End of the day

Larry Kriwanek read the list of nominees for the board and since there were no challenges, we voted them in. 

Since we added a new permanent committee, Judy Edmonds was named the new Theatrical Skating Committee Chair.

Kathy Drevs announced that the 2012 Governing Council will be in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Ready now!

And I just learned that Lisa Franz is my new best friend! She won two all-event tickets to the 2012 Nationals in San Jose! Very cool!!!

And then my roomie Kim Moore won the AAC's grand prize of airfare and two all-event tickets to 2012 Nationals.

Thought we had dodged a bullet

We got through the administrative groups without drama and also through the additional new items with issue. 

We were ready to move on when someone stood up and shouted "Teacher! You forgot to give us homework!" The dues increase! If the dues increase does not go though this year, we have cut $640, 000 from our programs. 

The biggest point of the discussion was the amount of the club membership dues for clubs with under 100 members. The amendment was to leave the dues for clubs with fewer than 50 members would remain the same ($50); clubs with 50-99 members pay $100.

The percentage of USFS club with under 100 members - 72%! This actually brings in more revenue for US Figure Skating. It was passed!

I wanted give a shout-out to Bob Dunlop and Kathy Drevs on their selection of a Governing Council hotel that sells Diet Coke! Tired of getting stuck with Pepsi products. Plus there's a Target in the parking lot of the hotel. Fabulous! Woot! Woot!

PSA is changing the name of the distinguished judges award to the Jimmy Disbrow award and best of all - it went to Pat St. Peter!!!!

Twin Cities is so happy for Pat!!!

The Start of Saturday Afternoon Session

The afternoon session started with a celebration! History had been made in Russia while we were at lunch. Meryl & Charlie had won the World Championship  - a first! Alex & Maia Shibutani had won the bronze - for the first time we had two US teams on the podium. 

President St. Peter had us give a shout-out to the teams via video on a flip cam run by Ben Miller. Ben will email the video to the team leaders.  So with our pom-poms, we cheered and chanted U-S-A.

So back to the boring part...

Back to #365 - asking to have it be rescinded. Used the full 15 minutes to discuss it (yawn!!!) and voted down to rescind it. (I was busy tweeting about Charlie & Meryl & the Shibutani's instead of paying attention)

Item #366 - isolation was withdrawn. 

The person who had isolated 376 really wanted to isolate 378. Whatever! The woman who isolated it stood up and confused us even more. First she wanted to rescind it, but then after being questioned, she said that she didn't want to rescind the whole thing, just the juvenile level. (it's about jump combinations) So it was an amendment! 

(Distracted again - If I wasn't going to be the membership chair, I think it would be fun to be the Rules Chair because you get to sit at the Tech Table. Hi Heather!)

And they're still talking about the three jump combination...Now I'm scoping the crowd for chocolate and Facebook chatting with Heather Neimer - who is all of 20 feet behind me. Please call for the vote. 

And the amendment was voted down. 

Now on to #382 - (Gretchie is sitting next to me and she says hi to everyone! - oops distracted again...) amending the rules to include minimum skating qualifications for judges to become specialists. Doug Williams was asking for changes and even though they had it on the screen, I took me a few minutes to figure it out. Doug was asking to remove some restrictions on judges to become a tech specialist.  I think it makes sense, but I doubt I'm in the majority.  

OMG! I just agreed with Anne Gerhli!

The amendment was adopted! So now a national-level judge could be a tech specialist without the qualification of needing to have competed at a National competition.

Finally, at 2:15 p.m. - Hal was excused from the podium as all the isolations were completed. 

Now on to the Admin/Legal. They had two isolated items - 403 & 404, so hopefully they won't be up there too long. 

Just heard a rumor that there were NO new business items submitted! Dang, we could get done by 4:00 p.m. Woot! Woot!

Saturday Morning Part 3

Back after break...

We're back to #347 - the dance chair requesting to amend it as to not conflict with another rule. (did I mention that I don't understand dance...)

Item #354 - Dance - again just simple adjustment to the language. (We're not even voting because no one objects...)

Item #355 - Adding solo free dance track for juvenile, intermediate, novice, junior and senior. Asking to refer it back to committee. The chair and previous chair both opposed sending it back to the dance committee. Referral was voted down about 99% to 1%.

It was requested that Item #366 be debated before #364 & 365, but the group said no and we started with #364. But then #364 & #365 & #366 were sort of lumped all together. Alex Chang requested to cap the level of the step sequence in Intermediate and Juvenile. Ben Miller opposed it and wanted to have it as based value step sequence. (This is getting very techie!) The discussion went on for awhile, but the amendment was voted down.

