JeffSurdej

I appreciate everyone's feedback, all I can say at this point is lets do what we can to make it better and I will also see about reverting back to old site on pages until fixed. I know HQ has already done that for a few main pages so they are willing to do so. I cant tell you how much it would help to enter your issues on this google sheet as many have done already https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/135vMmVLc1bh6HsXnh8hLohpkHP-dX2OmVkqU3gFMrlk/edit#gid=0 I'm more upset that this is the platform the the USOC provides for 49 NGB's. You would think it would be better. A decision was made about 3 years ago to go this route, we could either pay to rebuild a new site or take advantage of being part of the USOC and not only get a free website but get paid $55k a year for using their platform. I dont think any of us thought it would be this difficult. Financially it seemed like the right choice at the time. Most of our issues on the new site have to due with fact this "iframes" thing which is how all our sanctioning and rankings must live on teamusa without re-writing all the code. We've put ourselves in quite a bind by having volunteers develop sanctioning and rankings and OLR, not a bind as we would not have any of it without people like Mark Crone, Dave Clark, Jim Meis, Dave allen and others. I can not even begin to tell you what all us skiers owe these guys, but at some point here we have to update the programming language and get it out of the hands of 1 volunteer. Our rankings is the most complicated thing you can imagine, you should see the behind the scene coding that goes into making all our unique situations fit. HQ next moved is to move our membership system to the same system USA hockey uses, the key here is it wont be in our hands to code or update, if new version comes out or a browser changes, or security measures are put into place they get updated on the spot. We are basically using an SAS. Appreciate all the feedback on this, I hate that the new site has not gone smoothly. Our members deserves better. but we will get it fixed.

@JackQ going back is not an option at this point, I know the transition has not gone smoothly and the new site is no A+ but there are too many logistics to go back, so we gotta make it work. The # one issue is the iframes that had to built to make OLR, sanctioning, rankings all work within the USOC platform, we have reverted some of those back for now. lets just work together to fix issues and improve it. The old site worked well but for many reasons it had to be changed, we couldnt even play video on the old site, it was not mobile responsive, and would not work going forward as we work on new membership database and sanctioning functions, so this is step 1 in a number of steps.

@rico @MattP How about we try a google sheet where people can add issues they see or enhancement ideas, this way we can have them in one place and work on them all winter. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/135vMmVLc1bh6HsXnh8hLohpkHP-dX2OmVkqU3gFMrlk/edit#gid=0

@MISkier true but ZBS in general was a non-elite change in my mind.

@Jody_Seal since when have I not listened to our members, common man. I don't have time to be on BOS, I'm hear to listen and make the sport better. And name one change that's been made in AWSA (not IWWF) to cater to the elite in the last 5 years? Cause I can give you a dozen that have been catered to the non-elite. Anyways....I would be all for a test run of stuff if it makes sense and the majority of the members agrees. But everything you said above can already be done, obviously states can be whenever you want, they don't have to be the week before Regionals and they can be after Nationals so no one is stopping this from happening. And Regionals can be 6 weeks before Nationals already so no one is stopping the West or South from spreading out the championships series, so if you want to test, go test it. We have given each region that flexibility. And if the West wants to have 2 Regionals, draw it up, propose it, and I can not see why the board would not allow it. For us in the midwest we don't have the flexibility to spread it out as we only have a 6 week season total. All in all I agree spreading it out would be nice, but I've yet to hear a solid laid out plan that works. BTW next years nationals is August 8-14, perfect time for some regions to not move their regionals up a week and give skiers a few weeks in between, its not 6 weeks but it helps? Once again, no rule change needed, regions have that flexibility now. When we send out this years rules survey I'll add some questions centered around nationals dates and skipping regionals or replacing regionals with states etc? , we did this in 2016 but time for an update on how members feel.

