MINUTES – MIDWEST REGION 2010 WINTER MEETING

January 8, 2010, Chicago, IL, 8am

1. Call to order – Jeff Surdej called meeting to order at 8:12am.

2. Introductions - Jeff Lindsey; Cole Kalkbrenner -(taking over for Jeff), Kurt Mechler, Jeff Smith, Pat Cook, Abby Lorenz, Dave Clark, Jim Babcock, Jeff Surdej, Brian Reed, Hannah Shirkey , Troy Zoellner, Darr Leutz, Dean Chappell, Molly Casanova, Peter Dahl, Dennis & Delaina Downes, Matt Beck, Wilma & Dick Nock.

3. Appointment of Parliamentarian -   Jeff Smith

4. Review / Approval of Agenda -                                                      

5. Approval of Summer 2009 Board Meeting Minutes– Darr moved and Jim Babcock 2nd.

6.EVP report – Jeff Surdej - Smooth 2009, there was minimum missing paperwork due to the new notification system. Great job everyone keep it up. Check your emails to make sure the right one is on file. 2010 sanctioning has been a bit of a nightmare this year. EVP’s were unaware of the changes that were coming out. Collegiate will have a separate registration system and Collegiate tournaments already sanctioned will need to be revised.   The process is now streamlined with online, sanctioning and pretournament safety checklist being all integrated , a huge benefit. Officials crosschecking capabilities, phenomenal for the EVP and other officials that had to go out and verify officials for tournaments. Can’t sign up for a sanction without renewing your club membership. A bit of a headache, but we can get through it & there will be no late fees this year. Kurt asked if deadline could be moved to January 15 in the future, Jim Babcock says it would be hard to get everything ready for the guide in time. Dave Clark says it is possible in the future, as the interface between systems will continue to improve. Kurt wonders about moving the guide deadline back. EVP asked if the Midwest is ready to go paperless. Hannah reports Minnesota would like paperless, Abby likes the paper guide, (however is not opposed to being green). States the junior team likes seeing their picture in the guide. It is asked where does the advertising money go if we are not producing a paper guide? Jeff Smith states we should find out whether that money would go away if we go paperless. Jeff Lindsey reports the southern guide is the same visual format, just electronic. There are pros and cons for both formats, Jeff Surdej will get more info and the board will make a decision at the summer meeting. Hannah says Minnesota would want to see more of the junior spotlight that was on the Midwest website and be able to print a section in it’s entirety without opening. Abby would like to be able to “turn the pages” like the online version of Water Ski magazine. Darr states that we should keep in mind that we may lose advertising funds and online would be a way to keep in line with a smaller budget. Going green is looking good.

 

In addition to Nationals, other prestigious events being held in the Midwest include Disabled Nationals at Hawthorne Lake and JR US Team Trials at Van Wert, OH

7. Treasures report - Tom unable to come due to snow; Jeff Smith feels current and projected fund balance is too high. Can we possibly put together a subcommittee to look for some constructive ways to distribute the funds? Tom called in and feels that we should wait to see that our revenues match what is projected. Jeff Smith moves to create the subcommittee and bring ideas back to the summer meeting. Kurt seconded motion. Darr, Cole and Jeff Smith offered to serve on this committee.

8. Secretary’s report – Cory Piercy-not able to make it. Jeff passed around papers . .

9. State council reports

a. Illinois – Darr Leutz – thanks for going green with state reports. Illinois had 16 tournaments, including a couple of collegiate tournaments. Still have a couple open weekends and there is an interest in doing specialty tournaments. Darr is trying to put together a junior development clinic with Freddie coaching.  It would be primarily for Illinois kids then he would branch out to the Midwest juniors. Darr quoted Freddie saying if it weren’t for Jr development he wouldn’t be where he is today. Illinois will donate $300 to the junior development fund. There is a tournament at Clear Lake not listed on the 17th of July.

            b. Indiana – Matt Beck (filling in for Jim Beck) – Indiana has about 30 new members last year.  Columbus sports complex back on for multi lake site. 3 clinics, safety, disabled, drivers. Hosting disabled nationals.

            c. Iowa – Pat Cook - 9 tournaments in ‘09 – 9 tournament in ’10 some being collegiate to get college kids skiing in summer. Iowa membership numbers up a bit. Iowa will not be having a youth clinic this year and will be opening it up to be a “ski clinic”. There are not enough youth to support a strictly youth clinic. Univ. of N. Iowa contacted Pat; they would like to start a collegiate team. Promo boat situation is tough; the Waterhawks are covered because of good relationship with the marina.

