revelstoke Mountain Resort
Living in a mountain town comes with unique challenges, including the risk of avalanches. For Revelstoke powder hounds, backcountry explorers and heli-skiers, avalanche skills could very well be the difference between life and death.
Vincent Lafontaine, the Mountain Snow School director at Revelstoke Mountain Resort (RMR), chatted with the Mountaineer about the school’s Level 1 avalanche skills training course, available to participants ages 15 and up.
“We cover basic avalanche protocol, and safe mountain travel,” Lafontaine said. “Those are some of the other things that are discussed over a two-day course. It’s practiced and taught by our own trainers on the mountain, and we follow the curriculum that’s established by Avalanche Canada.”
The groups have a small student-to-instructor ratio, with a maximum of eight people per course. Though the classes stay in the resort’s boundaries, Lafontaine said there is plenty of terrain that offers good situations to learn about the type of environment you might encounter in the backcountry.
For backcountry explorers, best practice is to never travel alone, and Lafontaine said a good portion of the Level 1 course is focused on companion rescue. Overall, the course is a great opportunity to jumpstart safety skills that will make your backcountry adventure safer.
“It’s just so important to educate everyone out there who wants to learn and wants to explore and discover a little bit of what the backcountry has to offer,” he said. “Even the fundamentals
we teach throughout this Level 1 can be something life saving in the situations you might encounter, so it’s quite important.”
Visit revelstokemountainresort.com for more information and to register for upcoming courses.
Build confidence in language and home skills with Columbia Basin Alliance for Literacy
The courses offered by the Columbia Basin Alliance for Literacy Revelstoke (CBAL) are free ways to add numerous skills to your toolbox in 2024. In addition to many classes geared towards youngsters, CBAL teams up with local organizations to offer classes for adults.
Children and youth can work on their DIY skills in an array of sewing classes.. Younger kids start off with hand sewing and the courses get progressively more involved for older students, said Koreen Morrone, CBAL’s community literacy outreach coordinator.
For teenagers, a current offering is an eco-sewing course, which teaches how to refurbish, fix and up-cycle fabrics. Because of the amount of interest in sewing fundamentals, Morrone said she plans to include an adult sewing class in 2024.
They also have a course dedicated to seniors called Telling Our Life in Stories, which allows participants to explore different eras of their lives and share what they learned.
“It’s a journaling program, but it’s more looking at actually telling their story,” Morrone explained. “With seniors, they have so much to say, even though they don’t necessarily think it, but especially like they’ve seen things and witnessed things that some generations would never even be able to fathom.”
Their scrapbooking class also helps participants tell their life stories, but through photos, words and mixed media.
For caregivers just starting their stories, CBAL also offers a program called Mother Goose. It’s for families with children under three, and helps build reading and bonding skills.
“We sing rhymes, we sing songs — and really the concept with that one is developing early literacy, like oral skills with children and helping the caregivers with ideas for songs. Because sometimes, you forget all the songs that you knew when you were little,” Morrone said. “So we’re giving them early literacy skills along the way.”
For more information on upcoming classes, visit cbal.org/revelstoke.
Grow your creative side with Revelstoke Visual Arts Centre
Revelstoke Visual Arts Centre (RVAC) offers a range of classes and workshops, including many free opportunities to nurture your creative side.
The pottery classes are very popular and fill up quickly, said Taylor Sandell, programming director at RVAC. The centre also offers free drop-in art nights, various painting and drawing classes, poetry and creative writing and even an intro to power tools workshop.
“We run huge reams of workshops and lately we’ve kind of reestablished the programming committee as well, so the real focus on our workshops is connecting the Revelstoke community with a broad range of different mediums,” she told the Mountaineer.
In the past, Sandell said art has had the reputation of being daily exclusive, so RVAC is working to make it more accessible and broaden the programs being offered. As the centre’s classes are regularly selling out, Sandell added she feels they are having success in meeting the needs of Revelstoke’s craftiest.
For those who doubt their creativity, Sandell encouraged bravery and curiosity in exploring new art mediums or even jumping into making art for the first time.
“I’m a huge believer that art is for everybody, regardless of skill level or background,” she said. “Your work also doesn’t have to be ‘good.’ It can be because it feels good or because it is fun to make and explore. I think the best art is art that doesn’t have a lot of pressure on it, and personally my favourite art to make is ridiculous art.”
If you’re still intimidated by leaning into your creative side in a group setting, Sandell assured that most of the workshops offered are beginner-friendly and low pressure.
“Come on down, everybody is welcome!”
Visit revelstokeartgallery.ca/education/ for more information on workshops and to sign up for classes.
Fresh start, bright ideas with Revelstoke Idea Factory
Revelstoke Idea Factory’s new membership model removes one more barrier for community members wanting to learn a new skill in the new year. The Idea Factory is a collaborative fabrication lab, offering training, support and equipment to bring ideas to life. Machines include laser cutters, 3-D printers and other equipment to digitally design and build your creations.
Potential members can now purchase a yearly membership at $50 and get one month of free equipment use. After one month of testing things and learning in the factory, users will be charged per minute of machine usage.
“That one month is sort of meant to get all the mistakes out of your system,” Clack said. New members can familiarize themselves with the equipment, trial project ideas and not worry about the cost of mistakes made while learning.
Clack and other supporters are also onsite to help share knowledge and troubleshoot hurdles on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.
“It’s hard to get just an intro to the machine and then come back and start using it right away,” Clack explained. “A lot of people seem to want to come back the next three or four times while I’m here. Then maybe the fifth or sixth time they’re comfortable coming in on their own and they won’t need any help.”
The free month of equipment usage is available to all new members until March 2024. The Idea Factory also hosts courses for available equipment, with membership included in the course cost. Visit revelstokeideafactory.ca to check out what’s available at the Idea Factory.
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