Other sports’ governing organizations are not “comparable to the situation at hand”? I disagree. Everything is comparable. In fact, comparisons to healthy organizations are wise to make. What are those sports and organizations doing? It’s wise to study and emulate, just as in any other facet of life: skiing, parenting, career, etc.
One example of a sport that has come out of nowhere to now be particularly prevalent, is Pickleball. I just went to USA Pickleball’s website. It is dominated with requests for tagging it in social media and introducing others to the game. Of course it should. That’s the mission. How is that so different than a simple request from Kevco in our monthly/quarterly whatever magazine?
In the original post, many grievances were aired. Subsequently there has only been 1 concrete “fixable” complaint, which related to the thinning of divisions, essentially to (once again) tinker with the size of age groups. People obviously have different opinions on that so that is not an actionable gripe unless the rules committee considers those tweaks.
Other than that sole example, the OP, and other subsequent posts, generally disparaged Kevin Michael’s encouragement of members to get others skiing, and somehow twists that into rhetorically asking what does membership “do for me”?
If any skier, competitive or not, USAWS member or not, can’t appreciate what Kevin was saying, we think differently. If current or “former” USAWS members are concerned with the expense of tournaments (sanctioning, officials, etc) surely they/we can appreciate that more revenue through membership better offsets the expenses of the organization. What was so offending for Kevin to try to encourage USAWS members of the vital role of sharing the sport with others? It doesn’t mean every new skier has to join USAWS, it just means the larger pool of skiers will organically create new members: a benefit to the organization, current members, and hopefully the future ski careers of new members.
It’s not 1995. IF people want to wax poetic about the good ol days, that’s fine, but all I’m reading herein is complaints. No concrete suggestions are being made. It’s just like the safe sport conversations. All complaints, no solutions (because there were no alternatives), other than dropping your membership. If you’re inclined to drop USAWS over a video that you could watch while changing your boat oil, fine. But there is no utility in complaining without offering any concrete solutions to that which is being complained. I’m not suggesting anyone keep their thoughts to themselves, far from it, express away, but coupling them with solutions makes it far more productive.
As far as I’m concerned, there was nothing wrong with Kevin’s appeal.