Also, there’ll be a Pajarito Mountain Tree Planting Day on Saturday, September 15th. The Pajarito Environmental Education Center and REI are sponsoring a work party starting at 9:00 am, with a barbecue at 4 pm. Come on up and help them get our future glade runs in shape!

One popular route to gaining coveted work experience is through an ‘internship.’ Those seeking experience in a particular field of work are given the chance through internships to gain valuable exposure in a job they desire, to see how other employees work and contribute to an organisation, company or group and demonstrate they can function as an employee. A solution? Certainly, but it’s not for all and that’s not for want of desire.

Whilst internships are certainly an excellent opportunity to gain work experience they rarely offer a salary. The absence of a wage immediately prohibits huge numbers from being able to regard them as a viable start to a career they so desperately desire. Many internships exist on the basis that interns gain otherwise difficult to obtain experience and are therefore highly popular. Those offering internships are therefore able anticipate recruiting valuable free labour without having to offer any remuneration.

Equally prohibitive for many young people is that a large number of internships are offered by organisations a significant distance from their home, often in central London. Investment is therefore required merely in attending an internship and with commuting expensive at the best of times without a wage this becomes even more apparent. As a result interns are often forced to supplement their placements with part time or evening work. Superficially internships, then, may appear a potentially perfect start to a career but are actually a luxury few can afford.

So is the investment worthwhile? Undoubtedly so as a sizeable number of young people are making what is fast becoming a ‘normal’ route to full time employment. Through necessity many young people are finding internships a requirement in order to gain the experience needed to stand any chance of successfully competing in a job market that is offering so little to so many.

But further issues contribute to problems for the youth unemployed. Raising the retirement age, for example, may well lessen contributions required of middle aged workers to the elderly but an increasing number of over 65 year olds at work will leave fewer jobs available for the young. And the irony of all this? More than ever before young people have done exactly what teachers, politicians and those supposedly ‘in the know’ told them to do in ensuring their futures were as secure as possible. The target of 50% of young people at university was reached with those who listened to advice: “study hard at school and then study a bit harder at university.” Unfortunately the rest, as was promised, has not yet fallen into place.

October 1^st Annual Work Party

Meet at 9am at the Lodge to organize crews: For those who can’t make it at 9am check in at the office to determine where the crews are on the mountain. Unsupervised children’s activities will be available around the base area.

PAINTING – low impact activities (base area)

• Paint tables on lodge deck – Blue
• Stairs to the LoneSpruce chair – Brown
• Ticket office fascia
• Possibly railings at ski school

CLEANING– low impact activities (base area)

• Clean up brush around the lodge, ski patrol and snow school buildings
• Clean windows and lockers rooms

CARPENTRY – low impact activities (base area)

• Men’s bathroom in lodge, counter, sinks, etc.
• Replace base boards on lodge deck

LOPPING – hiking involved

• Mals Run
• Compromise
• Wild Cat
• Mushroom

CHIPPING – Dirty, messy, hard work

• Lone Spruce
• Breathless

CHAIN SAW and STACK – skilled labor only

WHAT TO BRING:

Work clothes (clothes that can get dirty or get paint on them), water, work gloves, loppers if you have them).IF YOU HAVE: Sanders, Drills and bits, Jig Saw, Chop Saw, Crowbar, Extension cords or saw horses PLEASE BRING THEM

PIT BBQ, beer, water and sodas will be served around 4pm

Work party flier

We’ll meet in the parking lot below the lodge at 5:30pm and drive up but make sure you contact me if you’d like to help out in case any plans change (662-1461, np@vicontrols.com).

Tuesday evening, Aug 16th the chainsaw crew will finish upper Lone Spruce and move on to the top of Aspen/Wildcat.  Susan Brockway and Paul Allison are leading crews for erasing a fire line on mid WildCat and making plans for other work.

Wednesday evening, Aug 17th Neal Pederson will be leading a crew for bike trail work.

For jobs not listed here, contact Brian Foley.

Contacts on the ski area are:
Tom Long’s Cell phone is 412-2563 and his email is gm@skipajarito.com
Clay Peres is in the office 662-5725 email clay@skipajarito.com
Mike Green’s Cell phone is 690-1668
Brian Foley’s Cell phone is 948-6863 email btf@lanl.gov
Butch Wood’s cell phone is 412-1419 email igorwood@aol.com
Neal Pederson Cell phone is 660-1400 email np@vicontrols.com

As always,please contact the crew leader beforehand to let them know you are coming to help.

Chainsaw crew working July 30 2011

Last weekend the chipping crew finished cleaning up the top of Compromise and the chainsaw group finished felling and limbing dead trees on the West edge of Pussycat.  Many of the bike trails are coming back into shape, and new sections of bike trail were created to skirt some of the burned area on the west side of the mountain.

We are still looking for crew leaders for groups to do other types of work on the mountain.  Paul Allison is organizing a group to do lighter work, including hiking over the mountain with trail maps to mark the locations of fallen trees in the slopes or other work that should be done before snow comes.