JeffSurdej

@Bruce_Butterfield I have to call BS on this comment and give you a panda if I could Another poorly thought out idea rammed through by a vocal minority. I have to defend AWSA here, I don't know how we can be more transparent. We surveyed all members in which 77% were in favor. We then post all rules proposal publicly, including here on BOS, on December 1st, then each region has regional meetings in which members should have ample time to express concerns before it gets to national meetings, if you have a better way to make sure the skiing public knows about upcoming rules proposals please let me knows I'd be happy to implement them. You may not agree with the rule or how your region voted but the research and data that went into the reasoning behind it were well thought out and not rammed through.

@sunperch

@sunperch no changes in any slalom or jump, we simply took B4 (old old B3) and split it into 2 groups

@sunperch ill get on that but pretty sure the plan is to run it right after all the 4’s b/c that way the total numbers and times are not effected.

Yesterday the AWSA Board passed the final stage of its migration to 2 year youth divisions by implementing B5/G5. The board also voted to make this change retroactive to the previous nationals so that it ties into the previously formed B4/G4 divisions. So starting today B1/G1 remains U10, B2/G2 is U12, B3/G3 is U14, B4/G4 is U16, and B5/G5 is U18. The programming for this was released today so we would love more testing eyeballs to make sure everyone and their scores are correct. We still have some overall and qualification issues to work out but if anyone sees anything out of the ordinary please DM me so we have this 100% accurate before 2020 tourneys begin. http://www.usawaterski.org/rankings/View-StandingsHQ.asp?pvar=National

Sorry for got to share that news @nikandsteve @skier2788 yes it is delayed until 2021 events

@nikandsteve let me find out

Just terrible news. Dave was such a supporter of 3 event skiing. Title sponsor of AWSA nationals for decades and his company created an affinity for a brand I’m not sure we’ve ever seen before. He will be missed.

@nikandsteve a link to purchase it?

@scuppers $19.95 is not value enough to be able to post on those BOS threads?

@BraceMaker don't bring me down, let me enjoy a positive stat for 24 hours :) but its sad, 964 lost per year, good news is we gained 981 new ones but retention is a huge issue

AWSA membership increased in 2019, up 17 members. Ok, its not a lot but 2 years in a row of growth.

@Golfguy I didn't make that statement

@Kimbymon 99% sure yes. BTW some posts have indicated what a good measure is of growth and I like what you all have said, membership is not everything, nor is tourney skiers, unfortunately its the only metric we have so we harp on it a lot but as long as a lot of people in the world are waterskiing recreationally and buying skis and boats these are all good indicators of the strength of the sport. Also wanted to add that I hope I did not offend any private lake owners or club members with some of my comments. Private clubs are the core of our sport and we would not be in existence without them, my point I was trying to make is that we need more clubs to help grow the sport. We have 385 AWSA clubs, and I know a lot are helping skiers learn to ski, inviting them to ski, and doing a great job of helping but if we could get more to help, more to be more open to outside learn to ski events, we can use this resource to help fight the decline, put it this way, that approach is easier and cheaper than trying to rebuild the public lake atmosphere

@MISkier That's great to hear and a great way to solve many of the ideas that have been tossed around on this thread. The success of these Wednesday night ski leagues has been incredible. It's an opportunity to give people access to a course or boat they may not have, it helps build the base of recreational skiers, and because sites (mostly private) are hosting them it easy to sanction and support and run. AWSA has pledged $7500 in 2020 to support and take these nationwide by covering the cost of sanction fees and guest membership for first time attendees and marketing the events. We are hoping to double or triple the # of these events in 2020. @Horton You asked if a pure 3 event organization would have weathered the storm better. Great question and we will never know but I really do not think it would have, if you look at the major factors that have caused the decline I do not see how AWSA on its own would have solved them. Yes, there are challenges for AWSA working within USAWS, but also benefits. In the end maybe we would be a little better off as in maybe our decline would have been 40% instead of 50% but I still don't think it changes the major causes. Just my opinion, I'm sure many disagree. The biggest frustration is really the capital and resources to implement ideas. AWSA has ideas that have been on the table for years and neither AWSA nor USAWS has the resources or capital to implement them, but if AWSA was on its own we would have the same issues, we would have the same lack of revenue and increase in cost of doing business leaving no working capital for good ideas to make a difference.

@JC McCavit actually college waterskiing is not growing, we had 82 teams at our peak and now have 57, although the # of skiers within those teams has really increased so our total membership has grown somewhat over the past 5 years. Keeping them after college is of course a great avenue but very difficult, these skiers have no equipment, no where to ski, no money and not to mention they just left an atmosphere where 1 buoy made them feel successfull and then AWSA says, sorry go compete against someone who runs 38 off just b/c they are the same age. Our sport should be ability based and aged based like 99% of all sports out there. @Nando I take your post as 2 different items. The first one is about usaws spending time on wakeboard and surfing and loosing focus on 3 event, I disagree, I have been in USAWS board meetings for 20 years, trying to grow or endorse WB or WS has never been anr agenda item. 90% of time and resources at USAWS is spent on 3 event. 2nd point, Trying to get into olympics, we were as close at you can come to being added and if it had worked out our sport would have been changed forever so I dont regret the gamble. And honestly I could argue that the technology and strive for making all site scores the same would have happened regardless of our olympic endeavours b/c thats just societies way with advances in technology. @BraceMaker I think that whats makes our sport so hard to grow, its not as easy as putting in a basketball court in every YMCA, if it cost $5k to add waterski facilities to local towns and high schools we would, but its millions to build one lake and let alone maintain it. @aupatking I'm unaware of any refusal to answer emails, they certainly did not come my way, and I'd be shocked if USAWS didn't respond to such email's but I certainly hope not. If you know of anyone that is having trouble please let me know. We have dozens of college kids who ask and we aide them in starting clubs at schools, we could do the same in high school but in the end it comes down to the usual issues like needing a boat, and a site and a course, and equipment. All major hurdles to growth. We barely have any WB or WS members and I agree with you we should be going after tubers, we should have 100,000 members who love to do anything behind a boat and then let AWSA worry about the competition side of it.

