Petition to make L/R tournaments easier to run!

[Horton]

@JackQ Yea you are not wrong but with all the stuff in modern life it gets away. If the DMV did not send you a bill for vehicle registration what are the chances you might forget?

[JackQ]

@Horton, Your comment is a good suggestion, an automated reminder for clinic, etc requirements for Drivers/Judges/Safety/TC sent out at something like 12, 6 and 3 months.  Should be fairly simple to do

[Broussard]

@JackQ That used to exist. Unfortunately I believe that when the USA-WSWS website got hacked that system was also affected leading to the current situation of many people unknowingly having not met the requirements to maintain their records.

[Horton]

you know I might have even gotten an email like that this year. I knew I needed a clinic and just didn't realize that the one that I missed was the only one I could get on the west coast and then I don't know what happened. 

honestly, I don't drive tournaments very much so it's not a personal loss my criticism is of the system.

[RichardDoane]

@Mastercrafter  sorry to hear of the scratch in the truck, that's the kind of stuff that happens to me....  you never ski well at an event when you're busy doing other stuff, and not solely focused on your skiing.  It's also BS that there's now a "Senior TC", even more bureaucracy to get in the way, and not needed IMO.

we all need to remenber to not let the peripheral stuff get in the way, it's supposed to be fun.  Don't let the BS suck the fun out of water-skiing.

[Broussard]

@RichardDoane Nothing takes the fun out of waterskiing quite like a waterski tournament 

[DFWskier]

I don't post here much, but been reading along.

One thing I think helps kill the sport is skiers who go to tournaments and all they do is ski. They contribute nothing other than their payment.

I speak from experience that those of us who have served as tournament directors and appointed officials, that  sense of entitlement is infuriating to say the least. And we have tons of those folks at our lakes; and its difficult to not hold a little resentment towards them for their reluctance to step up and help.

[RichardDoane]

@DFWskier  every year I try to create as many new officials as possible, Asst. Scorer, Judge, or Driver.  Most people will help out when asked, so that's what we do.  The entry level position is Dock Starter, and from there you're headed to a tower to show that you can count to 6, then sit with the scorer and help with the radio confirmation, or note taking/data entry.  It takes a village.

[DFWskier]

Me too. I trained 15 safeties (coordinators)  this year in 2 clinics, and 10 new 'trained drivers' in a 3rd clinic - and only one of them is a neighbor and new safety coordinator.  All skiers sure become safety experts when you have to pull an injured skier out of the muddy lake on a stretcher <rolling eyes>. 

Speaking of which, USAWS needs to update their trained driver clinic materials. It's so bad I used their basic outline but had to create my own course to effectively train the students.

[PatM]

On 7/25/2024 at 11:43 AM, Horton said:

I lost my regular driver rating this spring because I couldn't find a clinic. I give up.

Same here.  They told me I can get back my rating once I do a clinic.  Problem is - no one is doing a clinic.

[skierjp]

@Horton I totally agree. 

[RAWSki]

On 7/29/2024 at 11:59 AM, Broussard said:

@RichardDoane Nothing takes the fun out of waterskiing quite like a waterski tournament 

I have to agree and when I have been involved in tournaments I always deemed them successful when the tournament team received multiple compliments that included the word FUN.

Believe it or not a couple of those events even included the contributions of @Horton too!