Here at Echo Towers, we are sick of hearing our own voices. The season has started, we’ve all made our brand new best friends and had various adventures in resort and on the piste with them. The Echo definitely wants to hear about it!
As you can tell, The Echo relies on your contributions, photos and gossip. Everything we print has some kind of source in resort. Without you guys we wouldn’t be half of what we are, so now is the time to get involved and get talking to us.
There are loads of ways to contribute, and there isn’t any right or wrong thing to send in. We’re happy to take anything, as we can’t be in every bar in town every night, so it’s you who are our eyes and ears.
If you have a cause you want to champion, then by all means write an article about it: global warming, charities or anything you are passionate about. Any one of them might appeal to someone else in resort and, before you know it, you might have a similarly-minded crew of new friends, all because you took the time to put your thoughts onto paper.
The same goes for anything you’ve done that you think other people might want to hear about. If you’ve had an amazing adventure on the mountain, an epic story of adventure, love, powder, riding and heartbreak, then get typing and send it in. We want to get you involved and to print things you want to read about. Getting it direct from the people who are out there every day is a great way for us to achieve that.
Articles come in all shapes and forms. We’ve done everything from basic French to tomato throwing festivals in Spain, fictitious Val d’Isere scout badges to what’s been happening in England, so we’re not fussy. We also think that you, the saisonnaires, have something worth saying and we’re happy to print it.
Got some advice you want to share: how to get a great tip or the best places to eat in resort. Send it in. I challenge you to find a chalet host who doesn’t want to know how to maximise their tip with good chat about the resort and mountain and good banter with their guests. Alternatively, you could write a guide for guests to get the most out of their hard-working staff while avoiding any surly glances over the afternoon cake. These are just ideas. You can take it anywhere. We’re certainly not here to tell you what to write. Let your imagination take you places.
When it comes to photos, don’t even think about it. If you’ve got a shot you think will make a great cover, mail it in or enter it in the photo competition to put your name in the draw for a free Planks t-shirt. The only guarantee is that if you don’t enter, you certainly won’t win. Everything from great shots of scenery to in-line speed skaters going down the Col d’Iseran have won. A good photo will get credit where it’s due.
Photos from nights out are also great. We do our best to get out there and get photos of you, but if you send them in we try and print EVERYTHING we can. Funny photos, or even photos of you and your mates out having a good time are all valuable in our eyes, so SEND THEM ALL IN!
This brings us to The Insider, the page that strikes fear into the hearts of many a saisonnaire. It relies solely on you getting loose-lipped about your mates’ antics or having a score to settle with someone who shopped your misdeeds to us the week before. There are endless possibilities. Something you may think is only moderately funny or largely inconsequential may actually turn out to be one of the funniest things to ever grace the pages of the Echo. The Insider is all good fun. We try to be funny rather than harsh, so don’t be scared and get involved. We love to hear anything you have to tell us, even if it’s only to pre-empt your mates telling us anyway.
We’ve tried to provide as many media as possible for you to get your thoughts and scribbles to us in as surreptitious a way as required. We’ve got an email address that’ll take all the attachments, photos and Insider stories you can throw at it: val@themountainecho.co.uk. We also have a Facebook page, so if your life revolves around stalking your friends you can stalk us as well, the difference being we’re quite happy if you post scantily clad photos of you and your friends and the accompanying stories on our wall. Most photos will end up on Facebook anyway, so you may as well cut out the middle man and post them to us as well. Finally, we have a website, www.themountainecho.co.uk, where you can download current and past issues or read them online.
As you can see, there is plenty of opportunity to get involved and make TME your magazine. We want you to feel that we represent everything about Val d’Isere that matters to the people who come here, and to be proud of that.
