Build it and they will come? BOS-WSA

[ToddL]

Many want a new "water ski association" as noted in several comments. But it would be quite a task for any one person to build it. But there's collective experience, knowledge, insight in this community.

 

So, how about a collaborative conversation to write out how the new BOS Water Ski Association would work? @jdarwin @Jody_Seal

 

I know you are already starting to think about what you'd want to be done differently: boat and speed control qualifications, site/skier insurance, officials, scoring, simple but fair, minimize overhead, costs, etc.

 

But before we draft up a new rule book and by-laws, the new association needs a mission statement and some primary goals. Without those, the new organization will not know its purpose. The rules and decisions of how to organize the association will be without alignment.

What should those be?

 

The mission of the BOS-WSA is to...

The primary goals of BOS-WSA are:

[Edbrazil]

Back circa 1966, there was some movement toward revolution, somewhat led by the

Eastern Region VP. Lots of talk; never happened.

[Wish]

http://www.intleague.com

[dbutcher]

Many AWSA members have no conception of what AWSA has done for us its members. It is a lot more than meets the eye. I believe AWSA is underappreciated. If you are dissatisfied with AWSA, make an effort to change it. Go to your regional meetings. Campaign for and vote for the people you want to represent you. It is much easier to change the current AWSA than it is to form a new organization. Then, there will be people who don't like the new organization. You have to be willing to invest time and effort. If you are not, don't whine.

 

As a simple example, go to USAWS' web site. Click on Three Event. Then click on each of the menu items that come up. It will take you hours to read about all the things AWSA has accomplished.

[Wish]

@dbucher why do I have to go to a meeting in this day and age to vote on something or a representative?. I am part of a professional organization with 10x the membership with U.S. government lobbying power. Have not been to one meeting in decades yet I'm informed of personal positions and rule item changes to vote on electronically. There is no reason what so ever that could not be done with all aspects in votable decisions that affect the membership with the AWSA. Want change? Make change accessible to the members...it goes both ways.

 

While I do appreciate the AWSA, the "show up to the meetings to make a change" argument is getting tired.

[aupatking]

Show up to meetings to get what you say stuck into "the board doesn't care" file? I've been on both sides, the board of directors and the stockholder asking a reasonable question. So,I travel every week for work, but I need to travel to? Where? For a Southern regional meeting? You understand there are 14+ hours drive between places in our region, right.

So, I'm with @Wish "show up to a meeting". Thanks

I'm also, all for NOT killing the AWSA. Does it need to be more of an open forum?maybe so. Kinda why I like BOS requiring AWSA number. If you want your opinion counted, put your money where your mouth is. I pay a membership and for tournaments, you can manage email and votes.

[Wish]

"Make an effort" is also becoming a tired argument. How about we make it real easy to vote. Allow votes on representative appointments to hit this website for that vote. As this may never be a reality, I suspect if it was, those holding AWSA position would be very nervous about their positions.

[Horton]

@dbutcher

As a simple example, go to USAWS' web site. Click on Three Event. Then click on each of the menu items that come up. It will take you hours to read about all the things AWSA has accomplished.

 

I see a lot of documents and web pages. Perhaps some tasks have been completed but show me an ACCOMPLISHMENT of great value in the menu.

[Horton]

In a perfect world the sport would be run by people with skin in the game. The one thing about INT that makes a lot of sense is every time they gain or lose a member Rick Stocks makes or loses a dollar. Yea, I know he says he never made money on INT - whatever.

 

ONE of the problems with USAWS / AWSA is that it is run by a few employees and a bunch of members who are not financially impacted by the success of the sport. I will NEVER tell you that these people are evil or lazy or dishonest but who among them is unsure how they will pay the mortgage because membership fell another 10%. Maybe a few employees at HQ could or have lost jobs but where those people in a position to make real change?

 

I actually floated the idea of an industry take over to a few industry folks and pro skiers. They all said that it was impractical and I agree but I do think it is a good thought experiment. What if the association were really run like a business. What if the bureaucracy and committees were replaced with a lean and qualified team that could make decisions always based on what is best for the majority of the membership. (@Jody_Seal I am talking about the AWSA membership)

 

In defense of the elected representatives, let me say this – A wise skier once challenged me when I complained about AWSA. He said “Do you know your EVP and Directors?” I said “Yes”. He then asked “Are they idiots?” I said “No, I actually have a lot or respect of the representatives from the West”. He said “Everyone feels that their representatives are good and the others are the problem.” The point is that the root problem is not as simple as we wish it could be.

