RUMFORD — The Chisholm Ski Club is preparing for the 2009-2010 ski season. In conjunction with Black Mountain of Maine, the club is providing volunteers and programs to encourage skiing activities in both alpine and Nordic techniques in the River Valley. The club is working to expand the volunteer base to support these efforts.

During the ski season, the Chisholm Ski Club promotes and conducts a variety of competitions for the Maine school and college systems, the New England cross country ski program (NESNA) and the national college championship for USCSA.

This year, the club wants to expand the number of volunteers for the competition program during the next two months as they prepare for the USSA National Nordic Championships scheduled to be held during January of 2011 and 2012 in Rumford. 

Volunteers will have an opportunity to become acquainted with the program and get experience in a variety of assignments during the winter. The club’s goal is to introduce new volunteers to the events and encourage them to provide help during the national championships.

Volunteer jobs will include crowd control, timing, start and finish monitoring, competitor assistance, course checking, course set-up and take-down. Most jobs can be handled by men or women and involve time outdoors, but there will be backups to provide relief.

All volunteers will have the hospitality of Muriel’s Kitchen, a place to find coffee and home baked goodies, to rest, warm up and have lunch during all day schedules.

Many of the events are scheduled during the week in the afternoon in order to avoid interfering with the Black Mountain weekend activities. A schedule of the planned events for 2009-2010 is available on the Chisholm Ski club Web site, www.chisholmskiclub.org.

Anyone interested in learning more about the volunteer program should contact Chummy Broomhall at 364-8315 or Paul Jones at 562-7172.