Basic Skills

The session started out with great news! The Basic Skills mobile app will be available on android starting next week. 

Elise Preston talking about the success that they see at Wollman Rink in New York City.  Elise says they have almost 1800 skaters, but the official numbers from USFS is 2,380. Wollman has limited season because they are outside, it runs from October to March. They have a great progression program for the skaters. They start in Junior Academy and move up to the Elite Academy. Although their session seems pricey to outsiders - it's $1025 per season - it is New York City. But it's a great value because the fee gets them lots of ice time as well as a cute fleece jacket.

http://www.wollmanskatingrink.com

There were discussions of various types of programs such as Baby Blades – a skating class for toddlers or Jumping Jacks which is a developmental program for boys. I love the names of both of those programs. 

The session ended with a discussion about rebranding Basic Skills, which I think is great idea.  It will be called "Learn to Skate USA" and it's been publically endorsed by U.S. Figure Skating and USA Hockey - yes you read that correctly - hockey and figure skating are working together. 

There will be a promotional campaign to rebrand basic skills that will be rolled out in fall. Headquarters will be communicating with the basic skills programs and clubs during the summer months to gear up for the campaign. It's important to know that the curriculum will stay in tact. 

The best description I heard to describe the rebranding, "Same program, we’re just putting it in a Tiffany’s box with pretty blue bow."

Synchronize your watches! It's time for Synchro!

The session started out with watching part of the opening ceremony from the 2014 Synchronized Skating World Championships. Those Italians are creative. If you haven't seen it, you can find it here.

Robin Greenleaf started the session with a review of the past year include the Dream Camps and the Training Festival, the Synchronized Skating Sectional Monitoring Program, as well as the Synchronized Skating Challenge Series in the Midwest and East.

Robin next went over the proposed ISU rule changes. She reminded everyone that the changes are contingent on passing at the ISU Congress this summer. And considering that two years ago that what was originally proposed for rule changes were not what eventually came out.
Some of the proposals that caught my attention:

• Deleting three elements - Choreographic Element (which was never used), Block Step Sequence and Circle Step Sequence for Senior, Junior, Collegiate and Novice, but could be retained for Intermediate and Adult.
• Creating a new element: The Combined Element - two elements that interact with each other.
• Reduction of freestyle program time. Reduce Senior from 4:30 to 4:00; reducing Junior from 4:00 to 3:30 and reducing Collegiate from 4:00 to 3:30
• No longer illegal: throw jumps at Junior & Senior as well as jumps/jump combos - no limit on number of rotations
• Unsustained Group Lift

Take a look at ISU Communication 1856 to see some of the proposed language changes for elements.

Robin then covered the various Requests For Action
The goals for all rule changes is to continue to increase participation and to encourage teams to move into competitive levels. Although sometimes it's just to clean up outdated rules.

Highlights:
Open Masters Division - There were so many adult teams at sectionals, that they had to have qualifying rounds. What was noticed is that there was a broad range of skating levels and adding this level will help.

Change to Rule 7260: request to increase the program time by :15 second so the Pre-Juveniles can do the creative element as part of their program

Adding required hand holds to levels where it isn't currently included - "a minimum of two different clearly recognizable holds."

Changing the upper level of the age for Open Juvenile to under 20.

Last year, it was suggested to raise the age of juvenile to the age of 14 but it was referred back to committee. During the past year, the Synchro Committee did a survey of coaches about this question. The groups for and against were evenly split, no matter how they asked the question. There was just no consensus, so the committee isn't bringing any recommendation forward.

Standardized nonqualifying competition announcement & preview of test revision

On the dias: Kelly Vogtner, Lynn Goldman and Eric Hampton

There are about 350 nonqualifying competitions and many competitions change events randomly and it was getting harder for coaches and skaters to plan for competitions. These variations were happening at the lower levels where the skaters and their families were just learning about competing. It was confusing to officials, parents, coaches and skaters. Some areas of figure skating have already created a standardized announcement.
The group looked at 25 announcements and found 33 different variations of the levels and 23 different levels of compulsory moves. They looked for common ground, they talked to Athlete Development and Coaches. What makes sense developmentally?
They created a flowchart to show skaters how the system worked.
The chart starts with Basic Skills then moves on to Beginner, High Beginner and No Test (Introductory levels). The chart then separates into Test Track and the Well Balanced Program.
Lynn stressed that no new rules were created for this and competitions are not required to use it. They were just strongly encouraged to use it for the sake of the skaters.
I'm sharing the flow chart below - sorry for the low quality.

The grop moved on to the speciality events (Spins, jumps, Showcase, etc.) and created charts for each possible event that competitions can use for their announcements. If a competition has an event that isn't included in the speciality events, submit it to the competitions committee, so they can share it. 