@Horton I think to answer your question it depends on the state. My state of Illinois already has everyone going, i.e no one skips state and then goes to regionals, so our state would still be 50 skiers competing in 34 divisions and thus no competition, at least at regionals there are 20 M3 slalom skiers. So this goes back to a different response I had that maybe its time to rethink the division structure and how we compete that would tie better into making a 50 person event competitive. Even if we went back to age groups at Nationals I think that would be fine b/c at Nationals skiing by age works. IDK. Sadly, our sport is not big enough to have competition at any local level under an age division structure or at least 34 age divisions.

I still don't see how this really helps the sport in any significant way. We are simply shuffling the deck chairs. We just had 3 really well attended Nationals with great competition in every division. I'm not sure what is "broken" with nationals? If we did the above scenario and more people came to Nationals then we have to make qualifications harder b/c we can not go over 750 skiers without a 3-5 lake site, even a 3 lake site now is 5 days maxed out. So in the end of all this you'll still have the same size Nationals with probably just more of the top qualified skier which is a good direction don't get me wrong. I can argue that our bigger problem in the sport is local, state and regional competition that is not increasing the membership and tourney participation at the base. I do think finding a way to spread out state, regionals, nationals would be nice, but until we have a labor day Nationals this won't happen and prior surveys did not seem to be too favorable with a labor day Nationals. Anytime I go to a 5-7 day event I have much more cost in hotels and food, time off work, and rental car than the flight. So I could argue the length of the event is more expensive then the travel to get there. But to solve that we have to cut Nationals down to 200 skiers and have it over 3 days and then hope that state and regionals turns into a really big deal otherwise we just cut 75% of the top competitors out of any competitive event. I don't know the answers but I'd rather focus on making the every weekend event much more fun and competitive and increase membership and tourney participation. And I also say if the west would rather have 2 sectional or 2 regionals due to having to fly then go for it, makes sense.

@Horton I don't know, personally I think Regionals is an important part of our sport for many reasons that we've gone through before, but yes the double travel is brutal. It all depends on the goal you are trying to achieve. If it's to get more skiers to Nationals then we're going to need to make qualifications tougher b/c we are starting to get too big at Nationals. And I don't think making qualifications tougher is a bad idea, its time to tighten them up again now that attendance is back. Ideally more time between regionals and nationals would be nice as well, I've always thought Nationals should be labor day weekend but I know that throws a wrench into kids fall sports, but outside of that the season should end in September with our Nationals thus giving a few weeks between between travels of regionals and nationals. I also think this one of those debates that is region specific. i.e what works in one does not work in the other so if the West has more travel and expense issues perhaps the west should try switching to a state qualifier or sectional or something that works better for them and they could test the ground and see how it goes and if successful other regions could follow suit. We have such little competition in our sport so going to states vs regionals just takes away one more semi-competitive event, unless we revamp how competition works and how divisions are structured.

@MattP ill answer rest later but the production line item is simply a pass through of sponsorship. Polk county sports marketing pays for 100% of the show ski webcast.

@MattP they are not although visitors to website do increase our kickback from USOC for being on their website platform. Outside of that nothing extra from current sponsors.

We are fundraising early to have a professional webcast of the 2021 GOODE Nationals by the Waterski Broadcasting Company. We need to raise $25k to make it happen, lets see what we can raise to make the webcast happen. IF WE DO NOT HIT OUR GOAL OF $25,000 OR THE WEBCAST DOES NOT TAKE PLACE ALL FUNDS WILL BE REFUNDED IN FULL. Why is it more this year? Part of it is due to the 2 additional days plus a night event. The other part is that in 2020 Lodging, some camera work, and food were covered by AWSA and Bennetts. $25k allows us to have the full production done by the Waterski broadcasting company. If we don't hit $25k there are areas we can reduce cost and still have the webcast but our goal is to have a full production if we can. Every little donation helps. Thanks for your support in 2020, let's make it happen again in 2021! https://www.gofundme.com/f/webcast-of-2021-goode-nationals

Scores anywhere?

