September 14th General Meeting

Attendees:  Bill, Carrie, Heather, Chad, McKenzie, Ryan, Linda, Hannah, Ronnie, Chanson, Joe, Kevin, Blake, Reanna,  Enoch, Nick, Susan, Gloria

Meeting called to order by Ryan at 7:02

Previous meeting minutes from June/July read by Ryan.    Motion was made to accept minutes and passed.   

Linda Read Treasurer’s Report.
Please check email for details.  We do not share financials online.  

LOF/Adaptive Ski Event Budget.   

Please check email for details.  We do not share financials online.      Ryan is tasked with getting a final estimate on a sit-ski. 

New Business –  Nominations for 2021 Officers/Board

Nominations are as follows for the five board positions – basically the group proposed to keep officers as they were for the last season:

President:  Ryan
VP: Nick
Secretary:  Heather
Treasurer:   Linda
Director: Carrie

Anyone interested in running may do so by sending a message to Ryan.     Elections will be held at the October meeting  (October 19th).   All board members MUST be Safe Sport Certified per our bylaws.     Safe Sport is actually recommended for all adult members to take – its a FREE class via USA Water Ski and goes over things like reporting responsibilities for bullying and other kinds of abuse or abuse accusations. 

Regardless of officers, one of our goals is to get more people involved in running the club, whether that be coaching, running the shoreline, spotting,  acting as safety officers, etc – as the more “help” we can get – the more we can do as a club. 

Proposed Bylaw change – Addition of Jr.  Board of Directors

Ryan proposed a bylaw change to add a Junior Board of Directors to the club officers.    The Junior Board would have some voting rights on general club issues and be made up of younger members whom are not old-enough to have traditional board positions.   

The proposal was met positively, but more details are needed before any vote is taken.     Ryan will take an action to flush-out what the junior board will look like.   But current proposal are:

– Made up of members 12-18.     
– Three members for the board all with voting rights on club matters.
– JR board elected by younger club members

– JR board would be responsible for on-shore activities such as maintaining signup lists and keeping shack organized, finding spotters, etc.  
–  Other duties and responsibilities TBD.

Goal is to have bylaw ratified and elections for a junior board prior to the start of the 2021 ski season.

Membership Status

Based on Ryan’s numbers we have a total of 49 Active Skiers in the Webster group, with an additional 4 non-skiing members for a total of 53 in Webster. 

Glen Echo group was more informal this year, but based on headcount and interest level – there was an additional 19 people at Glen Echo that have skied or want to ski next season.    

That brings our total membership to 72 between the two sites.     This does NOT include drop-ins, in which we had a couple of regulars on the weekends (probably 4-5 more regular drop-ins).

This blew away our spring estimate (which was 25 if we were lucky), and our self-imposed membership cap of 40 . . . .whoops :)

Overall, most agreed that we handled the membership well and as long as we are efficient on the docks this membership can remain as is for 2021.      A further discussion on membership will be made in future meetings. 

Early Plan for 2021

Ryan laid out his goal for the 2021 season to have more coaching and skier development activities.

The idea would be to run three boats when possible, with one boat being designated to a specialized activity for the night/time-frame – for example, on Tuesday nights would be designated for “Wakeboarding” where the wakeboarders would be seperated and go out on their own (via pontoon) to good water and be coached for the night.     

The other two boats would then be used for general recreational skiing at the Point Breeze Site.   

Different nights/Time Slots would be used for different activities – either Slalom, Show Skiing,  Wakeboarding, Barefooting, etc.     

Goal is to allow each skier to find what they like doing and allow them time to progress rather than being “rushed” to complete a run during general skiing.   

This “Goal” can only be accomplished by having more help from the general membership.    We would need to see if a third boat is practical and if we have the resources to do it.   

In addition, Ryan is hoping to have someone else at the Glen Echo site willing to pull slalom skiers to practice in the course on Glen Echo.   The current issue at Glen Echo is that Ryan’s boat is a wakeboarding boat that has a wake that does not lend itself to good cutting in the course.     Ryan has spoken to a few people on Glen Echo that might be willing to help pull in 2021. 

Survey Results:  

The end of year survey results can be found here:   https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dS0VCed1rZEnrBenJEzqd_-CbSL2AKFElLrA_IX_IzA/edit?usp=sharing

There are two tabs, one with general tabulated data and one with member comments.    

It seems that Slalom skiing is our number 1 activity of choice with Trick Skiing, Wakeboarding, and Show Skiing as our next major activities based on 28 responses so far.   17 members want to eventually get into Tournament skiing –  which is why I think we do want to try to move more into a “Coaching” mode next spring.  

We did NOT get to go through the comments section in any detail during the meeting, but hope to revisit in the October meeting.   We instead focused on Equipment wish-list

Equipment for 2021:

As discussed prior – Ryan will work on getting quotes on a Sit Ski that will mostly be paid for via donations

Junior Cobos (2 skis) were one item asked for in the Survey.     Ryan proposed buying some new, but it was deemed that finding used skies would be a better use of finances.     Joe mentioned that he will donate some skis to fill this need.   We will also look around for other deals.

Kids Trainers for Glen Echo –  Ryan mentioned that Glen Echo has a good deal of combo skis for teens/adults but no beginner skis to speak of.      The idea is to search online for a used set for Glen Echo Site.

Intermediate Slalom Ski –   The idea to get a “Better” intermediate slalom ski was discussed.   This will be a mid-range ski, designed to allow skiers to develop into more advanced slalom skiers where they would then  probably want to invest in their own ski for their personal preferences.     Again, the collective wanted to see if we can find a 65″ and 67-68″ ski used to fit this need.    Blake is happy to give recommendations/reviews for us in this process.

