EAPSI.org - About Us

<div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-align: center;">European Association of Professional Snowsport Instructors- EAPSI Transparency | Accountability | Reliability | Professionalism | Passion</div><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">EAPSI is based on a ground-breaking new philosophy in professional snowsports instruction which harnesses the innovations of online video to create a totally transparent, completely open system of snowsports instructor qualifications that is accessible to everyone. EAPSI has been created by passionate instructors with decades of experience and qualifications in many countries national systems including: <a href="http://www.casi-acms.com/" style="color: rgb(0, 65, 233);">CASI</a> (Canadian Association of Snowboard Instructors), <a href="http://www.snowpro.com/" style="color: rgb(0, 65, 233);">CSIA</a> (Canadian Ski Instructors' Alliance), <a href="http://www.nzsia.org/" style="color: rgb(0, 65, 233);">NZSIA</a> (New Zealand Snowsports Instructors' Alliance), <a href="http://www.nzsia.org/snowboard/" style="color: rgb(0, 65, 233);">SBINZ</a> (Snowboard Instruction New Zealand), <a href="http://www.basi.org.uk/" style="color: rgb(0, 65, 233);">BASI</a> (British Association of Snowsport Instructors), <a href="http://www.esf.net/en/" style="color: rgb(0, 65, 233);">ESF</a> (Ecole de Ski Francais), <a href="http://www.thesnowpros.org/" style="color: rgb(0, 65, 233);">PSIA - AASI</a> (Professional Ski Instructors of America - American Association of Snowboard Instructors) and <a href="http://www.pzn.pl/" style="color: rgb(0, 65, 233);">PZN</a> (Polski Związek Narciarski (Polish Ski Federation). With this diverse background of knowledge and experience in global snowsports qualifications EAPSI has taken the best elements of the various systems and combined them together to create a simple, transparent 3 tier system- EAPSI levels 1,2 and 3 for both skiing and snowboarding respectively. Why Do We Need A New Approach? Up until now the calibration of qualifications throughout the various bodies has been highly based on the personal opinions and perspectives of whichever trainer/ evaluator happened to take a group for their exams- regardless of which system. The evaluators, although always highly experienced and well qualified are constantly having to adapt their own understanding of where "The Standard" lies depending on the ever-changing information which comes from the ever-changing bureaucrats in the Head Offices of the various organisations creating a maze of potential pitfalls which so often has led to people missing out on qualifications with a "harsh" evaluator only to ski or board with someone who was evaluated with a "soft" evaluator and passed who clearly wasn't at their own level leading to understandable feelings of betrayal and injustice from the system in which they invested so much time, effort and money. In the worst case scenarios it has been clear that favouritism and bias has reared its ugly head where people with "cozy" relationships with evaluators have gained top level qualification ahead of other more skilled and experienced snowsports professionals. The Solution The solution we have created is a freely accessible system with the clearest elements which must be completed for each level of qualification in both technical and teaching aspects of skiing and snowboarding respectively. Each element must be filmed and uploaded to a video sharing site (such as <a href="http://www.youtube.com/" style="color: rgb(0, 65, 233);">Youtube</a>) and then added to each individual's personal EAPSI profile page. Anyone can create an EAPSI profile free of charge regardless of their experience in snowsports. There are no membership fees or annual "dues" to pay and there NEVER will be. All profiles are freely accessible to the public free of charge at all times. This also creates an excellent opportunity for instructors to use their EAPSI profile pages as a tool for highlighting to prospective employers and/ or clients exactly what they can do with no area for confusion as all is completely clear on their videos. All grading of videos submitted to EAPSI is carefully monitored by experienced and qualified professionals who also have EAPSI profiles clear to see to all. As all profiles are public if anyone has any queries then they can freely voice their concerns and/ or thoughts on the feedback areas of where the video is hosted allowing for friendly and polite debate to the benefit of us all.