Then Pat introduced Sandy and Shannon Lamb  - Shannon is a Special Olympian who recently passed her Gold Dance test - the Westminster Dance. Don Adair was their coach and partner.

We watched one of our American dance teams competing at Worlds live at 11:30 and then we did the memorials = beautifully done slide show featuring "Hallelujah" by kd lang. The music along could impact you, never mind seeing the names of people you know on the screen.

Adjourn for lunch.

Saturday Morning Part 2

Back to regular life - #325 (allowing IJS at adult sectionals) was kept as is and #330 only required adding the word "written." 

#336 had eliminated having the VPs from voting for Synchro byes, we realized that there was an even number of votes, so Karin Sherr added the chair of the Synchronized Management Sub-Committee to the group. Easy to pass.

#343 - This rule was originally created to allow teams at Synchro Nationals to practice at sessions not provided by the LOC up until the start of the first practice. Dann wanted to strike language that the board had added that no team, once they have their credentials be allowed to practice on another ice rink. (Remember synchro is different than S/P/D)

#344 - Raising the age for Juvenile to under 14 - the request was to postpone implementation to September 2 instead of June 1. The amendment was not adopted. Then Cassy Papajohn proposed rescinding it all together. Voted down and it was not rescinded. 

#347 - Dance (so now I'm lost...) then we decided to hold off discussing it after the break. 

#348 - Dance - was just a typo, but it the word "or" was pretty important. 

Is it break time???  Yes it is - beverages courtesy of the Illinois Council. 

Later!

Saturday Morning Part 1

I got a wonderful treat as I walked into the meeting room. Mark Ladwig, a member of our World Team, had arrived back in the States after competing at Worlds in Russia. Mark was our keynote speaker and he shared his experience of the recent Four Continents where is boot heel split during his program. It was not the type of break that you could just simply fix it with a screw. One his competitors who, by chance, had trained with Mark in Florida, ran over to the boards and gave him his skate. The Canadian skater was brought up to the stage and presented with our Sportsmanship award. 

After that wonderfully, uplifting moment, we had to get down to business and the monster that is #310. We divided the issue into three parts. The first part to be discussed was to retain the proportional plan for advancing to sectionals.  It was an argument of inclusion vs. kids having to deal with reality. One speaker compared it to trying out for a soccer team in a small school vs. trying out for the team at a larger school and expecting the team to be made larger. Hal tried to send the amendment back to the committee, but it got voted down, but then after more discussion the body realized that it was too complicated and we called to refer it again. 

On the vote to refer, it required 2/3s and we weren't sure we had it, so we had to stop and do a standing count. It didn't pass and we went back to voting on the amendment. The chair announced that it was her opinion that the amendment failed, but the doubting Thomases didn't believe her and called for a count. So back to standing up to be counted. After the count, it was still defeated.

Then a miracle occurred!!!! There were no objections to the rest of #310, so Junior Nationals are done!

OMG!

Part 2

Hal Marron and the technical committees took the stage at 4:10 and I would guess that they will spend tomorrow morning up there with so many isolations.

#302 - this RFA was to simplify the process surrounding handling a complaint against an official at a competition. The current process is cumbersome and involves the entire judges committee in the process.

It was approved with changes.

#303 - the objection/request was to keep forward three turns in the Adult Pre-Bronze MIF instead of replacing it with spirals. But then we got someone asking that we delete both of them since both 3turns and spirals are too (?) difficult for adults. Neither was passed and it will stay as originally changed.

Since #310 (Junior Nationals) would be the next item to discuss, but we were close to the end of the day, we decided to skip over #310 and then address #329 (requirements for competing at Collegiates). The isolator only wanted to add one word to a sentence - "written." 

The day adjourned and fifteen minutes later, we got the chance to see the movie "RISE." 

Good night!

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First Session of Governing Council

The meeting was called to order om time and everyone in the Midwest shook their pom-poms when our VP was introduced.

The meeting started with a review of the movie, RISE.  We got to see multiple media clips of the movie - we got great coverage. (The audio was scratchy, but maybe we were supposed feel like it was 1961.) More than 1.2 billion media impressions! Nice job.  It was the 1st all-time for a Fathom one-night event for media coverage.

In-Theater media values - 101million impressions valued at $4.7 million.  We got support from other NGBs like USA Gymnastics, USA Hockey, US Diving all promoted the movie. Club participation was really the catalyst for ticket sales. More than 50,000 tickets sold. 

54% of the people who attended RISE and participated in the survey were not members!

The movie will shown on TV in the Fall (October/November) and all full-member clubs will receive a copy of the DVD after it is released. Kudos to the board, David Raith, and all the clubs. 

Time for Isolations!

