Member Types

Division members can expect the Patrol and Division leadership to provide opportunities for every Patrol Member to excel in.  We encourage members to participate in training events division-wide, not just within their given patrol.  This helps everyone advance their skills in a given field, and helps our members become better Instructors.  We also strive to find as many viable patrol opportunities as possible throughout the year.  Many of our members have an expressed desire to be active in their community, and there are ample events year round for that.

Our expectations for NSP members are time and commitment.  The most effective method for mastering the skills required to be a National Ski Patroller is repetition.  We offer classes annually and we expect that our members will participate as students, assistants and instructors whenever possible.  We understand that our members are volunteers with personal or professional commitments to juggle.  We expect that our members will make volunteering with the NSP a commitment that they can enjoy as a part of their everyday life.

Benefits of Instructing

A popular meme from Malcolm Gladwell's book, "Outliers", is the "Ten Thousand Hours" rule stating that ten-thousand hours of practice are required to become an expert at any skill.  Given the unpredictable nature of emergencies, it is unlikely that volunteer responders will experience a wide enough variety of rescue events to become experts at all medical responses.

For this reason, we strongly encourage all European Division Patrol members to participate actively in training events beyond the requirements for their current patrol rank. Instructing and assisting candidates helps reinforce skills and knowledge covering the full breadth of the NSPS curriculum.  Our constant focus on training helps provide all members with the best opportunities to become the best prepared as possible for an emergency situation.