Up to the challenge?
illustration by Ryan Smeeton
Winter Challenge returns after three-year abscence
THE LAST WEEK of January will be the biggest test Alexandre Chaput will have to face since being elected vp social for the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa (SFUO) in October. Chaput is resurrecting the Winter Challenge after its cancellation in 2007 and will run the event during the same week as Community Life Service (CLS)—the University of Ottawa office that originally cancelled the Challenge—will hold its annual Snow Festival.
The Winter Challenge, first held in 2003, is a four-day competition in which teams of four students complete a different obstacle course each day. The details on the obstacle courses are revealed on the day of the event, but Chaput hinted that the obstacles will be based on kindergarten games.
“Every element in the Winter Challenge is designed so you don’t have to be a school jock to perform well,” he said.
A concert at Pure Lounge at 426 Saint-Joseph Blvd. with MSTRKRFT as the headlining act will cap off the Winter Challenge on Jan. 29.
Chaput helped to organize the 2007 Winter Challenge as a logistics coordinator at Community Life Service and ran his election campaign on the promise of restoring the event after CLS replaced it with the Snow Festival in 2008. The Festival, also scheduled for the week of Jan. 25-28, offers students the opportunity to try a variety of winter activities on campus including dog sledding, snowshoeing, and winter camping.
“The Winter Challenge was a beautiful event,” said Jane Cyr, Events and Programming Supervisor at CLS. “However, when you looked at the financial implications and the amount of work and the number of hours that were used… it didn’t make sense.”
CLS employed two students on a full-time basis during the summer and two students part-time from September to February to organize the Winter Challenge in 2007. Cyr estimates that the overall cost of the event was over $100,000. The SFUO expects to spend $40,000 for the Winter Challenge this year—of which $10,000 is taken directly from the vp social budget and the other $30,000 is raised through sponsorship. This price tag is $30,000 less than what former vp social Joël Larose used to fund the Winter Games last year.
The SFUO is using $5,000 of its budget to buy prizes, although some of the major prizes, such as a trip to Florida and tickets to a Senators hockey game, are sponsored. The Graduate Students’ Association, Alumni Association, and Gee-Gees are also providing some prizes. Chaput admitted that the main challenges he faces now are not financial, but time constraints.
“Me coming in November is a big handicap to have, organizing an event [of] this scale,” Chaput said. “I had to have lower expectations for this Winter Challenge.”
By the time Chaput assumed his role as vp social, CLS already booked the Tabaret lawn for its Snow Festival. This forced Chaput to relocate the obstacle courses from the Winter Challenge’s traditional setting to three locations around the University Centre and Morisset terrace. He also limited registration to 150 teams, down from 300 teams that were sought for previous Challenges.
Cyr doubts that the Winter Challenge can attract large numbers of students. She noted that of the 230 teams that registered for the event in 2007, up to 70 withdrew by the fourth day. CLS also noticed a decline in student participation in the years before the event was cancelled.
“You couldn’t justify to keep going with such expenses for the few hundreds of people who participated,” Cyr said.
However, Chaput argues that he saw a lot of interest in the Winter Challenge and believes that the Snow Festival cannot offer the same experience to the students.
“[The Winter Challenge] was essentially an experience that you were living versus just showing up and getting a Beaver Tail or staring at a big TV on Tabaret [lawn],” he said. “It touched [many] more students.”
The vp social is already making plans to expand the Winter Challenge for next year and has booked the Tabaret lawn to make the event more similar to those held in previous years.
Registration for the Winter Challenge closes on Jan. 21. Visit winter.sfuo.ca for more information.
