Step it Up Series 06/07

Fundraising event to benefit Surfrider Foundation

The Step it Up series brought to Whistler a new bread of event bringing guest speakers into a bar environment to educate the young hip and cool crowd of Whistler about different themes relating to the protection of our environment including the wellness of our own body, mind and spirit.

Like it’s previous events, Hilltrip’s goal with the Step it Up series was to fight global warming. With an event every month from November 2006 to April 2007, the series included six different educational sessions about sustainability with a global warming twist. Through the whole series, Hilltrip was able to raise $550 to benefit the Snowrider Project of Surfrider Vancouver and a lot of people learned about ways to become a better steward of the environment and themselves.

Starting with a Sustainable Mountains Session in November , Step it Up no1 sent a strong message to the snow sport industry by having Jonaven Moore, a renown professional snowboarder, do a presentation on global warming and how negative PR is affecting our understanding of the issue, well timed after Tyler Bradley, the environmental chemist behind the creation of the first environmentally friendly ski wax in the world; Hillbilly Wax-Works & Ethica Enviro-Wax who had a satirical look at the state of the snow sport industry itself.

Step it Up no2 being close to Christmas, Hilltrip thought educating people about how making informed choices during the holiday season would help them reduce their environmental footprint and be good for their own body environment and organized a Sustainable Food Session. The session covered the concepts of SLOW food with Diana Rochon, RAW food with Sarinda Hoilett, SUPER food with Randall Carpenter and there was a slide show to give ideas to people on how they can green their holidays.
If you are interested you learn about how you can GREEN Christmas Holiday click here >>

For the third Step it Up, we decided to do something a bit different than the usual sustainable environment type event by having an Awakening Session and introduce a spiritual approach to sustainability. We believe awareness and consciousness can play a big role in improving someone’s life and the world. For the occasion, we had Kelly Oswald of The Oracle, Tina James of World Yoga Within and Robbie Dagg & Friends with OM MANI PADME HUM.

The fourth session was done in conjunction with Surfrider Vancouver. The theme was Sustainable Watershed and Pina Belperio of Whistler Water Watch and June Van Der Star of Surfrider did great presentations followed by a Sea to Summit, a video where snowboarders, skateboarder, and surfers are talking about the entire hydrological cycle and how it relates to their day to day life. Following the session, we had the Enviro-Mental Showdown Party following the qualifier of the Showcase Showdown, an annual snowboard competition.

The fifth one was a Sustainable Energy Session and we had Sarah Valentine giving a few tips on how we can reduce our energy consumption easily and than Hilltrip went all out and presented 15 documentaries about energy and climate change over 2 days as part of the Sierra Club Energy Film Festival.
You can read more about the Energy Film Festive by clicking here >>

As a way to end the series, Hilltrip teamed up with a bunch of local artists to present an Expression Session on Earth Day, April 22nd, and the last day of the World Ski and Snowboard Festival (WSSF) this year. Kostaman & The Vibrations opened at 7pm with a few reggae songs, Angie Nolan and MollyFi followed with poems and spoken words, Daniel Poisson, Chris Dyer, Olivier Roy, Jon Parris and Stan Matwychcuk had art pieces on display, Chili Thom & Feet Banks came to show their short film “High in the Mountain”, Animal Nation did a few raps, and Rainbo performed a hula hoops go-go set to the sound of DJ Parris. During the evening we also had the OxyMoron Martini, a heathy martini containin FrequenSea.

This last Step it Up event was also the launch of Green.Colonies.com in Whistler! It is during that event that the winner for the Surf trip, the Option Snowboard, the SPY goggle and the O’Neill goodies were draw. There was so much going on, it was a great way to close the festival and the series in beauty.

Watch this video about the last Step it Up on Earth Day.
Thanks to Whistler Brewing Company, Clif Bar, O’Neill, Deep Snow and Surf Experience, Option Snowboards and Spy for sponsoring the Step it Up series, Maxx Fish Bar & Lounge for letting us host the series, Surfrider Vancouver for setting an information table at each event, the speakers and artists for their performances and inspiration as well as all the people that have helped make this series of event happen…Nadia Cote, Marie-Lou, Giselle, Haley, Elexa, Sarah, Andrew, Adrian and all of those who came.