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WFSC Annual Meeting Report
June 1st, 2003 Mt. Vernon Ice Rink
PRESIDENT'S REPORT
The 2003 ISU World Figure Skating Championships came to Washington this spring under the co-direction (LOC) of WFSC members' Leslie Gianelli and Sam Gutter. Unfettered by the advent of war in Iraq and the ISU judging controversy, the Washington area including scores of volunteers from local skating clubs, helped to make the 2003 Worlds a truly pleasant and memorable event. Who will ever forget watching WFSC members Michael Weiss, Diane Chen and Igor Lukanin compete in the World Championships, Michelle Kwan's dramatic victory in the Ladies Final, or just chatting with world class skaters and volunteers at rinkside. These memories will always be with us and I think it will remain our legacy just as the 1989 or 1950 Nationals have been an important part of the history of our club.
The Washington Figure Skating Club (WFSC) continues to grow as the second largest club in the USFSA with more than 900 members! A continuing concern for the Board this past year has been the financial strain from under-utilization of our sessions coupled with increased ice costs from virtually every rink in the area. To combat these deficits, several ideas have been implemented such as judges critiques, adding special events (Social Dance) and the elimination of the most expensive sessions. Since an across the board reduction in ice time is not what our club is about, we are encouraging rinks to sponsor their own sessions particularly those sessions (i.e.Dance) that generally do not attract a large attendance. One example is that the Wheaton Ice Rink has agreed to sponsor a Dance session on Monday evenings this Fall and we hope members of the WFSC will support and advertise these sessions as they will ultimately be more cost effective to club members.
The testing program is also one of the strong elements of the WFSC as the club has outstanding test chairs, outstanding judges and a large volunteer corps to handle the enormous volume of testing applications. Examination of the test reports in the back of any issue of Skating magazine will bear testimony to the fact that the WFSC is one of the largest testing clubs in the country as well. Our test chairs really do an outstanding job of juggling the demand for tests every month with the shortage of ice availability. This past September, longtime Dance Test Chair, Bunny Jones, handed her position over to a new Test Chair NanciEllyn Lazarowitz. We are truly indebted to Bunny for her many years of service to the WFSC not just as Dance Test Chair, but for the many hats she wore as Board member, officer, and supporter of skating. Pat Brockner, our MIF/FS test Chair, wore two hats this year as ticket This past January, the WFSC hosted the 2nd Annual New Year's Adult Invitational designed exclusively for competitive adult skaters minus one important component. Ed Picken, the organizer behind this event, passed away following a long struggle with cancer in December. Ed was also the originator of the Washington Pro-Am Dance Competition held in June and in tribute to Ed's legacy, that event has now been renamed the Ed Picken Pro-Am in his honor and the 10th Annual event will take place June 7/8th, 2003 at the Ashburn rink. Ed will be missed as he was our inspiration for skating. He was a 50 year judge, long term board member, officer and a great ice dancing partner (withVera Halliday and Ferne Fletcher) as well as life partner with Patsy Jones Picken. We scrambled to pick up where Ed left off and the 2nd Annual New Year's Adult Competition continued and indeed, there will be another New Year's Adult Competition in our future as this event has proven to be very popular and successful.
This past Fall, more than 125 skaters from the WFSC traveled to York, PA to participate in the Qualifying and Non-qualifying South Atlantic Championships. Easterns were held in Aston, PA and we sent 11 competitors to Junior Nationals in Lake Placid, NY, both in early December. In January, the WFSC sent 14 skaters to Nationals in Dallas, TX. We were especially proud of our skaters, notably Michael Weiss, who repeated for the third time as National Men's Champion and Meghan McCullough/Joel Dear, who took home the silver medal in Novice Dance . Adult Nationals were held in Ann Arbor, MI in early April and the WFSC was represented again by a large contingency of skaters. Not to be forgotten are the successes of our skating teams including the Potomac Ice Theatre, Ice Force One (Pewter Medal at Synchronized Nationals, Silver at Easterns) and the newly formed Collegiate team, the PICS (Bronze meadal in Eastern Sectionals).
While the state of the Washington FSC is excellent, we are only as strong as our core of volunteers. For example, we can acknowledge the efforts of Jennifer Lyons (hospitality), Jim Wilson (music), Vera Spinner (pro liaison), Margo Ritter and Debbie VanDemark (membership), Bridgette Snyder (collegiate liaison), Bob Dorsey (sanctions) and Barbara Shaw (Blade editor), but we need more volunteers like you.
Konrad Huppi
President
Message from the Dance Test Chairman
Wow! Time sure does go by fast. It doesn't seem possible that in a few months I would have been dance test chairman for a whole year. I was faced with many difficult situations during my first few test sessions including having to postpone/reschedule due to a severe snow storm and having an international judge come down with the flu the morning of the test session (thank you Judy Reiner for substituting to judge the international dances and Vera Spinner for judging all of the other dances for that judge at the last minute).
