Staff

Sally Thornton - Australia

World Centre Manager

Sally is from Canberra, Australia and has been at Our Chalet since 2009. She loves the beautiful Swiss Mountains as they give her the same feeling of home as the Snowy Mountains in Australia where she grew up.
She has been involved in Guiding since early childhood and is passionate about WAGGGS and in particular the opportunities provided for international friendship and personal development at all of the World Centres. Having been the Manager at Sangam World Centre in India for six years, she loves the different challenges and contrasts between cultures that are so much a part of world centre experiences.

Korana Kovacevic - Slovenia

Deputy World Centre Manager

Korana (Koka) comes from Slovenia and has been involved in Guiding and Scouting since she was 14. She is interested in the environment, people and leadership development in general in things we can influence on to make this world a better place. One of the reasons she chose to live and work in Switzerland is the great outdoors with endless hiking and skiing opportunities. 
She believes there is a leader in every one of us and is keen on providing opportunities for staff development as well as ensuring best Our Chalet experience for all the guests who visit and stay with us. She believes that life is fun and being happy every day is possible!

Katie Scales - United Kingdom

Programme Manager

Katie is from Lincolnshire in the United Kingdom. She has been involved in Guiding since she was four years old. She loves all outdoor activities including hiking, kayaking and camping (especially campfires!) and loves leading the Programme Team on adventures, challenges and plays an important role in volunteer development opportunities in Our Chalet. Having graduated with a degree in Modern Languages, she is enjoying exploring the challenges of Swiss German.

Rhianna Hughes - USA

Assistant Programme Manager

Rhianna is from Michigan in the United States. She's been a Girl Scout since she was 5. Rhianna is delighted to be able to experience her four favorite seasons in a different country. There loves the outdoors so skiing, hiking, climbing, and adventuring are all on the agenda this year! She also enjoys camping, backpacking, canoeing, and sailing. She is looking forward to becoming more involved in the leadership and development side of Our Chalet. Rhianna took a brief pause in her Scouting life while attending Allegheny College in Pennsylvania to obtain her degree in Biology. She is pleased to be active with Scouts again and hopes to have the same positive influence on others that she still feels as part of such an empowering organization.

Susanne Nielsen Kofod- Denmark

Guest Services Coordinator

Susanne is from Bornholm island in Denmark and was involved in Guiding for 10 years. Her greatest experience with Guiding was summer camps, working with the Brownies and her time volunteering at Pax Lodge.
Susanne loves to travel and just before coming to Switzerland, she took a 10 month trip to Australia and Thailand. She really enjoys working in an international environment with the great challenges it brings. Susanne is confidently using her knowledge from her travels to welcome you to Our Chalet and making sure you will have a lovely stay.

Jenny Egan - United Kingdom

Catering Coordinator

Jenny comes from Yorkshire in England. She loves Our Chalet and have volunteered, worked and brought groups from her country here on several occasions. She is looking forward to three lovely months meeting new volunteers and passing on the kitchen mysteries and knowledge how to successfully feed from 1 up to a 100 guests.
Back at home she is a very active leader of a Ranger unit organising international and national trips. She is keen to provide best Guiding experience and opportunities to her group members. Jenny loves animals and traveling. We are enjoying listening to the stories about her adventures from around the world. She makes lot of people happy with her great cooking. So come and try it yourself.

Christoph Zerluth - Germany

Grounds and Maintenance Assistant

Christoph is from Bavaria in Germany. He has an education in auto mechanics and he has worked with machinery in the printing industry. He has been in Scouting since he was 10 and has been a scout leader since he was 18. Christoph is also an expert in German Black Tents and a member of the Black Catstle Group.
He has three children who have also been in Scouting. Christoph has always wanted to work in a Scout centre, so he loves his life at Our Chalet.
He knows how to fix pretty much anything inside or outside the Centre. He is friendly, hard working, chatty and very creative. Volunteers love when he keeps them busy with teaching them new skills such as outdoor cooking, snow shoveling and using the chain saw.

Catherine Moody (Catt) - UK

Guest Services Assistant

Catt is from Surrey in the UK and has been in Guiding for 14 years. She is one of those people who once visited Our Chalet, fell eternally and passionately in love with it. She has visited Switzerland several times in her teens and has returned first as a Winter volunteer in 2011, continued as a Guest Services Volunteer and now she is a member of the Long term staff at Our Chalet.
She loves sports, especially hiking and snow fun stuff! As an ex competitive swimmer water is her natural habitat however snow does pretty good job too when swimming is on the programme (we are talking here about snow swimming).
Behind is her favorite mountain Bonderspitz which she is wishfully observing every day anticipating the day she'll have a chance to hike it again. Catt is very friendly and quirky girl with lots of ideas how to keep everybody happy and her office buddies constantly on their toes. Her creative brain solved many a problem at Our Chalet.