302 - Complaints against officials at competitions

303 - Changes in Adult Skating tests

310 - Junior Nationals (had to be isolated 2x because the first person who isolated it was an observer!)

329 - requirements for competing at Collegiates

330 - US Citizens competing for other ISU countries wanting to come back to US

336 - Removing VPs from group that determines byes for synchronized sectional championships.

343 - Synchro teams practice at Nationals

348 - adjusting requirements for reskating pattern dances

354 - Novice Dance test

355 - adding solo free dance test track

364 - Step sequence in Intermediate short program

365 - Change of step sequence in the Intermediate long program

366 - Juvenile/Open Juvenile step sequence

376 - Novice well-balanced free skate jump repetitions

378 - limiting the number of jumps in a combinations to two jumps

382 - including the minimum skating qualifications for judges to become specialist

403 - Grievance Committee notification process

404 - Reciprocity of grievances

511 - removing the requirement of sending free rulebooks to test chairs

512 - removing the restriction related to testing before the age of 21 in rule 4470

You KNOW that there will be more

All bylaw changes were approved. 

I have also noticed a trend in our membership. Michelle Zeles-Hahn registered her daughter as a USFS member at 28 days! Leigh Chambers upped that with a story of a woman who registered her newborn as a member at the ripe old age of 26 minutes. Having learned that Brittany Bottoms is pregnant, we have to start an in-utero membership level.

More later.

Thursday Seminars

Sorry, I didn't get this posted last night - I was falling asleep writing it. 

Thursday at Governing Council is all about seminars. Seminars on basic skills, synchro skating. bidding on competitions, risk management, social media, interclub councils, etc.  They are scheduled for 90 minutes (My opinion on that later) with a 30 minute break in between.

This was my first year that I was able to attend the Synchro seminar (I've had conflicts the last two years). I video taped it just to play around with the new camera.  When I have time in the next day, I'll try to edit it and get it online. Karin talked about all that the Synchro Committee and subcommittees have done this year and the success we have seen because if it. She talked about the various Requests for Action that are synchro related. None of the requests were those that should cause too many discussions.

After lunch, was the Critical Issues Forum. It's a time for delegates to talk about the issues that most concern them with the group coordinators. At first no one stepped forward until Ann Gerhli stepped up and asked what USFS is doing to address the lack of judges we have. Since becoming a technical person requires one weekend or so to get an appointment (while getting a judge's appointment is expensive and months or even years long), our skaters are more interested in the technical side where they can still coach and has a faster path. Pat and Hal both said that they still it as a very important issue and we need to make it a priority. 

As someone who has spent far too much money, PTO and blood, sweat & tears on trial judging, I would love to find a simpler path to getting appointments. They make becoming a judge not a very fun perspective.

Finally the discussion turned to a hot button issue - the elimination of Junior Nationals. The plan to include Juvenile and Intermediate at sectionals and regular nationals. The individual who started Jr Nationals years ago seemed to be rather put out by the proposal. Seems like the old-timers won’t let us move on with a way to save money and to make it special for the kids because I'm sure they think what they created years ago was perfect, that time has stood still and progress is an insult to anyone above the age of 50. 

I did my Social Media presentation at 5:30 and had a good turn-out.  I get hyper and my ADD kicks in and I will start spewing information. I should have video-taped myself because I always think about items I should have in the powerpoint while I'm presenting that I never think about when I'm building my slides. 

The Interclub Forum was awesome. We started with a good size group and it just kept growing. More and more people kept coming in and we kept having to add chairs.  Thanks to Dave and Bill for their pace and hard work to keep the chairs coming in. 

The evening ended with a wonderful reception hosted by three interclub councils - Cleveland, Detroit and Tri-State. 

So here's my opinion on 90 minutes - Too darn long! Cut some of these down to 45 minutes and we could have more of them. The most painful part of my day was at a seminar (and I won't say which), where one of the speakers was so unprepared that she brought the seminar to a dead-stop, we lost the interest of the audience and she said absolutely nothing of value. She read from her notes - she would not say a word while looking at her note and then turn the page and still not say anything. It was painful. <stepping off the soap box>

On to the Friday meetings.

Hats off to...the staff

The theme at this year's Governing Council is "Hats Off to Volunteers." It's a great theme and we know this sport would not be possible without volunteers. But I think we should have an "Hats Off to the U.S. Figure Skating headquarters staff!" 

They are truly the hub of the wheel that keeps our organization moving forward. I wonder if some members of our organization think that there are hundreds of staff members that work in Colorado Springs. The reality is quite opposite. There are less than 50 paid staff members and they do an amazing job considering that we seem to cut their budget every year.

I also don't see a lot of turn-over in the staff. That speaks volumes for the organization as a whole. 

