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.