[ToddL]

My representatives are amazing and excellent people, too. So are the people I know personally who serve on committees, etc.

 

Amazing, smart, dedicated people can just be incapable of changing the path of a runaway train that is already underway with a lot of stored momentum (history). Sometimes the solution to a runaway train is to jump off, stop it (let it crash maybe), and get on a new train that has an engineer and is headed in a direction in which there is enough interest for people to buy enough tickets to pay for the cost of operating the train.

 

The issue is that no one is ready to take on the task of replacing USAWS. That was not INT's charter. They offered something different, but not a replacement, as in addition to it. INT was to fill a gap, but leave the rest alone. What if the challenge was to replace all of it with something different? That's a whole new level of "do something different."

[Jody_Seal]

AWSA is not going away and rightly so, to try and start a new sanctioning organization would take tremendous amount of dollars and resources.

The biggest problem with AWSA is the communication tactics that are in place and utilized. Each state and region has representatives (council and directors) that forward information, needs and ideas to make the sport or the situation they represent more viable for the sport up the leadership chain. The hierarchy of the sport the president and the appointed committee chairs along with a few HND's and USAWS are supposed to disseminate these presented needs, ideas and information and present a plan that can be acted on for the needs betterment of all involved. This is where the machine is only running on half cylinders. For example the latest BOD packet was presented almost two weeks before the regional meetings in December and this packet was a big one. Now this information was supposed to be forwarded to all state regional council HND's and committee members. Now two weeks is really not enough time for those that received to reach out and get with their membership and get feed back nor was this information readily available to membership for feedback. Now keep in mind this is the informational age but people need time to disseminate and form conclusion and make decisions. had this BOD packet been available 6-8 weeks earlier and presented to membership via electronic media there probably would have been a different outcome at the winter meeting.

This type of information cycle breeds personal agendas and that is how a lot of the dissatisfactory rules and policy gets inputted into the system. There were many regional requests that have come out of the summer meetings that were either ignored or dismissed and other agendas applied.

This thread that has been started is by far one of the best for the sport as a whole, more people are chiming in and even more reading it then any state or regional meeting I have been to.

Instead of forming a new organization maybe the BOS or this web site can facilitate a membership information group or sub organization that has a lobbyist ideology that allows AWSA members to add input and ideas for membership growth and the betterment of the sport as a whole. AWSA / USAWS sure ain't going to do it.

 

So maybe when we post , suggestions should be made as AWSA member input:

 

@Wish, Brian is correct when it comes to why attend meetings when these meetings can now be performed electronically. Our own regions 2016 winter meeting was performed with half of the council and board sitting in their own home in front of their computer's or smart phone. Want member participation and involvement live stream these meetings and allow members to digitally input reactions, ideas and vote's.

 

Make it a policy to present the BOD information to general membership 10 weeks before the summer and winter meetings. This will help with the personal agenda's that get slipped into the mix.

 

 

I take great pride in being a AWSA member and the pride in what I have accomplished as a official, driver and coach. It is not for everybody to become a sports leader and I respect those that have and do step up to do so.

The sport should be visiable at all levels of leadership and information should be made available early and accessible to all members and not after the fact as is now the case.

 

 

 

 

 

[jcamp]

Why go to meetings? Well, to show that you give a shi!t and are willing to see things through. Anyone who has been a boss, or has ever had a boss, knows that you can talk about doing this or doing that over the phone or via email. But when the boss shows up on site and starts asking questions, stuff gets done.

 

 

[Wish]

@jcamp pretty sure you missed the point. Why go to a meeting if the meeting/vote can come to you. Again, I do not have to attend any meetings with my professional association to have a voice. And part of what makes me complain less about my professional association is having a voice. If my vote does not alter an outcome, at least I did my part. If it does, I own some of that outcome. Those that can go do, those that cannot at least get a voice. It's spreading the "give a shit" to all members vs a few.

[bigtex2011]

Maybe there should be some term limitations to upper levels of awsa. How long have some of the directors been in place.

[skibackwards]

Since this topic is morphing----

I would like to see the agendas of Regional meetings and BOD packet for the January meeting posted on the AWSA site before the meeting. Then, as soon as possible, the minutes of the resulting decisions posted online.

