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Back to #365 - asking to have it be rescinded.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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