Gaenor Harries - UK

Winter Volunteer

Gaenor is from Leicestershire in the UK. She has been in Guiding since she was four years old and has enjoyed every second! Gaenor especially loves all outdoor adventures including spending lots of time up in the mountains but also out at sea sailing and kayaking. She is having lots of fun out of doors in the beautiful Swiss Alps and paddling in the international experiences that Our Chalet is offering. She is somehow always smiling and ready to hit the slopes.
Her energetic ways whether it comes to cheering for her favorite rugby team or plotting how to climb the Everest obviously come from her brave Welsh Dragon heart. When she is not in the Chalet  uniform she wears her leather knee high waterproof boots, tweed and a daffodil - how much more obvious can it get?

Mary Hookway - Australia

Winter Volunteer

Mary is from Tasmania, Australia and has been a Girl Guide for 12 years. She loves being in the outdoors enjoying some seriously fun stuff, her favorites being white water rafting, kayaking, rock climbing and downhill skiing. She has a degree in Outdoor Education and has also recently graduated from a Diploma of Education.
Her favorite past time is travelling around Australia and exploring the world. She loves her life at Our Chalet and everything it offers form the international challenges to making everybody laugh. 
Mary is "the one" who can through if need be a disco party night within 5 minutes and create a fun moment any time of the day. She has happily shared some insight on the UGG boots phenomena. In Australia they wear them as indoor slippers in fact. Mostly you will fiind Mary playing to be the cool chick and laughing to herself  : )

Catalina Vargas (Cata) - Costa Rica

Winter Volunteer

Catalina is from Costa Rica and has been involved in Guiding and Scouting since she was 15 years old. She is studying business administration. As a previous Juliette Low Seminar Participant she is particularly interested in the area of leadership and life skills development.
Cata is very excited to be a volunteer at Our Chalet, to get to know the beautiful Swiss mountains and to mix with people of different cultures and ways of looking at life. She thinks that diversity is a strength. Cata is also proud to be part of the first national Costa Rican sychronised off piste snow shoe team.
As any Costa Rican she loves dancing Salsa and speeking Spanish very fast! Pura Vida.

Alessandra Stamm - Switzerland

Winter Volunteer

Alessandra, aka Ale is from Zurich, Switzerland. She has been a  Scout since she was 9 years old. She loves to be outdoors no matter what weather it is as well as loves swimming, running and of course snow, well snowboarding. She can’t imagine her winter without being in the mountains, she is Swiss after all. A charming and fun girl who can also perfectly speak Spanish. Alessandra is looking forward to meeting people from all over the world and is looking forward to learning a little bit more about other cultures. You are most likely to see her on the slopes flying on her snowboard down the mountain.

Brooke Korthals - USA

Winter Volunteer

This is Brooke. She is from Iowa in in the United States, she has been in Girl Scouts since age 5. Brooke has been a volunteer at Pax Lodge twice, and recently has started Culinary School. She loves to be in a kitchen with food! Brooke is looking forward to learning about the Swiss culture and food!

Kat Banks - UK

Winter Volunteer

Kat has been in Guiding since she was 7 and has consistently been involved in some way ever since. Amongst other things, Kat has been a Brownie leader, a Guide leader, a SSAGO member, and a leader with the WiWö group of Zell am See. Kat is from Cheshire (UK) but has recently graduated from the University of Leeds (UK) with degree in German. She loves Swiss food, Schwytzerdütsch, mountains, snow activities and learning more about WAGGGS.
With her tall and elegant posture Kat gives the impression of a ballet dancer however her new Our Chalet friends think she must be an expert horse back rider. As Kat radiates mysteriousness we will never really find out the secred behind that composed expression. On the snow shoes and ski slopes she is feareless and we mean blacks and reds here!

Anna Haaviko - Finland

Winter Volunteer

Anna is from Helsinki in Finland. She has been involved in Guiding since she was seven years old. Anna's best Scout experience was her trip to Nepal to climb Peak Baden Powell in the Himalayas. Anna studies forestry and likes many different kinds of outdoor activities.

Samantha (Sammie) Haworth - UK

Short Term Volunteer

Sammie comes from "Up North in the UK" so tells us her accent. She has volunteered at Our Chalet before as a Summer Season 2009 volunteer and had the best time. She loves the Chalet, its' international fun and most of all the great outdoors. As she experienced the Summer in the Alps she wished for a Winter experience as well so here she goes! We agree that Skiing is nothing like Kayaking in which she is almost a pro, but we are sure attempts on the slopes will bring her just as much fun as other melted snow activities!
Sammie is very friendly, funny and hard working volunteer and we are happy to have her back. She will stay at Our Chalet for a month.

Skippy Storrow

Our Chalet Kitty Cat

Skippy is from Adelboden in the canton of Bern, Switzerland. Her Scouting experience is quite vast as she has spent much of her time at Our Chalet. She explores the grass, eats bugs and protects the grounds and guests from any possible predators like marmots and slugs. In her free time she likes to soak up rays, catch mice and chase cows.

Meow :)