For the 14th year, the New England Ski Museum’s Cal Conniff Grant program will allocate up to $3,000 in grant funding to individuals or organizations consistent with the Museum’s mission to preserve the history of skiing and winter sports.
The grants are funded with proceeds of the Hannes Schneider Meister Cup Race, held each March at Cranmore Mountain Resort in North Conway, New Hampshire. This year the successful applicants will be announced on Friday, March 1, 2019 at the opening reception of the Hannes Schneider Race in Cranmore’s Eating House Restaurant.
Cal Conniff had a distinguished career in the American ski industry, culminating in 16 years as President and Executive Director of the National Ski Areas Association. Following his retirement Conniff’s energy and ski industry knowledge benefitted the New England Ski Museum, which Conniff served as a director, president, and founder of the Hannes Schneider Meister Cup Race. In recognition of those contributions, in 2006 the ski museum designated its existing grant awards the Cal Conniff Grant program.
Cal Conniff at Sun Valley, 1951
The application process is kept purposely informal. Applicants submit a letter that outlines a description of the project, its goals, the audience that it will impact, and the dollar amount requested. Supporting information for the application should include:
- Organization’s description or individual’s resume, including mailing address;
- two letters supporting the merits of the individual or program;
- one representative photograph for publication if the applicant is successful.
Questions or application materials may be e-mailed to staff@skimuseum.org or mailed to:
Cal Conniff Grant Committee
New England Ski Museum
135 Tramway Drive
Franconia, NH 03580-4403
The deadline for applications is February 7, 2019.
The Cal Conniff Grant Program is open to individuals, organizations and educational institutions with an interest in winter sports, such as Alpine and Nordic skiing, snowboarding and snowshoeing. Any group that can demonstrate the need for funding for education related to snow sports, preservation of skiing history, or encouraging participation in skiing and riding is eligible.
The selection process is conducted by the Museum’s Grant Committee on an objective and nondiscriminatory basis. The committee judges applications based on the following:
- the proposal’s contribution to the preservation of ski or snowboard history;
- the extent to which the project encourages skiing or snowboarding participation;
- the importance of the grant to the success of the proposed program;
- the educational value of the proposal;
- the applicant’s degree of organization in the pursuit of the project.
In 2018, Cal Conniff Grant were awarded to these groups:
The Ski Museum of Maine, Kingfield ME: $1,000 to purchase equipment to capture oral histories of significant Maine ski figures, and for training on best practices for obtaining oral histories.
The John G. Zimmerman Archive, Pebble Beach, CA: $1,000 toward the cost of digitizing John Zimmerman’s ski photography portfolio. Over three decades John Zimmerman’s stunning ski photography appearing in Sports Illustrated, Time and LIFE defined the sport for millions, from four Winter Olympics to heli-skiing, and from ski fashion to profiles of the sport’s legends.
Loon Mountain Ski and Snowboard School, Lincoln, NH: $500 to expand a “feature based” learning environment that have been a tremendous asset to the New England Disabled Sports Program, as well as their regular ski and snowboard programs.
The JETS Foundation, Thornton, NH: $500 to support the Junior Enrichment Through Sports ski and snowboard programs at Waterville Valley that allow local youth in grades 1 through 8 who participate in local school winter sports programs to ski and snowboard on weekends and school vacation weeks when those programs are not available to them.