If competitions use the standardized announcement, they can use a watermark that says "This is a Standardized U.S. Figure Skating event." If they modify anything, they need to remove the watermark. 

HQ will do a survey in the next year to get feedback on how it is working, but Kelly shared that they have received a lot of positive feedback.  This is not required at this point, but the goal is consistency across the nation.  

The one negative is how long these charts have made the announcements. Lynn and headquarters is working to fix this. 

Personal note: I get really tired of the same discussion at every session - why did you change it? Are you going to make us do this? - even though it was said over and over that this isn't a rule change.  I support the standardized non-qual announcement. Let's make it easier for our LOC, our officials and our skaters.

Part II was the Eric Hampton show. He talked about an IDEA to change the test structure to reflect the IJS system. Skate Canada changed their test system to use the IJS system and the tests now provide the skaters with much more information and feedback. 

SAMPLE/Suggestion

I would love to pass a skater with honor or with distinction. 

Eric shared a quote from a February 2010 TED talk that really struck a chord with me, "Kids' big dreams deserve high expectations, starting with grownups' willingness to learn from children as much as to teach them." - Adora Svitak 

Test revision timeline - June 1- July 15 trying it out at test session as sort of a shadow panel and review rules that might need to be changed. July 15-August 31, the group will analyze what they've learned and then present to the Board with the hope of bringing it to Governing Council next year.

I gotta give a shoutout to Eric - he has a room full of people nodding their heads in agreement. His presentation is outstanding and not a typical powerpoint that we usually see at Governing Council. We heard from some of the negative Nellies that are always around, but overall I think he was swaying the room.

Critical Issues

Summary - I'll just share the highpoints. I think there were some.

First issue brought up is the more online education for coaches and officials who are in remote areas. Pat says they are looking to do that - send an email to Lynn Goldman and Ed Mann and Alex Chang.
Will do more webinars this year - up the number of seats to 500

No new items were brought up at the board meeting yesterday or today.

Page 26 of the Interim Report - Geographical preference being struck from the decision making for judges selection for National Competitions
It will provide equal opportunity for everyone. Pacific Coast officials have a quicker rotation than Midwest and East Coast

What is the reason behind the change in the MIF test?
MIF is about building a foundation for skating skills. The group involved with the recommendation said that they were trying to make a determination as to what are our skaters lacking while still keeping it attainable for everyone else like Synchro Skaters. Say what? I don't think he meant to slam synchro.
Judges opinion about the proposed changes? The skaters and coaches are just starting to get it, why change now?
Another concern was having skaters go from Preliminary to Senior without spirals. That's not going to help the skaters.
Why was this even brought up? At the 2009 GC when we changed the MIF, there was request to revisit the decision in 4 years. (sometimes we're our own worst enemy)

#201 - having parents as members
Laine DeMore shared that HQ got feedback from club that their weaknesses included parent education and volunteers.
Another big part of this has to do with Safe Sport and Grievance. If the parent isn't a member, US Figure Skating can't do anything to them.
There was a modification to this proposal during the board meeting: Introductory membership - if the skater is getting an introductory membership so can the parent as long as they hadn't been a member previously.  Great Idea.
Karen Terry (SafeSport) shared that several issues came up this year where USFS wasn't able to do anything because the parent wasn't a member.
Why not both parents then? Offer a family member
Steve Wolkin (Grievance) He saw more and more issues with parents, but couldn't do anything for the same reason.
Some delegates are seeing this as strictly a way to increase membership dues.

One delegate said that banning a parent is meaningless. Not True! Banning a parent isn't meaningless because US Figure Skating lists these people on the website so other youth organizations can know.
Maybe this membership will mean parents will take more ownership.
Does US Figure Skating see a dues increase soon? Maybe July 2016.
How about family memberships?
I'm being Captain Obvious, but I'm guessing that this is going to be isolated!

Exhibit C - President's Term of Office
President St. Peter shared that it is hard to build relationships internationally because they don't know if you're going to be around the following year. Some NGOs have longer terms - like 4 year. But USA Hockey's president has been in there 18 years.

Kudos to President St. Peter for being so calm. I don't know how she does it.

The plan for the day

nataliedee.com

Thursday arrives and it's sunny and warm in Seattle. It creates a strange juxtaposition considering Seattle's reputation.  

And a big shout-out to the DoubleTree SeaTac for giving us meeting rooms that have the same temperature as ice rinks. 

My plan for the day is to blog from these session: Basic Skills, Critical Issues, Standardizing Nonqualifying Competitions, Synchronized Skating and ending the day with Club/Interclub Presidents Open Forum. 

I'll also be tweeting throughout the day - my twitter handle is MEHarty. 

Here we go!