Thursday Meeting Notes

There were so many sessions on Thursday that it was tough to get to all the ones that I wanted to attend. I tried to attend the sessions that covered the big initiatives that will be voted on during the meeting. There are four initiatives - The new Nominating Committee structure, the Strategic Plan (that has a big focus on technology - thank you!), the new Competition Structure (that keeps the skaters in mind) and Committee Realignment. 

As someone who has served on the nominating committee, the changes proposed make sense to me, but there are lots of people here who worry about the regional representation since the proposal changes it from 9 regional representatives to 3 sectional representative. It's the Firewall that separates the nominating committee from the board that makes no sense since it impacts that ability to have continuity of leadership for committees. It reduces the number of members of the Nominating Committee from 12 to 7. 

In the discussion of changes to the nominating committee, I discovered that Synchronized Team Skating is still the red-headed step child. One speaker suggested that instead of reducing the size of the committee to reduce the chance of ties to increase the number of athlete representatives to four - one for each skating discipline. Excuse me, but there is more than just four! Synchro, TOI, Showcase? 

I'm very excited about the new competition structure. It's complicated (see page 128 of the meeting book in the Members Only site), but so very well thought out that keeps the skaters, parents and clubs at the center. It will be a big change for our competition structure (which always seems to get the negative nellies riled up), but the opportunities for our up and coming skaters are great. Skaters will be able to qualify for sectionals without going to regionals. They could qualify during the summer months and not to have to miss school. Sectionals will become a finals for dance and pairs; and Nationals will only be junior and senior levels, but juvenile through novice champs will be at Nationals for a High Performance Training Camp. I'm not doing it justice here, so please read the section in the meeting book!

More to come. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Governing Council Begins

Image
It's a full house at Governing Council. As per usual, the delegation from the Twin City Figure Skating Association is set up in the back of the house - one, so we can sneak out as needed; and two, because we're closer to the power outlets (at least for me and my computer). The keynote speaker was the NBC General Counsel talking about their ten-year relationship with U.S. Figure Skating and the new contract that takes us through 2026. Now in addition to NBC, NBCSN and the Olympic Channel, there will be NBC Sports Gold is a subscription product that is direct to consumer without going through networks. And unlike Ice Network, it will be available on mobile, tablets AND connected televisions (Smart TV). When that was mentioned, the crowd roared. First credential report: 559 active clubs and 6 provisional clubs with a potential of 1248 votes. Currently there are 343 delegates, 467 proxy votes and 240 athlete votes for 1050 total votes available. This year, I'm playing
Read more

Requests for Action discussion

Image
First up was Lorrie Parker and the Athletes Service Group.  Item No. 24 that was isolated was regarding the Athlete Advisory Committee election and the person isolating it wanted to have more transparency regarding the vote on the Members Only website. This is already in process, so it was resolved. The Membership Development group was next up on the platform - led by Alan Wolf. Item No. 202 was isolated regarding suspended members. The delegate who isolated it requested that the new rule be marked "Urgent" instead of July 1, 2019. Passed The Admin/Legal group was next, but we got side-tracked by legal counsel Tom James referencing back to Item No. 24 and whether we did that correctly. The question was scope of the amendment and that it was presented as a change to the rules.  Kris Cutler was able to speak one more time on SafeSport. A question was raised about using SSN for part of the background check. A suggestion was made that we use fingerprints instead, but th
Read more

Afternoon session: The End

Image
Ramsey Baker started the session with a wrap-up of the #GetUp campaign. The goal of the campaign has been to create a movement that will attract new skaters to the sport while growing audiences. They created personas as people to target - Karen (Core), Ashley (Core Teen) and Scott (New Audience). Lots of talk of marketing metrics.  Next up was Professional Skaters Association with Alex Chang talking. I thought I saw Jimmie Santee sneaking out of the room when Alex got up, but I could have been mistaken. The Outstanding Official award was given to Lorrie Parker. We did a little closing business on the requests for action and the budget. Amen.  The Nominations Committee's recommendations were presented and accepted. Changes to the slate of committee chairs - Steve Wolkin will be the chair of the Grievance Committee for one year while Dawn Eyerly will serve as a member of the committee to learn the ropes. Sam Auxier will be chairing the International Committee.   Jared Swall
Read more