Baller Ilivetoski Posted December 2, 2014 Baller Share Posted December 2, 2014 I will be attending the University of Kentucky in the spring and by the looks of things I will be starting a ski team there. I just got off the phone with the director of the club sports board and he has verbally given "permission to exist" to a ski team. He mentioned that funding usually is very small, and that burden is typically on the club members. Does anyone have any ideas for good fundraisers? I think that fundraising will be our biggest problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller MattP Posted December 2, 2014 Baller Share Posted December 2, 2014 @Ilivetoski Welcome to the SAC and Eastern Region! UK's team was last active in 2008. I would check and see if club sports still owns any of their equipment. That will help elevate some financial burden with getting a team off the ground. Alumni are always a great source if you can contact any who used to ski there. I'm sure they would love to see the team come back to life. I can check and see if we still have any contact with those alumni. I will get you some of my fundraising stuff when I get home. @The_Krista has also put together a great informational package full of fundraising ideas in the USAWS College Kit. Hopefully you can make it to the Mid-Winter meeting and meet the other teams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller Ilivetoski Posted December 2, 2014 Author Baller Share Posted December 2, 2014 @MattP I think that I am going to try to apply to get into the midwest region. Much shorter travel times for tournaments. If I have to travel 6+ hours each weekend I dont think it is worth it. No one will want to do that kind of time in a car especially not people who are just getting into skiing. I have a few slaloms that I plan on using, I am going to get my RS-1 sent back and redone on the top, I have a 67 prophecy, a few older skis from the 90's that will work fine for most people. Basically of the 10 skis I own, the team can use 8 of them. Tricks and jumpers will be a different story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller RazorRoss3 Posted December 2, 2014 Baller Share Posted December 2, 2014 Team Midwest! If you manage it then welcome to our 38 team region! I'm not going to lie that funding is an absolute pain. Big things to think about are member dues since those are your primarly and most reliable source, make sure that what members are paying to be part of the club is covering what the club is giving them. For example travel, entry fees, equipment use/maintenance, university fees, etc. After figuring that out you may want to look to local and by that I mean on campus businesses. Many of them are looking for ways to get their name out so if you agree to put their logo on shirts, stickers on skis, and so on you can run into a little bit of money fairly easily. Continuing on shirts if you can find a cheap place to print any kind of apparrell you can run a sale to members, friends, family, faculty, students... A few other good ones are bulk meals for freshman. Typically meal plans don't do much in the way of dinner on Sunday and as a team you can throw together a very large amount of pasta or hotdogs and set up shop near the dorms. While doing this make sure to get "waterski team" up somewhere because it will raise awareness and hopefully recruitment. Eventually if you can find a site to run a tournament at you can make money in the fall if you budget correctly, in the spring it's a lost cause, making money is near impossible. That's about everything I have on fundraising having just ended my term as President of the Iowa team in October, hope it helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supporting Member Than_Bogan Posted December 3, 2014 Supporting Member Share Posted December 3, 2014 I have no clue but just want to wish you GREAT LUCK!! Only bad thing about MIT was (and is) no water ski team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller chris_logan Posted December 3, 2014 Baller Share Posted December 3, 2014 As far as fundraisers, I second @RazorRoss3 on all of his tactics. Also, don't forget you can usually get different restaurants (ie: 5 Guys, Moes, Wing Stop, etc.) to help you out with a fundraiser where they will donate 10% of all receipts over a 3-5 hour period on a given day. If you work hard at it, you can generally have 2 restaurant fund raisers a month all year long and never have one at the same restaurant twice. I would suggest putting together a very detailed budget for the '14-'15 scholastic year. It doesn't have to be completely accurate, but a fairly good estimate of income and costs incurred by the team for an entire year. Things you would want to include in the budget: Total Income - dues, fund-raisers, donations, tournament proceeds, t-shirt sales, etc.; Total Costs - practice site dues, boat, boat insurance, boat gas, boat depreciation, boat maintenance, potential USAWS club insurance, equipment (don't forget things like ropes, handles, vests in various sizes, jump suits, helmet, etc.), tournament fees (based on anticipated team participation), travel costs, hotels, tournament bibs (some regions require them at all tournaments, definite requirement for regionals and nationals), potential costs to host a fall tournament (USAWS sanction, region/conference sanction, gas, food, hotels for judges, etc. - don't host a spring tournament until your club can afford the loss). Once your have your fairly realistic budget put together, your costs