I am very lucky that I have had the opportunity to work with a large number of the staff members because of my work with the membership committee and working on 2008 Nationals.  They are professional, welcoming and knowledgeable about our sport and organization.

They work very hard for our organization and I hope they know how much we appreciate all that they do. 

Travel time

Early morning flights are not my favorite, but at least flying out of the Rochester International Airport is low stress.  The flight was scheduled for 6:50 am and if I was flying out the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, I would have left my home at least 2 1/2 hours before the flight to make sure I would have time to go to the park & ride, get transported to the airport, check-in and check my luggage, go through security and get to the gate with at least 30 minutes to spare.

Rochester is a bit different. It is an international airport in the sense that Canada is foreign country.  I am able to park at the airport for a whooping $8.00 a day. Granted it's not covered parking, but when the distance from the parking lot to the front door is less than 100 yards, I'll deal with it.  The picture of the front door of the airport (right) was taken from my parking spot. 

The ticket counter had two agents, one wearing a safety vest. From the parking lot to the ticket agent and getting through security was, maybe, 10 minutes.

Yep, this was the backlog at the security line. 

Rochester has eight gates, so walking to the gate took maybe a minute. Unfortunately, I was there so early, the restaurant wasn't open, so my only option for food was a vending machine. 

The ticket agent in the safety vest was now the gate agent. She was also in charge of the jet-way. When we were delayed on the tarmac, I figured she needed the time to become the air traffic controller. 

The hotel at the meeting level seems very nice. There's only two restaurants in the hotel, so lunch breaks could be challenging. HOWEVER, one big plus to the hotel is there is a SuperTarget next door and a mall across the street. 

Today, my focus is the club education seminar. We have about 30 clubs attending (45 people) and I'm giving them the best floor show I can.  

My feet hurt already.

Twas the night before Governing Council...

I hope you're not expecting a parody of the Night Before Christmas because I just don't have the energy or the brain cells right now. 

Following my long-held tradition of putting everything off until the last minute, I am currently at the office finishing up the PowerPoint presentations for tomorrow and Thursday. I have the ability to ad lib presentations, so the slides just help keep me on topic. My club education deck is sort of scrawny at only 4 MB. But my Social Media presentation deck is a hefty 10.9 MB. I like using graphics and I just haven't found the right graphics for the club education seminar. 

My flight to Chicago leaves Rochester at 6:50 a.m.. A normal person would have everything packed or at least laid out. They might even have a list. I'm just not a normal person. I'll be packing tonight, if I can stay awake.

Something I'm considering this year is video. I have a Kodak point & share video camera and I've been noodling with having a little bit of fun and interviewing people and perhaps even appearing on screen.  I'm more worried about having time to do it all! My Thursday schedule is pretty packed and now people are saying things like "can we meet while we're at Governing Council..." that's never good. 

Got bad news today that my friend and the current Membership Committee Chair, Maureen Dalton, will not be making it to Chicago. I wish her a speedy recovery and hope that I can keep her up-to-date with this blog.

Intro and Why I Do This

If you've read my Governing Council blog before, you are welcome to skip this entry. But then again, why would you deny yourself the joy of hearing me prattle on about myself and the blog?

I think this is my fourth year blogging from Governing Council and, I'll be honest, there are times when I would rather ignore the blog and times that I can't wait to post to it. But I remember that there are people who can't be at Governing Council and they want to know what is going on.

The "Governing Council Meeting" only happens on Friday and Saturday, but I generally start posting on Wednesday when I arrive. I'll try to do at least two posts on Wednesday and on Thursday and, then, once the meeting itself starts, I'll post several times a day.

Wednesday is the Club Education Seminar from 1 to 8 pm and I'm one of the leaders for that. (Have I got my PowerPoint presentation done? No!)
Thursday is the day for topical seminars and meetings. On Thursday, I'll be doing a presentation on Social Media for Figure Skating Clubs. (Have I got the PowerPoint done on that one? Nope.)

This year at Governing Council will be different for me. This year, I'm honored and terrified (all at the same time) to be the new chair of the Membership Committee. And yes, I will start a Membership Committee blog. I've actually already started it, but haven't posted anything to it for awhile.

Why do I blog from Governing Council? It started as a way to share what was happening at Governing Council with my club's board members, but has morphed into more. Last year, my skating friends from all over the U.S. were reading the blog; some were even at Governing Council, but read the blog to see who or what I would dissect. I encourage people to comment as well as to forward the blog's address on to others.

I'll download the reports and request for action and have them available on the blog.

And yes, I really posted this from my iPad. Not sure if I'll be able to do the blog during GC via the iPad, but we'll see.
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Location:Rochester, Minnesota