[jcamp]

@skibackwards I don't know about other regions, but my region reps do that.

[disland]

I think its not AWSA that's the problem its IWWF. As long as class L is required for major events we cant change anything. And we all know its impossible to make any rule changes to IWWF.

 

First change is we should stop requiring international ranking list for Masters, Jr Masters, and Sr Worlds and anything else except Pro events.

[Wish]

Hmmm.. Ok, since there are those in the know posting here, what if joe skier like me wants to, for lack of a better example, include wake skate in all class C tournaments to attract youth. So what would be the procedure for getting this "great" idea going? Whether it is a bone headed idea isnt the point. Just want to know exactly how it would go from my idea to a rule in the books. This would be helpful to the argument either way. May even highlight, as suggested, things get lost in the shuffle or personal agendas stoping a ball like that from moving on. Let's see the bureaucracy laid out. And yes yes I know you can site the rule book and say read these pages but please don't. A nice outline or something would be more helpful.

[JeffSurdej]

Wow, what a great # of topics going on at BOS right now. It's tremendous feedback and I appreciate it. Let me first say, it breaks my heart to hear so many of you feel that AWSA is not doing a good job and not getting the proper feedback from it's members, so let me say I will do my best to make sure that changes. When I took over as president, being open to ideas and communicating to my board and committees was one thing I put at the top of my agenda. I feel that has been improved, but it doesn't sound like it's making its way back down to the members.

 

STARTING A NEW AWSA-of course I'm biased but this is not the answer, rather, I beg of you to work together with me and your regions to help change the current AWSA. This is why I took on this high paying low hour job :) , I wanted to make a change, whether you hate AWSA or not, the only chance we got in our small 3 event world is to work together to make 3 event skiing great again.

BOARD PACKETS EARLIER-this is a good idea, the turn around time on packets doesn't give state councils much to really get membership feedback so what we've turned into a system where we rely on state council reps to represent the membership at region meetings and be the voice of the membership and then the regional rep to be the voice of the region at the nationals level. Realistically it would be tough to get the packet out much sooner though. There is just a lot to them and its all done by volunteers, but I'll see what we can do to move up deadlines a few weeks and to also make the agendas public and perhaps allow for some polls and feedback on rule changes so we know what the members want and not what the board wants.

 

VOLUNTEERS MAKE IT TOUGH This has been perhaps the most frustrating and unexpected side of our sport that I have seen since I became president. All of us, every director, council, and committee is an un-paid volunteer. It's not like all of us our going into the waterski office each day to brainstorm and work on changing AWSA. We all have to do what we can in the 2 hours (if that) a night we have extra in our life. And you throw the summer ski season, when we are all extra busy, and its' just point blank tough to get a lot done in a fast matter. I have hired 2 personal assistants on my own dime just to help me get more stuff done. Some have mentioned the USAws/AWSA relation. I don't think leaving USAws is the answer but we must change our business model there. It does make it tough when USAws has all the money and paid staff yet AWSA is in charge of increasing membership.

 

ALL IDEAS WILL GET LOOKED AT All recommendations or ideas that come to me or committee's will get looked at, that I promise. They may not get passed or they might take a few meetings to get on the agenda but they will be addressed.

 

THE BOARD WONT CHANGE I'm just going to say it, BS. The AWSA board will embrace change, I know you may not believe it but I'm telling you they will. I have sat in those board meetings now for 21 years. I don't think the problem is the Board not wanting to change, I think the problem is the lack of good ideas being presented to bring change. We talk the talk, including myself, but its time to put ideas into well thought out proposals, presented to membership, states, regions, and brought to the Board, then lets challenge them to think outside the box and make change.

 

WHATS TAKING SO LONG MR SURDEJ? No doubt, 18 months already and I feel way behind schedule. Membership down 6.5%. No one feels less accomplished than me right now, but 2017 is big for us. There are a lot of great things on the horizon. Many items of the 11 point strategic plan are nearing implementation, so I ask to stick with us, lets change class C, or start a new recreational part of AWSA. Over the next 2 years you will see a new membership fee structure, a new benefits package that changes our business model, better marketing, team skiing, mini courses, more access to ski lakes, a better reg/nats, better division structure, more juniors in the sport, hopefully pro skiing more on the map, a streamlined officials program and most importantly, MAKING TOURNAMENTS FUN AGAIN.