will always outweigh the total income, divide out the difference in costs and income among the projected club members. This should give you a ballpark figure of how much total cost the student members will have to float on their own. Then you can determine what amount of money would be "reasonable" to ask the university to contribute to the success of your waterski club - use your club's faculty advisor to assist with this. Create an accurate and concise presentation of your club (history, current member status, projected member status, coach?, future goals) and projected budget. Schedule a time in mid March with the director of club sports to give your presentation to them. If you show hard work, organization, and determination among your club to those who are in control of your club's existence and potential financial assistance, you should do just fine. I know I kinda got lengthy, but that was a large lesson learned in my 6 years of waterski club experience and leadership. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller LeonL Posted December 3, 2014 Baller Share Posted December 3, 2014 @Ilivetoski, talk to Joe Burkhead. He is a UK alumnus and he is on the board (I think) of KWSA, not to be confused with KWSF. KWSA may be able to provide some funding for the team. I applaud your enthusiasm and desire to restart a dead team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller_ MISkier Posted December 3, 2014 Baller_ Share Posted December 3, 2014 In Michigan, I've seen some of our teams make money by installing/removing docks, lifts, rafts, etc. on public lakes. Of course, this implies your climate is such that the corresponding seasonal activity is required. The worst slalom equipment I own is between my ears. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller skiboat38 Posted December 4, 2014 Baller Share Posted December 4, 2014 UK is pretty far from any ski sites....where do you plan to ski? The old club had a Mastercraft and a ton of donated equipment. I would look up Jay Frucci, UK's club was doing very well when he was running it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller Skoot1123 Posted December 4, 2014 Baller Share Posted December 4, 2014 If anybody on the team is in marketing they might be able to help get some visibility to the club. If no one on the team is in marketing then maybe you could approach a marketing proffesor and make a senior project out of it. You could advertise on campus and any number of websites/local shops that they have a chance to watch a ski team. Include that it is FREE - open to public and donations accepted. To make it even more elaborate if someone would volunteer to announce (yes - even practice sessions) that would draw some interest as well. You never know who would stop by. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller Ilivetoski Posted December 4, 2014 Author Baller Share Posted December 4, 2014 @skiboat38 I have been looking to get in contact with some kind of alumni who skied there and ask them that very question, right now I think that Taylorsville would be the best option. Its the same distance from Stillwater and we are bothering anybody on a public lake, and we have a course. Do you know any contact info for Jay or if he still lives in Kentucky? I saw somewhere that they used to have a trailer and a lot of equipment- I need to ask the school if they still have that. Ive got 10 old slalom skis that I can give to the team. Its tricks and jumpers that I dont have. @Skoot1123 I am actually a marketing major, I really like that senior project idea. I feel like that would be a tough sell but definitely worth a shot. I feel like there could be a lot of opportunity with the small local on campus businesses to get some advertising. Or something as simple as just hanging fliers around campus. Right now I go to Cincinnati and every time I mention that we have a ski team I get the "we have a WATER SKI team here??!!!??" its not very well known here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller Skoot1123 Posted December 4, 2014 Baller Share Posted December 4, 2014 @livetoski - you won't know until you ask! Its definitely worth a shot. Especially since the input ($) should be little to nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller 6balls Posted December 4, 2014 Baller Share Posted December 4, 2014 No one ever knew about our team, either, when I was skiing in college. Fund raising yes...how about "boat raising". Where will the team get a boat? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller Ilivetoski Posted December 4, 2014 Author Baller Share Posted December 4, 2014 @6balls Right now I have a friend at UK who is also a skier. He has a 99 Nautique and I have an 04 Lxi. Both boats will have Zbox next year so until we get money to afford a boat we will be using our boats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller LeonL Posted December 5, 2014 Baller Share Posted December 5, 2014 Frucci is in Boston. I once had his email,but it may or my not be valid anymore. I send it to you if I've still got it in my contact list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller Ilivetoski Posted December 5, 2014 Author Baller Share Posted December 5, 2014 @Than_Bogan your from up there right? Do you know him? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFrucci Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 I'm a UK Alumni and my name is Jay Frucci. An old friend keyed me into the discussion which is the beauty of the sport. It is all about relationships. I can tell you that we, as UK students, struggled mightily to build a club, but it literally changed my life. I learned more about sales, marketing, and business from that silly club than in any of my University classes. And I met my wife of 18 years through the foolish club! We socialized, met many mentors in the community like Leon who helped guide us and teach us. We had great moments when we trailered a brand new 1994 Supra from the factory in TN to the UK campus and equally as bad moments when we trailered it back to the factory in pieces, a year later, after a terrible accident. We lived and we learned. I landed at UK as a true yankee with a duffle bag in one hand and a ski in the other and left the beautiful State of KY eight years later in a moving van. Now we have 3 boys who ski and one who is starting to compete at a pretty high level. UK Ski Club was good to me and I'd be happy to help get you started. There should some remaining infrastructure somewhere that you could leverage. For example, the club was incorporated and I may still have some of those documents which may help. You'll have to do all of the work and have the passion to build it, but I can help guide you through it. Send me an e-mail at Jay@furnitureconsignment.com and we can connect. More importantly, Leon -- send me a note as well so that we can catch up! You could also try to locate Joe Surkimur who followed us. He was a good kid who kept things going and may have additional connections. There are also some folks who work in the industry who were with our team: Jay Warren and Rob Loucks were both there for good and bad times and went on to work with Supra for many years and may still be there. They would be good people to find. At the very least, they'll buy you a beer and tell you some stories. Now its up to you! You've got the contacts so now we'll see how resourceful and driven you are to make it work. Good Luck! Final thought... be ready to share ALL of your shit (jumpers and tricks) with any first timer who is willing to try. If you're not willing to do that -- then you are on your own -- literally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller Ilivetoski Posted December 5, 2014 Author Baller Share Posted December 5, 2014 Email sent. I love the power of Ball of Spray. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EL_LOKO_11 Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 I´m working on the idea to create a water ski school in a public lake. I would apreciate any tips or documentation, usefull links, etc. from you guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supporting Member Than_Bogan Posted January 14, 2015 Supporting Member Share Posted January 14, 2015 HI JAY! We haven't crossed paths in quite a while. Got any New England tournaments planned this summer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThisUserNameIsDumb Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 Not positive about how it will all piece together. Maybe bringing in some coaches would add some clout to the team Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller chris_logan Posted January 14, 2015 Baller Share Posted January 14, 2015 @ThisUserNameIsDumb I suppose you think that @Ilivetoski should secure some factory support to provide this upstart team with a boat, skis, and endless fuel supply? I'm sure Nautique would be willing to send Nate and Whitney to be full time coaches for their team. < (insert sarcasm font) Almost every collegiate team started with 2-3 people who just like to ski or hang out on the water - using somebody's personal boat and going to tournaments to have fun and meet other skiers. There are several collegiate teams that compete at nationals that are 95% comprised of people who had never skied in a tournament prior to being on their ski team. In this case, we Ballers need to provide as much reasonable constructive advice as possible, trying to ensure the success of this upstart collegiate effort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller skiboat38 Posted January 14, 2015 Baller Share Posted January 14, 2015 @ThisUserNameIsDumb.......I'm guessing you are someone from the UC ski team that Ilivetoski has stepped on their toes or pissed off...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baller MattP Posted January 14, 2015 Baller Share Posted January 14, 2015 As a college skier who started a team with 3 skiers who love the sport we made the Nationals wild card tournament our first season. It is for sure possible to do and it's not always about the numbers on the team and the support you have. You make it what you want to and have a lot of fun along the way and make friends for life from all over the country and the world. I would not change my place in college skiing for anything. I'm excited to see what @Ilivetoski will do at UK. he has a great passion for the sport. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThisUserNameIsDumb Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 @chris_logan I was not suggesting bringing in pros at all. That would be huge nor a factory sponsor. But, when I was a strong headed 20 somethin I would have more respect for an alum/promo driver/amateur coach or along those lines. Perhaps a little over zealous on my previous comment. Hope it gets started and adds more to an already boom collegiate circuit @skiboat38 I wish I had been, from what I have heard they have a nice set up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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