@jimski about 150 are foreign.

@Spineofgoo those companies won’t even take a meeting unless you have 50,000 members. We are too small unfortunately. Btw I forgot this stat. The 3 boat companies made 11,000 boats this year. 295 of them ski boats. The customers have spoken.

As president, not a day goes by that's its not on my mind on how to grow the sport. Although I'm happy to say we have not lost membership in 2 years in AWSA I feel beyond disappointed that it has not grown to my goal of 10,000 members. We've tried a lot and I think we have had some wins such as ZBS and mini course, not to mention countless other initiatives in the works and to come and quite frankly many that have not made a difference. There has been a number of things mentioned on here and no one is really dead wrong, but if had to pick one thing its plain and simple.....WAKEBOARDING. We have not shifted to private lakes, customers have simply altered their water sports activity, plain and simple. In the 80/90's there was only water skiing to do behind a boat so that's what everyone did on public lakes. Then, an easier and more fun sport game along called wakeboarding which changed our sport forever, and now even with the decline of wakeboard, surfing is now the preferred water sport. There is nothing we can do to change that... it's easier, its more fun and that's what most families will get the ROI on. No change in USAWS to AWSA, no change in pricing, no change in rules or towboats can bring us back to the 80's. Yes there are many factors, and I'm not saying they have not aided in the decline but if I had a pie chart, wakeboard and wakesurfing would make up 75% of the pie chart. The other factors would be cost, a boring sport, loing weekends, society changes, families with less free time and money, more choices for kids, internet, these things have effected ALL sports. Golf is down, snow skiing is down, wakeboarding is dead, football, NASCAR, and baseball are down, there are many sports experiencing a decline except a few that are the HOT things to do like soccer and curling. Everything goes in cycles. Even in our glory days of being on ESPN, AWSA was still only about 15,000 members so its not like we were ever a 100,000 member organization. And I would be surprised if there was not leadership idealogy issues and bureaucracy back in the 90's also, it was just not as public without the internet and a sport that ESPN was willing to cover, and now that's its declined for so many reasons its easy to blame USAWS and its leadership. There is no effort with leadership trying to get into the olympics, yes there may be some drawbacks to being part of USOC but there are no efforts going on that are draining our resources by being part of USOC. If we were not part of USOC would our sport really grow any? If so how, what parts of USOC are causing our sport to decline? Please tell me what we would do differently if not part of USAWS? What is USAWS hindering AWSA from doing? Honestly our biggest screw up was not endorsing wakeboard and now wakesurfing when we saw it coming, we had our chance and we blew it off (I'm guilty) and WWA took the rains, plan and simple, we didn't follow the money and now we have no money to spend on making a real difference. And BTW this happened while AWSA was running the organization in the 90's. Sorry for the rant, I'm as aggravated as anyone to see our sport not grow, I wish I had the answers, all we can do is keep trying and making efforts and we are seeing some positive signs in the past few years but lets be realistic, we are not going to ever be like it was in the 90"s, its just not a sport that fits today's society. Top 6 reason for the decline in waterskiing 6. Inability of AWSA and its membership to adjust the division and competition format to evolve to today's society 5. Private lake owners unwilling to share their lake time (making #1 below even worse) 4. More choices for families and kids to choose from 3. Families are busier and working more than ever 2. Cost of the sport, 6 figure boats and $2k skis, entry fees etc. 1. Wakeboarding and wakesurfing took over public lakes Do I get a Panda Horton?

@MattP its a license so yes if you ski 4 L events it cheaper to buy the $25 yearly, I know OLR will check to see if you have a license, and I'm not 100% sure how it will check or handle those that pay per event. You can not register for L and just not pay to be on rankings, I was hoping for hat so this would not effect our regionals/nationals but they way its happening is in order to ski in L you have to have the license. As for financials and revenue I dont know the details of it but it will be interesting to see how many choose now not to ski L. I know the revenue is not purely for the cost of running rankings but rather a shift in revenue stream. Right now all revenue for IWWF comes 100% from World bids, currently up to $155,000 just to host worlds which is why we keep skiing at unsafe sites, so the main ficus of this license is to shift the rev stream so that bid fees are much cheaper and more sites can bid on these events

@MISkier nope, purely a IWWF fee, we will handle it through our online registration but no effect to cost on entry fees or sanction fees

Yes IWWF, is implementing a $25 yearly or $7 per event license fee for any skiers that want to be listed on the world rankings

Illinois is looking to buy new tournament radios, we currently have the larger heavy really good ones you see at like a nationals but they are about $500 a piece. I see many tournaments out there using smaller walkie talkies but I'm curious how good they really work and if anyone knows what brand or type are good without breaking the bank. I'd like to spend about $50 a radio give or take. Thanks

@igkya won