麻豆传媒映画

Sixty locals from Entremont-le-Vieux have been taking turns to help at the small resort of Granier in Savoie, which only has four runs: two green, one blue and one red.

Volunteer Violaine Rey said: 鈥淲e understand why the local authorities pulled out. Running it is so expensive, what with electricity, snow plough, lifts, maintenance, insurance and wages, it鈥檚 impossible to make a profit. Even covering costs is difficult.

鈥淏ut we love our ski resort and it belongs to the commune so there鈥檚 nothing to stop us running it.鈥�

She said they started with nothing.

鈥淲e just created an association and asked for volunteers. The first thing we had to do was launch an appeal to raise 鈧�15,000 to get the resort open this season and we raised that really quickly.鈥�

Weather permitting, they are open at weekends and through the Zone A school holidays (February 16 - March 4) and they would like to open more next year.

The village has a population of around 600, many of whom commute.

Ms Rey said: 鈥淲e had become a bit of a dormitory village. We knew opening the ski station would be economically good for the village but, in fact, we found it was also good socially.

鈥淚t was a long time since we had all been united and facing the same direction to do something together.鈥�

There are so many jobs to do, from making cr锚pes in the snack bar to maintaining the snow plough, that there is a job for everyone.

鈥淗aving put so much effort into setting up the association, organising the volunteers and getting the station open, the first few days were nerve-wracking.

鈥淭he weather wasn鈥檛 wonderful and we wondered if anyone would come.鈥�

They need not have worried.

Even on bad days, they are still receiving around 100 visitors, and twice as many on good days.