            d. Kansas – Dennis Downes– Kansas hosted barefoot nationals in 2009 and will again in 2010. 3 event tournaments had a good turn out last year, just missing Malibu promo boats. Kansas lost emporia as a site and the calendar has 4 tournaments this year after nationals. Kansas will have a judges and scorers clinic hoping to continue to encourage new blood. Dennis is in the process of organizing the annual junior development camp. We are looking for good coaches if anyone has any thoughts or know of any of the Midwest’s higher end college age skiers who would be interested. Dennis is also looking for established scoring, etc for grassroots. Kansas still continues to go off of the NSL rules established a couple of years ago. Jeff Surdej pointed to the website for the national rules. At this point in time there is not a way to score Grassroots with WSTIMS.

            e. Michigan – Jeff Smith (for Doug Rook) – 3 tournaments minimal number of arrests. (Sure there is a story there) Jeff Surdej asked about person building multi lake site, still has not sold lots.

f. Minnesota / North Dakota – Hannah Shirkey – tournaments will start later in June. There is one public lake left in MN for tournaments and Minnesota has Trophy Lakes as a back up site.  A memorial has been put up at that site. Minnesota Junior Development will be having a 3-day clinic. Everything from fresh skiers to the more experienced. The cost will be $99 a piece, which doesn’t cover cost, but the event still has had a lot of success. Promo boats are a difficulty. Mastercraft is carrying the state, no Malibu, little Nautique. MWA tournaments are charging a $10 fee to help with the promo situation. Hannah is interested to see what other states are doing to help with that. Promo programs need to get more defined to weed out those taking advantage of the system. Different states are having problems with different mfg. KS/MO – Malibu, IL – Mastercraft. This might be a possible item to look at for financial windfall committee. MN is not putting all their tournaments in the guide.  Video judging; Peter Dahl is working on a possible way to do a better job of slalom video. There seems to be a lot of issues with how to do video review. The process needs to be standardized, possibly centralized and communicated well. This is an item for the Chief Judge to cover well at the judges meeting at Regional's.

            g. MO – Jeff Lindsey - tournament participation the same, new site had a bad turn out, looking for ideas on how to get participation at new sites. Missouri lost Rex City because couldn’t get people to show up for tournaments. State tournament was successful. Junior Development did something new – they brought kids to Hartville and put them up in homes and had a different coach every day; Mandy Williams, Nightingales, Lindsey’s, etc. worked out well for them and the federation picked up the gas for the week. There was no charge to the juniors. Great for the kids. The coaches traded ski time for coaching time. The event received good support from their club. Collegiate; MSU had their tournament and have added one tournament to 2010 schedule. Missouri Federation is offering clubs ?? to offer collegiate skiers ½ off to promote collegiate skiers. Missouri is really getting the collegiate skiers involved. The Lindsey’s are here till June then off to Texas. Cole Cochbruner is replacing Jeff on the council.

            h. Ohio – Kurt Mechler– Ohio officers are the same and the tournament schedule is looking the same, including having Jr team trials. Struggling with Jr development, only 1 skier under the boy/girl 3 division. Their Novice division – lets skier do 2 passes in mini course. The Buckeye Buoy tournament will use handicaps to even the playing field for beginner skiers. Ohio has 36 new members that started skiing tournaments in the fall. Novice division has no age. All Ohio tournament grassroots sanctioned, pushing at least grass roots membership versus the $5 USAWS membership, asking all lakes in Ohio to do grassroots fun events and open their lake 2 nights out of the season to promote. After a drivers clinic Ohio had new drivers certified in jump and slalom but there was no time for trick. A safety clinic is scheduled in the spring. Jr dev. only cost assoc $200 in 2009. Kurt is proposing for 3-4 days for beginner/intermediate then something for the advanced skiers. They have a group of 10 really nice skiers, 2 juniors set 4 records last year. Collegiate skiers did a clinic in fall, “We suck” clinic. $500 scholarship is being offered for state tournament participation. University of Cincinnati placed 5th Greg Chapman won distinguished award. Lots of news worthy events happening in Ohio!

i. Wisconsin – Jim Babcock - 9 traditional tournaments in 2009. Well attended Jr development clinic and kids then participated in tournament and did well. Dropping State games because no support. (Games events) Lisa Lamb selected for world team, her 2nd selection. Son Tyler ended up 3rd overall skier in the nation, 1st year in men’s 1. gw Madison finished first in div 2 for collegiate nationals. Peter Fleck was inducted into Wisconsin hall of fame. WI water ski expo (was think tank). Looking for instructor to come for “think tank” convention. waterski.org to register. Another man made lake will be ready for skiing this year. Owned by a member of the legislature, good for Wisconsin skiers, looking out for them. Pro tour event in Milwaukee in august. Will be bringing a show ski element to the tournament. Will be putting in a bid for 2011 disabled nationals.

