JeffSurdej

@dave2ball yes there have been more, the details reside with USWWS but mostly with safesport, we just get informed of the results. What you said above to me is a reflection of society these days in general, just sucks on so many levels. These are not ideas or things AWSA wants to do, but in this screwed up world we live in where mr potato head and dr seuss are pulled off the shelf we all suffer and its now reflecting down to our lovely sport. I am fed up to and discouraged to grow the sport b/c every turn of the corner is a new hurdle OUT of our control.

@lpskier No awsa did not vote on it, its from USOC, much more I'd like to add to this but can't right now, its sucks for sure, not going to help us grow, but its also the future of probably every sport or organization we all are a part of that involves kids.

The site is still deciding on the RV parking, hope to have answer soon,

@sunperch you betcha

So another item out of the meetings was the return of the competition task force from 15 years ago who came up with the rankings system we have today. I know BOS has had multiple topics on figuring out more/better/different ways to compete in our sport. Aaron weeks has agreed to chair this so its time to fill the committee, and I'd like to fill it with some of you for sure, so if interested contact me please.

So another item out of the meetings was the return of the competition task force from 15 years ago who came up with the rankings system we have today. I know BOS has had multiple topics on figuring out more/better/different ways to compete in our sport. Aaron weeks has agreed to chair this so its time to fill the committee, and I'd like to fill it with some of you for sure, so if interested contact me please.

Getting excited for this venture. The AWSA exec and board is fully in support so we are going to start exploring this idea more. But the jist is to build a site that is user friendly, easy to figure out, and great landing pages for people new to the sport who just want to know the basics. We will still need usawaterski for news, rankings, sanctioning, events, so the idea is not to move all that to a new site as that becomes a $200K mutli-year project, We just need a nice site to build a community and infinity around like BOS has done here. NCWSA.com is a perfect example of how that can work. We think by doing this it will in turn help usawaterski with membership retention and getting new members.

@swbca @lpskier correct its called the "do no harm" rule which basically is set up so skiers don't feel they would hurt their averages by skiing more events, so it looks at all the possible penatlty scenario for only having 1 or 2 scores and E/C/L and gives the skier the best possible average according to the rules.

Yeah getting word that we have to pay to even ski L/R, which only effects nationals so we hopefully can adjust and make Nationals all E, and skiers who want L choose L, but TBD

When they sanction the new tournament they need to contact me with the new sanction number and the old sanction number (if they have it) and then I can go in and mark the new one as paid. SANDY HARDEE USA Water Ski & Wake Sports

@RichardDoane you can always sanction without paying. That’s what I did and was gonna contact HQ to see how to request the funds from 2019 to be used in 2020

@RichardDoane let me find out

Help make sure we can get TWBC to do Narionals in 2021. https://www.gofundme.com/f/webcast-of-2021-goode-nationals?utm_medium=sms&utm_source=product&utm_campaign=p_susi-sms-weeklysummary

I’ll say it again but I can’t tell you much better slalom is to watch when men start at 35.

@lpskier you can but it counts as class F so it would be limited to level 5

"He gonna do one more". We thought the season was over but the Mastercraft Pro has quite a slate of skiers so we are going to have Fantasy for this weekend. It's 2 qualification rounds and a final in MS and WS, top 6 go to the finals. MJ is 1 round and top 6 go to finals. Please note the last chance qualifier of round 2 of Men's jump will not count because not all jumpers will be jumping. You're going to draft 4 Mens Slalomers, 3 Mens Jumpers, and 3 Mens Slalomers with $1,200,000 in cap value. Good Luck. www.fantasy.ski

@Horton whatever we do has to be simply and programmable into scoring and rankings so why dont we try something like this. We handicap it all, so if there are 40 slalom skiers at the tournament we essentially have 40 competitors, HOWEVER we only count skiers who have an average on rankings with no penalty, so if 5 of the 35 skiers have a penalty they do not count in this "competition", we then handicap all 35 remaining skiers on a simply plus/minus system. first place gets 35 points, 2nd 34 down to 1, dave allen does all this in WSTIMS for us, shows it on live scoring and the new method gets uploaded to rankings for a new point system rankings, the more people you beat the higher you rank, so yes Nationals will be worth 600 points maybe? We can figure out the details of how many tournaments to use or how to use regionals and nationals b/c some regions just simply ski 2-3 times as many events as others. IDK but this is simple, it adds competition regardless of divisions and gender and each tournament could even and should be seeded in this manner so you truly feel like all 35 skiers are skiing against each other?

