AWSA Members - Why you should care about the Ambassador Program

[Horton]

The official goal of the Ambassador Program is “to connect people who are curious about skiing but not involved with skiers who are involved and passionate about the sport”. The hope is that if the project is a success it will grow the grass roots of the sport and that will eventually contribute to AWSA membership.

 

Below is a chart of the AWSA membership since 2005. The competitive portion of the sport is currently a mere shadow of its previous self. If you care about the future of the sport I implore you to consider signing up as an Ambassador.

 

 

If you have not yet looked at the thread explaining the Ambassador Program please do so now.

 

[ConPexEr]

That is not a happy chart

[unksskis]

Focus on attracting new skiers and not on retention will continue to be the downfall. With the progression of the sport, this is expected, but should level out at some point, if retention is the focus.

[RazorRoss3]

I think depending on the use of the ambassador program that it could be a focus on retention. I have known very few collegiate skiers who would continue skiing post grad if access was affordable and they were able to continue enjoying it with friends. If this tool is developed in a way that helps bridge the gap between collegiate (growing in membership) and AWSA (maintaining at best) then membership numbers will start to look better.

 

When wages have remained relatively flat but costs of the sport have gone up it's going to drive down membership without an active outreach program

[unksskis]

@RazorRoss3 I agree, but it states those that are curious about skiing, rather than those who would continue to ski if given the opportunity/encouragement. Imagine the investment it takes to replace an active member, or even more so, an active driver/judge with people who are curious about skiing.

 

I think it's a great initiative to attract new members, but for too long this has taken precedence over retention, and it looks to continue with AWSA's focus programs this year.

 

Edit - The Ambassador Program is an incredible initiative, my comments are more towards the loss of membership.

[eleeski]

Animals go extinct because their habitat is destroyed. Sports are the same. The places where one can casually ski are very limited. Stay 500' away from the shoreline. 5 mph in that glassy cove. No boats from Socal allowed in northern California waters to prevent spreading the invasive species du jour. Circle in the middle of the big lake with the surf boats. Nobody can ski anymore.

 

I don't like politics. Getting involved in these issues is too frustrating. I'm sure the graph of public quality water looks a lot worse than the membership. But I would not be a good ambassador where it is really needed.

 

Thanks to AWSA for doing a great job of life support for what is left. Thanks to the junior development programs showing that skiing IS fun. Thanks to the college skiing that is giving us our base.

 

UCLA just had a great weekend at my lake. Everyone PBed. All the talk was about getting training during the summer. I'm doing my best a handful of skiers at a time whether I'm an official ambassador or not.

 

Eric

[BraceMaker]

Hard hosting college teams if they all drink so hard they p beds

[eleeski]

@BraceMaker I forgot to include all those AA steps as another reason for the decline.

 

Of course if the kids are peeing in your bed then maybe you are taking too much advantage of your position as host.

 

Seriously, most of the kids are pretty good. There are some good stories but only because they are unusual. Teachable moments.

 

Eric

[JeffSurdej]

Don't want to get this thread off topic and turn it into retention but your points are valid. I just pulled a list of 7k ex-AWSA members over the last 5 years that have not renewed...WOW, that's double what we have, so concentrating on that demographic alone has huge merit and will be easier to grow membership than introducing brand new people into the sport. We do have plans this year to concentrate hard on retention. Honestly I've been waiting a long time for this new membership structure and value package b/c it was very hard before to convince someone who was not competing to stay a member. I hope that gets a lot easier now with a $19.95 entry point and discounts on waterski products b/c what we found in surveys is that 85% of non competitive members are still skiing, just not competing. And any other ideas are certainly welcome and helpful on how to help retention.

 

This ambassador program should help with retention as much as bringing in new skiers b/c access to places to ski is one reason that causes customers to leave our sport and do other sports. One of the biggest questions at last years Nautique Swerving Weekends was....."now that I learned to ski...where or what do I do next"? Now we can point them to where2waterski.com to hook up with more place and people to ski with and hopefully get hooked.

[Horton]

@RazorRoss3 @unksskis @eleeski and others....

 

Retention is a huge problem but it is NOT the topic here. I do not envy the those who have to answer for those problems. This effort represents one of the things that what we, the Ballers, can do. No more no less.

 

If you guys want to talk about retention please take it to another thread.

 

This effort is a positive move forward. What if we could convert 1 in a million Americans from non-skiers to skiers? That would actually be a good start. This is an achievable goal that could move the needle a tiny bit...

 

FYI - IF this core effort works the whole idea easily pivots to graduating college kids. One step at a time please.

[eleeski]

@Horton 1 in a million is 350 people. That's 10 college teams or a couple junior developments. Actually a valuable number of new skiers.

 

But it pales in comparison to the number of people hanging out at the water over the Fourth. Those people used to ski. Now they don't. Water access, boat costs, strict laws and video games are factors.

 

I don't have any answers as to how to change things. Somebody needs to buy my Mecca lakes and expose a lot more people to private lakes.

 

Eric

[braindamage]

The ONLY question we should be asking is...”what does it take to attract millennials to the sport”.

 

I’ll go out on a limb and say that it’s not by requiring $80-100k for a tournament ski boat that sits idle 90 pct of the time on a private lake. Maybe we should take a page from the Top Golf organization and begin to market private ski lakes as a social spot...kind of like what I’ve seen from posts about Korea.

 

I applaud @Horton for this big step. First we need to engage in an “evangelism” campaign and meet people where they are.

[Horton]

@braindamage FairPoint but off topic here

[BraceMaker]

@Horton - if you could get 1 representative from all of the listed "clubs" to sign up you'd be really cooking with something.

 

http://www.usawaterski.org/clubs/clubdirectory.asp

[Horton]

@BraceMaker I'm not sure if that's the right idea. I think we only want to include active clubs that are welcoming two new members. In some parts of the country belonging to a club is only a formality and in other parts of the country it actually does represent access.

 

@JeffSurdej this is really a question that should be presented to you.

[Horton]

I am looking for a few more listings before we go to the next phase.

[Lake3]

The reason I’ve chosen to not renewed my membership is that it’s tough to go to a tournament and pay the entry fee only to get a few passes and a swimming lesson. The value just isn’t there for me. I can sit at my lake and ski as many passes as my hands will take and the boat picks me up every time. Not against swimming, just hard to make it pencil. I will say that this year I will renew, I think all the practice will at least allow me to make 3 passes.

[RazorRoss3]

@Lake3 I can definitely sympathize with not feeling like you get your money's worth at a tournament although with 4@35 as the tournament best I have to imagine 3 passes is within reason depending on where you opt to start. As a 1 event skier I try to hunt down the 3 round tournaments and the rare treasure that is the 6 round weekend. I've had similar discussions with others about what the benefits are to non-tournament skiers and don't have a lot of great answers to be honest. I'm still not convinced the value is there for the non-tournament skier but hopefully the people this program reaches are the people who will become tournament skiers if they can find the water time they need to run those three passes rather than an opener and a 100ft swim to shore

[JeffSurdej]

@Lake3 @RazorRoss3 Sounds like you guys are still skiing regardless of competing, and thus I assume you are buying skis, ropes, gloves, so would 10% off equipment for $19.95 bring the value you need?

[RazorRoss3]

@JeffSurdej, clarify the confusion I caused, I have not stopped tournament skiing, I almost never hit any in the spring due to studying/haven't had enough practice, but give it a couple more weeks and I'll be back on the water. 10% off equipment covers 19.95 after only a few purchases so that definitely nets out quickly assuming you ski enough that some component of your equipment wears out every year which isn't too hard to imagine.