@MattP Don't know why elite got a choice, I was asked 4-5 times throughout the week to give everyone a choice and said no, simply b/c a national announcement was made that only 1 rope would be used the 2.0 so like most things I find in life, stick to the rules or what was decided and don't open that can of worms. This is the first I'm hearing about elite getting a choice. I see no reason not to give choice next year, its the skier friendly thing to do. So we will!

Just kills me that ropes are always such an issue. Just to clarify, the TC of nationals when it was at West Palm, announced we would use 2.0 only so that all skiers knew, so we stuck with that. Maybe in the end the best is to give a choice, which might suck for dock starter, IDK. But I talked to Martin Kolman who is a top notch TC and worked very hard on all 6 ropes, so how can these ropes still be so stretchy. I wish we had a device that would test the bungieness b/c all these ropes "measure" the same but that have to have tremendous differences in bungiesness under skier pull?

@savaiusini whats the plan, cuts, rounds, etc?

2023 nats bids are open?????????????????????????? jay?

anyone know chelsea, shes signed up for stillwaters also?

@sunperch link doesn’t work but that’s the old site. Try https://www.teamusa.org/-/media/USA_Waterski/AWSA-Nationals/2020AWSANationalsSchedule.pdf?la=en&hash=2F489C739E9187C27FE0ADDE6D2B012D0F236859

@sunperch whete do you see old schedule?

Just got word from the drivers crew that they will have both a weighted and unweighted MC available for trickers

@sheskis7 1 weighted mastercraft only according to chief driver and chief judge

Please read this important update regarding Nationals. The entries are looking great and we have about 30% more than we expected, especially in the junior divisions. This has caused a number of schedule issues which have required us to move a number of events around and start times. Please read below. Schedule changes Both lakes will now start at 7am except for Saturday Lake 1 which is now 9am Tuesday W7-8S will be moved to lake 2 after M6S Wednesday -G5S will be moved from Wednesday to Thursday as first slalom event after B4T -All jump events on Wednesday will be run with 2 boats -W3S will be switched with G4S, so W3S will follow B5S. Thursday -IM/IW Tricks will move from Thursday to Saturday at 9am -B4T will be moved from Lake 1 to Lake 2 at 7am -B5T will be first on Thursday on Lake 1 and thus all Thursday tricks events will run about 90 minutes earlier than originally scheduled -All jump events on Thursday will be run with 2 boats Due to these changes there may be some events that will not be webcasted from the boat. Practice Now that registrations are in we are allowing skiers to book multiple practice slots at Tri-Lake from August 1st- August 3rd before the tournament begins. The link to practice schedule is https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14j8CJm144nDNXyxBYhMrgF6yy1x15FQm_pVzp2z_qaE/edit#gid=0 Please email bennettspractice@gmail.com to schedule booking ends July 31st @ 5pm. Off site practice sets can be booked at the practice check in thru Monday at Tri-Lakes. Slalom Ropes Optimized 2.0 Master Line ropes will be used for all slalom except for divisions using mid or light weight lines. "Mid weight and light weight towlines will be provided by the LOC and available for use by the Divisions as noted in rules 10.16.B.4.b & c." Jump Settings Jump ramp settings will be as follows: 1.81 6.81 0.2658 1.74 6.90 0.2522 1.63 7.00 0.2324 Tricks Master Craft weighted boats will be used for tricks. Volunteers Needed We are excited to produce the first ever webcast of the GOODE nationals next week. In order to provide a professional production we are going to be operating multiple cameras angles and have separate announcers for the webcast. But we need help over the 5 days to make this happen. So, we are asking anyone who is willing to just give us just 90 minutes of their week while at Nationals to help announce or run a camera for trick or jump. Please help by putting your name in any desired time slots available. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X2XhtUSEizlJeG4FPvW_4HFsjWMjYLQKxsOONUuRa6I/edit?usp=sharing If you cannot access or edit the document feel free to reply to this email with a desired position day and time and we will fill you in Thank you again for your help and see you next week at Nationals! COVID-19 Protocol GOODE US National Water Ski Championships, Zachary, LA 1) Introduction: a. Youth and Adult Outdoor Sports Activities are permitted in Louisiana. b. Face Coverings have been mandated by the Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards inside businesses and outside when 6ft social distancing is unavoidable. c. No gatherings of more than 50 people inside. d. Bars are currently closed in Louisiana and restaurants are limited to 50% in Phase 2. e. At registration, each competitor will be asked to complete a self-screening form. f. If you have had close exposure to someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 14 days, we recommend you stay at home. 2) General Information on Face Coverings: a. The State of Louisiana requires face coverings (covering mouth and nose) to be worn at all times when indoors (inside a public entity) except when eating or drinking, or when in an outdoor space and six feet of social distancing cannot be maintained from another person. b. EACH COMPETITOR WILL RECEIVE A FACE MASK IN THEIR COMPETITOR BAGS BUT EVERYONE IS ENCOURAGED TO BRING THEIR OWN, TO WEAR AS THEY WISH. c. When traveling and visiting restaurants around Zachary and Baton Rouge masks are required. d. PINNERS WILL BE REQUIRED TO WEAR A FACE COVERING WHILE IN THE TRICK BOAT DURING THE TOURNAMENT AND PRACTICE. 3) General Information on Social Distancing: a. Remain 6ft apart from people who are not in your household or immediate circle. b. EACH COMPETITOR WILL RECEIVE A WRISTBAND AT REGISTRATION EITHER GREEN (High Fives and Handshakes), YELLOW (Elbows Only - Still Being Cautious), OR RED (Stay 6ft Away - No Contact). PLEASE RESPECT THE BAND SYSTEM. c. We will have X marked on the floor for lines at concessions, please respect people’s distance. d. Keep distance on docks and when warming up ready to ski. 4) Sanitation: a. Port-a-Potty’s will have hand sanitizer in the general area. b. Hand sanitizer will be available on each dock. The condensed version: Provide and use your own mask/face covering, respect the BAND SYSTEM and keep 6 feet of social distance. These are not Tri-Lakes rules. These are mandated by The State of Louisiana under Governor John Bell Edward’s Executive Order 96 and 89, and the Proclamation amending Executive Order 96, Section 3. Due to expire August 7, 2020.