10. National directors reports – Dean, Jeff, Tom – weekly reports coming even with the changes with Steve Locke. Search is on for a new executive director. Interviews happening in the next 3 weeks. Telephone interviews in the next week to narrow down the list. Interesting question has come up, should the ED have a history with water skiing? How important is that since this is a “business position” (name change issue) number of tournament rides from sanctioned tournaments has had no less rides, is this do to participants just skiing more, participants is down 3-4% amount of skiing per person is up 3-4%. AWSA is down 5-6% NCWSA is up 20%. New boats sales are down but those that are in the sport are going strong. The boys represent us twice a year, thank you to them.

11. USA Water Ski director report – (presented for Don Bucher)  – proposed name change to USAWS & Wakeboarding. Open the floor to comments. Jeff smith – way the world is going. Other national and world organizations following suit. Looking to seek marketing alliances. Also the public view point – reasons too, more relevance, more sponsorship opportunities, increased marketing, increased visibility in website searches etc, increase wakeboard membership, straw vote 6-approve 2-declin 2-abstain

12. Committee reports

a - Executive committee – Don Bucher/Jeff Surdej. AWSA budget back to even by taking out clothing etc.  each sport division is allocated funds – AWSA money is used for elite team funding. May be another avenue for the Midwest surplus. Jr USA Open to be held in Texas. Entry fees are going up for nationals $154 for one event, $181 for 2-3 events, $395 for family. Increases are to make nationals a success in case we have to keep going to a two-lake site. Expenses will be more; host site is doing the registration instead of home office, which would pay those PayPal fees. Fees are $10 to AWSA, basically a 10% increase. West palms profit is practice, $20,000. 2-lake site won’t have that opportunity. Straw vote – 8 – approve 1 – deny. Proposed to have a collegiate rate. A lot of discussion on where the money goes, what is it for, who should pay it, $30,000 goes to AWSA. Many tough choices are ahead for the executive committee. Watersedge will be closely watched to see how they handle this nationals. Other sites close to nationals will be getting interest in skiing practice since there is no practice on site. USA Water Ski has made it very tough to host the event. Watersedge trying to bring back a pro event at nationals, the weekend after, Friday under the lights, open division of the nationals will serve as the prelims, to have the event we will have to have international skiers incorporated into nationals. Nationals would like to run international before open men/women’s, keep prestige, etc.

VOTE for pro event – no opposition

b. Judges & scorers – Jeff Smith – clinic March 12-14 in Fairfax, VA. Officials work records are available online now. If you edit the scorers work records it has to be the last thing you do. If you go back to the events and recreate the summary it wipes out the changes you made. Chief officials are now exported from your tournament set up. Summary sheet is the only thing AWSA is looking for, but everything is available in archives.

            c. Rules – Chapel, Clark - proposal change questions are as follows;

Proposal 2 (rule 2.05 d) intent to preclude abusive behavior (open vs. men) also can’t change from boys 2 to boys 3 mid tournament.   AWSA different than international and people would want to change

VOTE 6-opposed, 

 

Proposal 3 (rule 3.03) –

 

Proposal 5 – should we have this proposal since we already have a rule that covers medical excuses?

VOTE – all opposed

 

Proposal 6 (rule 4.03) should include that if you are a legal resident of the state you can ski in Regionals.  Voted as if this is a change in its entirety

VOTE – all opposed, unless intent is not to remove the resident piece, then it is passed

 

Proposal 13 (rule 8.04) should not include B2 & G2,

Kurt brings up the trick release rope length, should be longer than 24” (30” is the proposed length) for the safety of the pin person and melting the ends should be banned for the safety of the driver. How is the release measured? Also questioning the sit down time after a fall on the first pass is increased to 45 seconds. L & R events can use the 1m rope.

It is recommended that "no action" on the rules report should have the reasons provided.

Can now log on and provide your ideas to the rules committee. Dave implores us to give concrete proposals with reasons and rational to change - for use by the rules committee.

When are proposed changes in effect, need implementation date.

