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| Deb Friedman on stage. Photo credit: Alba Pardo |
What a day! More than 8 inspiring felt like flying by within minutes, leaving us with more than a million of new thoughts and ideas to digest while first friendships began to develop between the attendants of the 3rd annual women in board sports retreat.
Deb Freeman, Global Brand Manager at Nike 6.0 started the event with her keynote speech.
Belonging to the good handful of the 35 overall participants who took the journey all across the Atlantic Ocean to attend the retreat, Deb likes big steps not only in terms of travelling. Her professional career started working in the advertising industry in New York City and led her from being the Director of women’s snowboarding at Burton to the one of the most sharp and charismatic woman, Deb is a passionate snowboarder as well and largely responsible for the recent “Leave a Message” campaign by Nike 6.0 (for those who having seen the movie yet: http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nke6/en_U/leave_a_message). In her opening speech, she shared her thoughts about women and leadership – followed by a lively discussion about how we all can contribute our share to make the “Girl effect” really happen.
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| Anne-Flore Marxer. Photo credit: Alba Pardo |
The second spokesperson was the in no way less inspiring Anne-Flore Marxer. Passionate, incredibly stubborn (quoting her own words) and without a question one of the best female snowboarders that has ever been around, she gave us some first-hand insights to her long and intense battle for the Women’s Freeride Worldtour. Did you know for example that the winner of a women’s competitions is earning less price money than a man ranked 19th – doing exactly the same run?
Having accomplished most of her goals set (amongst others: getting the girls back on the men’s FWT and providing them a decent financial support), Anne-Flore has set an example of how to succeed if you just never give up – and become a world champion on top of that. Chapeau, Anne-Flore!
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| Mimi Knoop. Photo credit: Alba Pardo |
Staying amongst Top-Athletes, American Skate-Legend Mimi Knoop was the one to follow, giving her state of the art view of women in skateboarding. Despite the fact that Mimi didn’t drop into a Vert ramp until she was 23, she won 5 Gold medals in this discipline at the X-Games. Her very genuine speech left everybody working their heads of how to develop women’s skateboarding today – a complex matter to find a solution for.
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| Lunchtime. Photo credit: Alba Pardo |
After lunch in the bright sunlight with an amazing view on the Glacier of Saas Fee, Bettina Bollinger, a Swiss breed snowboarder, surfer and nutrition expert, took over the stage. Her keys to “Healthy Living and Feeling good” included many useful tips about how to choose the food that is best for you.
Her presentation was followed by Elske Hazenberg from Skatepark Amsterdam who showed us her vision of female skateboarding in Europe. Again, the speech lead over to a vivid discussion between all the girls how to motivate more women to get themselves on a skateboard. Lucky for the retreat to have 4 Pro Skateboarders on board who already announced a “Skate clinic” to be held the following day.
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| Conference room. Photo credit: Alba Pardo |
Day 1 was rounded out up with a workshop about “Energy Management” by Lifecoach Kate Apanui .
Originally from New Zealand, Kate now lives in South West France and helps people with her genuine and energetic personality how to overcome their individual challenges in life. Sharing a lot a new impulses, inspiring thoughts and her positive attitude towards life, Kate left us all in the perfect mindset to round of this first Day on go over to a yummy Swiss-style Rösti Dinner and some follow-up activities. All together, this first Day couldn’t have been any better and we’re all looking forward to what’s Day 2 going to bring!
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| Oceanides movie premiere. Photo credit: Alba Pardo |
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