Ropes:   The collective will invest in some ropes for 2021.       Bill has offered to make some as he has the tools to do so and some line.      Ryan estimated that for 10 ropes – it would cost about $400 to get the handle pieces to make them ourselves. 

Joe and Kevin thought it would be best (due to safety/liability) if we spent some extra money and bought pre-made ropes in bulk.    

The issue was tabled and Ryan will lead a cost-analysis with a few vendors on getting ropes made for us as well as the costs to do it ourselves.     A vote will be pushed off until more research is done.  

Show Skis:     The Collective is getting a donation of four pair of Ash Wideboard skis for the 2021 season.   This will be a great starting point for Pyramids, Ballet Lines, and can also be used for learn-to-ski and adaptive ski purposes where skiers travel as low speeds and need extra buoyancy.     

I am going to withhold the doner’s name for now (not sure if they want it public) but this same doner has helped the club in numerous ways this season and the collective would not be where it is today without the help that they have provided. 

We have been blessed to have numerous people donate money, skis, and especially their time to the Collective –   So thank you, we could not have done it without your support!   

Slalom Course:   A Slalom course in webster is a “wish item” for 2021.    The issue is that we need a place to put it and people to volunteer to maintain and put it in/out.     

The club does have the opportunity to buy a portable course now, and the board is currently looking into it.     Both North and South Ponds have been floated as possible places to put the course, and we already have some basic clearance via the town to put in a temporary course in  Webster.      However a more permanent course would need more approval and by-in from neighbors, the town, and possible state level.   

The course at the Glen Echo site is fair-use for the club, as Ryan had paid into the maintenance of it and we are responsible for any issues with it during our usage of it.     The course on Glen Echo is resident owned, but again – as a resident –  I have paid into use for it, and the other owners have granted our club permission to use it.    (Again, the issue is finding a nicer ski boat for us to use there). 

We will continue to look for and investigate possible options for Slalom courses in Webster as well, however we will need people to step up to volunteer to maintain it if we decide to get one. 

Tournaments: 

A few members have asked about doing tournaments next season and how to get involved.  Avon and Oakham were listed as the two spots that have tournaments and are relatively local.  

We do have an potential opportunity to se Glen Echo as a tournament spot, as they have held them here in the past.    Doing so would require a “team” to organize it and put it together if we wanted to.    
 
Sponsorship Drive/Fundraising

Ryan brought up fundraising for 2021 and noted that the club raised $2100 in about a month from sponsors for the Adaptive Ski Event and also had a sponsor cover insurance costs for the Glen Echo Learn to Ski event.  

Ryan mentioned that we can raise money to purchase equipment. etc via a sponsorship drive with the sponsors getting ads on our website, social media, clothing, and possibly banners at the club site or on the pontoon boat.  

Ryan wanted someone to “lead” the drive – but no one stepped up.     

Ryan then proposed only doing a drive to offset costs for the Adaptive Ski Events and Carrie agreed to help with this.    Ryan and Carrie will work together to set up some levels of donations and some paperwork for donations.     

Kevin mentioned that Holland does an annual raffle, where each member has to sell X amount of raffle tickets or pay extra in dues (i.e you get a dues discount if you sell X raffle tickets).    Again, this effort for us would require a fair amount of time and would need someone to lead/organize it.   

Unless anyone wants to “lead” a sponsorship drive for the collective, the issue was resolved as just attempting to offset costs for the Adaptive Ski Event.   

Upcoming Events:   

We are working with the organizers of both the Webster Dock-O-Treat and the Glen Echo version of the “Dock-O-Treat” events and will be doing our “Spooky ski” to kick off those days.   

Webster “Spooky Ski” will be on September 26th  – I expect to start around 2pm and finish up right before the “Dock-O-Treat” starts at 4:30

The Glen Echo event is a bit more in flux, but plan on October 3rd at 1pm.      

Both events will be open to friends of the collective if they want to ski with us.   Costumes should be able to be worn over wetsuits, jackets  and should not be made of heavy cloth that would weigh the skier down.      This is a fun little way to help close out the season!

Elections will be held at the next meeting tentatively scheduled for October 19th.   

We will be doing a Safety Clinic at some point this offseason at a local pool.    Ryan will work to get something set up for our USA Water Ski Safety Officer certification which I encourage all members to try to participate in  (the more we have the better).   

A Pyramid/Climbing Training Session will also be held at this point in the off season (after rope order completed) at Koinonia in Thompson.      We will teach those interested how to climb and technique for how to ride off of shoulders.     We can also go into some basic handle/strap double moves.     Survey showed that there is enough interest that it might be worth attempting.

Meeting adjourned at 9:20pm.    Not all items on the Agenda were covered and will be pushed to the October meeting.      

General Rules:  

General “ski rules” were discussed this year and Ryan came up with the attached document.    We did not have time to review in the meeting so I am sending out to everyone for feedback now.    We can vote to accept or amend in the next meeting

Message from Ryan:

We as a group accomplished so much this season.   We started with nothing, and now have an actual budget, a good home base, and a ton of momentum.   We have also impressed and made good ties with numerous local organizations.      

The skiers we have had made huge strides,   some are on the verge of being tournament ready – others have progressed where they are poised to make big steps next year. 

My “role” for the club is to provide options for the members.   What the membership wants to do is up to them and I will back them whatever way I can.     We have tons of possibilities – so what do you want to do?