MI3Eventer

Best site in the state! Love all the upcoming plans for it and would love to help anyway I can!

Hey Ballers! I wanted to get some input for the AWSA marketing and membership ideas. This year we had ALOT of enthusiasm and return members to AWSA and our goal is to capitalize on that for 2021. The main question: How do we get members to come back and continue to pay the $85? Last year we started the collegiate ski incentive for AWSA tournaments. Which seemed to gain some traction, but we are looking for some more ideas to incentivize membership and participation. Any and all ideas are appreciated!

Holy crap what a jump tournament for everyone at the Mastercraft Pro. While the wind made for a bit of a head-tail for slalom it was a perfect head wind for Jump. Something in that Lake Grew water, paired with the 6.2L with the three blade prop (thanks for explaining why they use the 3 blade for high end jumpers). Not sure I have ever watched a more exciting Jump event, 3 midwest guys breaking into 200+ feet off a 5'6 ramp?? Not to mention a new Latin American, Russian, and nearly a British record? Any event where 229 gets you 3rd place is pretty damn impressive. Also a reminder that Freddy is the GOAT at 45.

MC will continue to lead in supporting the sport with promo boats as people can't get enough of the 21. Why doesn't Nautique use the Nautique 200 as their promo boat? Instead of marketing it as a "Multi-Sport" boat. People LOVED the 200 so mix it up in the promo game so you can actually send some out. Malibu, who knows.

@MISkier Definitely not a requirement I think, but definitely encouraged.

Opinion: AWSA Class C tournaments should all offer a mini course! I think the mini course is such an easy way to teach new/novice/young skiers how to run the course. Not only that, it makes skiers feel they are actually skiing if they can't run the "Big" Course and teaches them the proper rhythm. The last two weekends I have been at tournaments that don't have permanent mini-courses, but had many new collegiate skiers attending. Me and another member of my club dropped a course in the night before both tournaments using cinder blocks, extra rope we had, and some of our old buoys. Total cost to us ~$7. Total time to setup ~20 minutes. It doesn't have to be perfect and surveyed but just enough to make things interesting for those skiers that want to ski a tournament, but don't necessarily run the course. The amount of people I saw run the mini course made it worth the cold swim.

@jjackkrash Agreed any NCWSA tournament, especially in the midwest, those kids are the best! Favorite AWSA tournament has to be Green Lightning in Wilmington, Illinois! Idk if I've ever skied so many sets in a weekend. Great people, camping allowed on site, and the fish fry is amazing. Roy is a master behind the grill.

Done

Remove age groups.....seed best skiers ski first, worst skiers at the end......ski against your handicap (either percent of your average OR buoy count +- average) head to head or in groupings of 4+. Don't have to have two boats going just run it normal and compile scores at the end of each round. Have a physical bracket, winner get's the bracket. I prefer buoy count +- average so that a skier with an average of 1.5 buoys doesn't get a 200% improvement by getting 3 ball. You can do this for all 3 events compared to averages and I know plenty of tournaments that do this with a TON of success. I've seen 8 year old kids on the mini course facing off against shortline skiers and the atmosphere is just as fun as the best skiers in a run off. Let's encourage people to ski tournaments and not discourage average skiers from skiing tournaments.

@Mastercrafter nonsense, I'm still barely getting into 30 MPH, but try and ski every tournament I can. If you ski "novice" at Michigan tournaments you will be guaranteed 4 passes anyway! Go for the environment, sweet boats, and start becoming a judge!

@Mastercrafter what club are you a member of? Have you been skiing any tournaments in Michigan? Always a good way to get more advice/coaching!

@Davismp1 There will be a couple of tournaments within a short drive from Elk Rapids. We would love to have more college kids at them! http://www.usawaterski.org/rankings/View-TournamentsHQ.asp?pvar=TourInfo&TourID=20M052&olrds=enabled&rg=1&sl=on&tr=on&ju=on&wb=&ws=&wu=&bf=&kb=&hy=&sExclude=

Tournament organizers need to realize that if the cost is up they need to offer more to bring in the skiers who could easily choose another weekend activity. I'm going to go to a tournament regardless because I get to see my friends in the community and getting some judging/driving in. One thing that we have been bouncing around is side tournaments during the day for things like cornhole, volleyball, etc. The point being if someone is going to dedicate their whole Saturday and $50+, give them something to do. Free lunches are always a huge win for skiers and when you buy in bulk you can get it down to $3-$4 per person. Adding a team aspect also makes it much more fun for competitors. @JeffSurdej runs a team tournament every year and 2 of the 4 members of my team only ski that tournament every year because of the team aspect.

Hey jumpers and lake owners! Me and some of the jumpers at my club have been bouncing around the idea of installing a permanent jump camera at our club site. For tournaments we currently bring in one of the members cherry pickers and have a portable camera we put in there. We want to have a more permanent option so that we could get some measurements at practice vs only having a score at tournaments. Does anyone with some experience have some ideas as to how much this would cost ballpark? Obviously don't need the best setup.

The tolerances for mini courses is really wide....last year I hosted a couple of collegiate tournaments and we used some cinerblocks and tape measures to drop in a mini course the day before the tournament, I think we spent $20 and about an hour of swimming. This year we are working to have a PA system at every weekend tournament in Michigan. We found last year at the collegiate tournaments that you don't need to assign someone cause someone will always be willing to listen to their own voice! I flew down for Actions October tournament in Polk City from Michigan because a bunch of my club members went down. It was an awesome tournament....super relaxed awesome site, plenty of rounds a free t-shirt, and lunch. Jerry did it right. I will definitely be heading down again this year. My only hope is we get some more Florida jumpers to compete as I was the only one!

Has anyone hired a company before that uses oversize loads and know an approximate cost?

Without it's the 14'

Does anyone have experience shipping a jump that doesn't fold across state lines?