VOTE: immediate implementation – passed

 

            d. Skiers qualifications – Jeff Surdej – nothing new at this time. Percentages take effect this year. Question of regional qualifications; Darr, policy & procedure change 2.1.9. Motion; under exceptional circumstances skier qualification is decided by the EVP and appointed regional judges, tie will be broken by the chief judge. 2nd by Cole. Potential reasons for the change could be pregnancy, ACL, etc.

VOTE 9 for and 2 opposed. Jeff stepping down, Eric Cockney from the West is taking the chair position.

 

            e. Tech - Peter Dahl – get first info – do not fill slalom buoys with water, use elastic device. Ropes (slalom) record applications, Jeff Smith – we have forgotten why we changed the rope size to begin and that the rope size should not be allowed to be smaller, unless the rope is not knotted.

VOTE – opposed to smaller rope

 

            f. Tow boats & speed control – (reported for George Lindy) – check report, list of approved tow boats, positive feedback other than skier feel they are getting the same draw and wish to go to a 3 year rotation.

VOTE – all opposed to the proposal

 

            g. International activities – Jeff Smith – team trials at McClure’s in 2010, teams; Pan Americans, jr,

 

            h. Junior Development – Abby – team listed in packet. 2009 all-star team also listed. 2009 all-star team took 2nd place. Most improved awards were handed out at Regionals; electronic communications continue to go out to elite team member’s families in the form of a newsletter. Going to Bennett’s again this year. One chaperone is attending; Dawn.  Looking for Jr rosters to keep in touch with Jr skiers. Looking for new fundraising opportunities, major supporters have declined (boat companies) Brenda Baldwin has presented 413 strength gear is a possible partner. Thanks for all the state donations! National report available, $4700 raised at a national level. 3 Midwest skiers named to the national Jr dev team, power point on how the elite team is selected very helpful. Kurt brings up again the possibility of reinstating the application process for selecting the elite team. Abby feels that it is too cumbersome to do the application process. We will try to have something on the registration that allows jrs to decline their position on the team. Traditional Jr conference cant happen at nationals, looking to do in an ice rink.

 

            i. Coaches – Chris Kosek – Jeff Surdej won an award for coaching.

 

            j. Safety – Jim B – looking at an online safety clinic for the classroom portion. Board agreed a good idea. Recommendation to put helmets on Jr skiers is coming from the western regional.

 

            k. Awards – Janice P – doing a great job, Jim B asked to put those in the regional guide.

 

            l. Drivers – Troy – nationally, committee is updating clinic material. Discussion about making a video of different driving techniques. Waiting till after the first of the year to start emails going back and forth. Email Troy with ideas. Need to throw in ZO material. Perfect Pass will still be somewhat in the mix due to the current boat situation. See if there is a Zero Off simulator to use in clinics. Wants to put a secure suggestion box at registration at regional’s about driving and drivers.  Troy would like to have more hands on with the drivers, doesn’t feel like there is a lot of follow up on them. Also feels there needs to be a better system for selecting regional and national drivers. Maybe a scoring system or allow the skiers to have input on who is driving for higher-level tournaments.  Jeff Smith, western region tried to do something similar, felt it got too political with skiers picking drivers. Dick Nock felt that there was positive feedback for it. Jeff smith feels that to be a national level driver you should be getting out and driving more at different sites and (Darr) should use the technology of the day. Part of being a good driver is not just technical it is how do you interact with the skier and the judges. Troy states that if you don’t practice driving you shouldn’t be driving (don’t drive jump before regional’s/nationals don’t drive at regional’s/nationals)

 

16. Executive Session

a. 2011 Regional’s bid - Peter Dahl making the bid, Dean Chappell motion to accept, Darr 2nd.

VOTE: unanimous

 

 

Voted on Regionals and National officials

 

National Scorer

Janice Prociw

Janet Piercy

Assigned Nationals Judges

Jim Petersen

Sam Schmitt

Appointed National judges

Larry Downes

Fred Krueger

Rose Krueger

Larry Smith

Nationals Driver

Troy Zoellner

Greg Chapman

National Alternate Drivers

Derk Brittain

George Lindy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Regional Drivers

Jim Beck

Derk Brittain

Greg Chapman

Dean Chappell

Darren Janzig

Chris Kosek (CD)

George Lindy (ACD)

Jim McClure

Roy Surdej

Troy Zoellner

Regional ACJ's

Kelly Zoellner

Larry Smith

Fred Krueger

Janet Piercy

Don Bucher

Steve Gallop

Regional Appointed Judges

Larry Downes

Janice Prociw

Kurt Mechler

Sam Schmitt

Heather Friese

 

Motion to adjourn Dean and Tom