Ski Holiday Chalets Les Gets - Chalets 1066

Over the past 10 years, we have had some fantastic holidays in Les Gets - initially my husband and our two boys went mountain biking in the summer. Having mountain biked in most areas of the UK and also in the Rockies in Canada, we are of the firm view that Les Gets and the Portes du Soliel are the best in the world.

We started skiing, as a family, in La Thuile, where my sister has a 13 bedroom hotel, however, we feel that Les Gets is far more suited to families and mixed skiing abilities. It is also much closer to Geneva.

In 2005, my husband used his pension fund to buy a 4 bedroom apartment at Hastings, at the time this was run as a Residence du Tourisme - ie self catering apartments with hotel services, at the time, Hastings was run by Tony Merkin. There is a legal requirement that the apartment must be let out to clients with hotel services also being available and as Hastings is a Residence du Tourisme, hotel services have to be provided under the French regulations anyway.

Tony, had decided to move to Canada for family reasons, this coincided with our youngest daughter going to University. I was keen to take on a new project and so decided to take over the running of Chalets1066 in 2008 so I bought the business off Tony.

In my first season, I had two staff, one of whom had previously managed Hastings and his knowledge of the operation was critical in ensuring a smooth handover.

The first year was, quite openly, a baptism of fire - both learning about the business and being hit with the recession - a time when many were closing down. We kept going through hard work and support from family and friends. I have been gradually expanding the operation and taking on management of additional chalets and we are now always looking for good chalets to manage.

As we have expanded to around double the size of the original business, I have asked Morven to take on responsibility for managing all operations at Chalets1066, this leaves me to focus on bookings and other areas. Morven is a real bundle of energy and has amazing organisational management skills. Previously Morven managed teams of people for Office Angels and this experience was clearly a good background. As an anecdotal example of her style, Mark's brother is a GP and is head of a large practice and he was particularly impressed when he overheard Morven ‘coaching' one of the staff who initially had a punctuality problem - she soon cured him of this!. Managing 9 Chalets and 4 apartments (around 100 beds) in a busy ski season when weather conditions can range from warm with no snow to minus 20 and massive snow dumps presents many challenges - Morven handles this all in her stride - part of her success is the loyalty she has from staff - both seasonal and temporary - they will always go the extra mile for Morven to help out at short notice - all this ensures our clients have a great holiday.

Our younger son, Ben (Morven's partner) left the Royal Marines in November 2009 and came to work with Chalets1066 and also to train as a ski instructory I have to say it is quite a relief Ben not going to Afghanstan again, over the past few years I have met many in the Royal Marines and have a great respect for them as individuals. Ben's military training has given him the ability work hard for very long hours whilst maintaining a good sense of humour. Ben has now qualified as a level 2 BASI ski instructor, and is training for his Level 3. He is spending some time this season teaching in Italy and Switzerland and typically works a couple of days a week for Chalets1066.

Other key staff include:

• Laurie McConnell - Laurie is in her early 50's, she worked half a season for Sue in the 2009-10 ski season, she is an outstanding chef and chalet host, but also is able to turn her hand to most practical issues. Laurie had outstanding customer feedback in the previous season.
• Jeff Mcconnell - Laurie's husband - Jeff is again an excellent cook, host and also can turn his hand to most repair jobs. Jeff was previously Director of Housing at one of the City Council's - but when his role was outsourced, he took the opportunity for early retirement.
• Dirk Moseley - he has had 6 years working at Southampton airport and is highly experienced in all aspects of customer logistics. He is also an outstanding snowboarder - Ben - Sue's son met him whilst training and was impressed with his interpersonal skills as well as his hard working approach to everything he took on.

Our eldest Son, Chris, helps with the web site and reservations systems. Chris is working on finishing his Thesis for a Doctorate in Political Philosophy (he has degrees in Philosophy, Law and Politics from:- Oxford, London and York) he is currently focussing on publishing academic papers and speaking at Conferences. Mark, my husband, spends many weekends working on: accounts, marketing, planning and also on the web site. (Please note - any poor grammar in the web site will be Mark's work - not Chris!) he also has a very responsible 'day job' - he works for the major technology and consulting company.

Our daughter, Rachael, is studying for a degree in German and is currently at Munich University, she gives advice on the web site.

We must also thank our friend, Ariane Cutler, who is a native French speaker - born in Belgum - she helps where we have particularly complex issues to deal with (for example insurance claims) where complex communication of particular problems, in French, is needed and with the French for the web site.

We love Les Gets, it is a beautiful area all year round, for us, this is a long term plan and we are certainly not doing this for short term monetary reasons!

We are established as a French Business: SARL Vacances aux Chavannes,

Siret Number:- 504 384 090 00016

TVA Number is FR06 504 384 090