Earning a living in your favourite holiday resort.

By ANGELA McCARTHY

Every day for six months last year, Kathrine Reid, 28, woke to waves lapping on the Turkish shores of Club Med Bodrum, where she was employed to teach guests windsurfing and sailing.

"It was the best of my Club Med jobs, working all day on the water doing something I love," says Reid, who spent nine years in Club Med resorts around the world.

Reid's first job as a Club Med GO - "gentil organisateur" or "friendly host" - was child-care assistant on Club Med Lindeman Island off the north-east coast of Australia. Past hands-on experience with children got her the job.

Reid went on to manage Club Med childcare centres in locations as varied as New Caledonia, Japan and Thailand. She also did a four-month stint in a shop on the club's cruise ship.

After her cruise contract, Reid travelled around Europe, taught herself to windsurf and sail, then returned to New Zealand and got the boat licence and first-aid certificate she needed to teach water sports at Club Med Bodrum.

Although she only knew a little basic French when she began, Reid now speaks French and Japanese and a smattering of other languages.

Reid loves the work because of the travel and the people - guests and colleagues.

"I enjoyed the life so much I felt I wasn't working at all, and that's why I kept going back."

Negatives? Occasionally, just occasionally, she would have liked to get totally away from the resort and guests.

While the pay "wasn't great" - about the minimum wage - Reid saved a lot because accommodation, food and entertainment were part of the package.

However, this year, Reid has based herself in New Zealand as America's Cup Oracle BMW Racing syndicate receptionist to spend more time with family and friends.

According to Carol Spence, Club Med's New Zealand recruiter, the company is still going well, despite September 11 affecting the Moorea club so badly it shut down.

Spence, who has been with Club Med 16 years, employs Kiwis with qualifications and/or work experience who are outgoing, flexible team players with good customer service skills.

Jobs range from food and beverage, retail, sound, lighting, laundry and child care, to instructing in sailboard and windsurfing, skiing, land sports, aerobics and gymnastics.

There are also maintenance crews of plumbers, electricians, air-conditioning mechanics and the like.

Kiwis are usually placed on Lindeman Island, Bali and Ria Bintan (Indonesia), and Phuket (Thailand), says Spence.

"You go where required for the first placement. Then you get a wish list of three clubs and we try to send you to one of them."

Contracts are usually three months to a year with season change-over in April and October, says Spence, who just recruited a group of skiing Kiwis for a Japanese resort.

The best place to start seeking resort jobs is through the internet. But snow-mad Kiwis don't need to leave New Zealand to experience ski resort employment, says Cardrona Alpine Resort ski supervisor Jeremy Collis, 33.

Cardrona employs about 330 staff, mostly June to October, including ski shop assistants, ticket cashiers, childcare workers, lift attendants and parking attendants. Aside from ski instructors, the other pros are the ski patrollers and expert skiers from medical, para-medical or mountaineering professions.

Collis supervises 140 ski school staff, 70 per cent Kiwi and the rest Australian, French, Italian, American and Slovakian.

"I love the snow, the people, the mountains, the lifestyle. It's me."

He started as a rookie instructor at Mt Hutt 12 years ago earning his New Zealand Ski Instructors Alliance stage one qualification at the end of his first season. He is now a stage two instructor and examiner.

Instructors need a minimum of three years full-time teaching experience, preferably including race coaching and experience teaching children. Another language is an advantage.

When Cardrona's season ends in October, Collis and most other instructors head to the northern hemisphere winter season.

Jobs are found mainly through word-of-mouth or ski field websites. This year Collis is heading to Vail, Colorado. Other seasons have been spent in Japan, Europe and the US.

Aside from skiing and snowboarding ability, ski instructors need good communication skills - something Collis often finds lacking in younger wannabe ski instructors.

"Yet you need to be able to communicate to find out what is wanted," he says. "It is only then your technical skills come into use."

hr.newzealand@clubmed.com

employment@cardrona.com