@Horton we really just need to run it side by side, keep current rankings for qualifications and start up a new one with some handicapped competition formula, this is sort of a big it they will come approach, just do the rankings and LOC will start running events as such, The hard part is getting someone to program a rankings to do so with WSTIMS imports, @MattP you busy, sounds like its right up your alley :)

@Horton its exactly the next step in our sport, time to stop having tourneys for score only and add competition, but without using handicapping I just don't see a way at local events

@Horton I'm dying to change our rankings in some fashion as this, the problem is the #'s, most events have 30-40 skiers total let alone 1-2 in their division, you almost have to use handicapping along with this so at least at each local event you have 30-40 competitors? Or is this suggestion just for pros?

@Horton doc is not viewable unless requested to be shared, just FYI

sharing a message I received....Jeff, Haven't been able to post in the thread regarding kids age groups but I've messaged John w my USAWS number so I can. Just wanted to share, I voted for the change, and as a result of the change all 3 of my kids are now planning on skiing tournaments. One of my daughters just skied in her first this past weekend and is just a pass away from nationals eligibility. The other 2 are close. The division change has lit a fire that did not previously exist because PRIOR to the change, when we'd talk about tournaments, with the ultimate competitive goal being nationals-eligible, they became discouraged just looking at scores online...hence, they essentially said what's the point. They would say, I like to ski, why would a tournament be any more fun when its just going to prove that the kids with more opportunity and access can ski better than me. They knew that already. They didn't need to go to a tournament to prove that to them, and it certainly did nothing to further inspire their interest, and for that matter, pushing their improvement. They each play multiple other sports and as a result of their perceived lack of competitiveness water-skiing got put in the "hobby" category. The tighter divisions caused all of 3 of my kids to watch the nationals webcast and say, "I can do that! They're all my size! No one is embarrassing themselves starting at longline! And most importantly, I WANT TO BE THERE!." Maybe they will all be at nationals next year, maybe not, but regardless, as a family, our lake time went up, became more focused and goal-oriented, and we have had more fun together. The curmudgeon perspective that likens this to the "everyone gets a medal" mentality is ludicrous to me. Are the motivations for the 60 Mens 6 competitors at nationals the same as 11 year olds? Of course not. "Most" of those MEN know they have no chance to podium, they ski because they love it and want a sense of camaraderie and competition. And that's completely fine. They earned the right to ski nationals and by God they're enjoying their best life doing what they want to do. Great. Kids are motivated by thinking they "really can" do something if they put their mind to it, but that has to be tangible, which this change allowed. For the long term health of interest in water-skiing, this change will organically spur more and more interest from the next generation. I steadfastly believe that/ Wouldn't it be awesome if kids' tournament participation raises to be so high that a discussion about one year age groups has to be had?! I applaud the change. It is spurring more ski interest in my household than we have ever had, and for the extraordinarily few kids (parents) who feel like this in any way diminishes podium finishes (who would be finishing on the podium regardless), I can only offer that I think there's a heckuva lot more kids and parents who are inspired by the change. 20 years from now, they'll admit this was worth it. Well done.

@brettmainer There are no proposals on the table (rules meeting Nov 7th) for any changes to junior age groups so its staying.

@MattP your explanation is exactly right, @jgills88 My guess is that if a lot of wakeboarders starting entering trick events we would see the same rule that NCWSA has, but for right now its fine for the half dozen that use wakeboards in AWSA so I say take advantage of it.

is it just me or is slalom way more exciting when guys start at 35 and women 32, way less downtime of passes that are too easy to be exciting.