@Jody_Seal experimenting is better than trying nothing right :). Junior skier attendance is the same at Nationals this year as last year while overall attendance is down 22%. Maybe it's b/c of lack of summer sports due to COVID but its a great sign anyway you twist it. As for comparing scores 20 years ago to today, there is no doubt they are way down but are you suggesting it is down b/c people are literally not getting better b/c they do not have to get better due to lack of competition? I have not posted on this thread much but have been watching. We will see if the 5 groups is good, too early to tell but a good start so far, maybe we should have done 3 year groups instead of 2. But I will say something, having large numbers does not always equal competition, competition comes also from close scores. Having 50 B3S skiers when the scores range from 38 off to 15 off is not competition, having 2 groups of 25 closer in scores is better competition, ok yes more get medals, but its also motivates skiers to compete, participate and get better. I guess all I'm saying is that for every junior who does not like this I can find one that has come up to me and told me they love it and have stayed in the sport due to motivation to be competitive every year instead of getting kicked in the rear for 2 years until they are good enough to compete. My 2 cents anyways, we shall see how the experiment works!

@JackQ mobile or desktop ? Which links or icons are missing ? There is a magnify glass that is not very evident To the right of tourney as far as checking registration.

Keep the feedback coming. There will be bugs as with any website launch. This took Scott 6-8 months to convert our very complex website over and mark crone has spent hundreds of hours on his own dime to make rankings, olr, and event pages work under the USOC framework. Instead of spending $30k to hire programmers to make a website we will actually make $40k from USOC advertising due to traffic to our site. We had no control over launch date do I know it comes at a bad time with regionals and nationals but the issues will get fixed. Mark has already fixed tons of issues found by members so feedback to scotts email above is important.