It has been a busy year. WFSC conducted 9 dance test sessions which included 390 individual tests (most upper levels). The test sessions ran between four and five and one-half hours each. With more skaters moving up the levels and starting to take gold dances, I am looking for at least three gold dance judges at future sessions.
Good news for those who have not yet reached or completed the pre-silver level _ you will no longer need to solo those three dances. This decision was made in early May at the Governing Council meeting held in Norfolk, Virginia and put into effect immediately.
Congratulations to Kathy Jaray (gold dance judge) for completing USFSA's seminar that qualified her to judge international dance tests.
The test chairman handles all of the paperwork and scheduling, but each test session would not run smoothly without hard-working volunteers. With that in mind, I would like to thank the following dedicated club members and parents:
Jim Wilson for being my music guru and announcer.
Bob Dorsey for his excellent announcing.
Jennifer Lyon for her delicious food and setting up the hospitality table.
Jane Kane, Beverly Connolly and Edie McArthur for monitoring.
Margo Ritter for finding my volunteers and being at each test session to help monitor and train new recruits.
Linda Laurel for being my liaison with the rink managers in contracting the ice time for each dance test session.
Nathan Jarmuth and my daughter, Suzanne for collecting the test sheets the day of the test and Suzanne's help in all of the pre-test session organizational duties.
The many other volunteers whom I did not mention by name.
Most of all I would like to thank all of the judges for their time and dedication to the sport and its skaters.
Until next year,
NanciEllyn Lazarowitz
Dance Test Chairman
Moves in the Field and Freestyle Test Report
This has been a very active year for our Moves and Freestyle tests. As our Club grows in members, so does the need for services such as testing. Since South Atlantic applications were do by September 1st, we had no need for a test session in September. In October and November, we held test sessions at Mt.Vernon and Cabin John respectively. In January we had tests at Mt. Vernon Rink and in February we had a test session at Reston. We had an April test session at Reston Rink. We will have a test session in the beginning of June at Cabin John before we start our summer tests; a July test at Cabin John and an August test at Mt. Vernon. All the rinks we use for tests are most accommodating to us. They help us set up for our Judges' hospitality, provide for the playing of music and microphone, and are instantly available for our every need. A BIG thank you to them....they contribute greatly to the success of our tests.
Putting together a test session is a very time consuming job. After processing the applications, a list is made of all the skaters and the tests they are taking. From this list the length of the test session is determined and a schedule is obtained. Judges have to be lined up (appropriate levels to go with the tests to be taken) and the schedule has to be posted.
Since our Judges spend lots of time standing in cold rinks, it is only appropriate that we give them something warm and substantial for their tummies. A BIG round of applause to the parents of our skaters who contributed cookies, brownies, m'n'ms, juice, fruit etc. to our test sessions..... THANKS for your willingness to help!
The next part of any test session is very important too. Getting our skaters on and off the ice in a timely fashion is essential to getting as many tests as we can completed during our ice time. Marcia Sowles is our test day coordinator. Marcia and her helpers see to it that skaters are ready to step on the ice at the appropriate time ( even if that is a little earlier than on the schedule), that test sheets are obtained from the Judges and handed out to and collected from the skaters, and that problems are resolved quickly. Marcia and her helpers have done a wonderful job this year. Test sessions would not run if it wasn't for these folks... My sincere Thanks!
Barbara Shaw has taken on the job of filing our test report with USFSA. This job takes a good amount of time also. There are forms to be filled out with the skaters results, Trial Judges sheets and reports to be completed and fees paid. Barbara has done this job well and our reports are getting to USFSA on time. Barbara also fills out the trial judging sheets. These sheets that the trial Judges fill out for each test have to have the official Judges marks put on them. Then they are copied and sent to the trial Judges' monitors. Barbara does this in a timely fashion so the papers can be sent to the trial Judges' monitors within two week limit.
As test chairman, I feel we have had a very successful year. The rinks have been very generous with the time they have given us and it has enabled us to accommodate almost all of our skaters who wanted to test and allowed us the flexibility we needed to have a successful test season. A BIG THANK YOU to all for your help, cooperation and patience. Our Judges deserve much thanks for their willingness to come no matter how many times I ask. And for standing for hours in the cold. Our Coaches have seen to it that applications arrive in a timely fashion and keep me well informed on any changes. My thanks to them also for helping make this year a productive one.
Respectfully submitted,
Pat Brockner
MIF/FS Test Chairman
Rink & Program Committee Report
This committee is charged with defining and running the Washington Figure Skating Club's skating sessions. The challenge is to provide a quality skating experience at a reasonable price to as many members as possible while covering the ice costs.
The chain of command in putting out sessions is:
Vice President, Linda Laurel negotiates and watches over the rink contracts;
R & P Co-Chairs Pat Brockner & Judy Reiner prepare the brochure & flyers;
Membership Co-Chair, Margo Ritter deposits the subscription checks and maintains a list of subscribers;
Assistant Treasurer, Ann Beamer records and deposits all pick-up fees;
Treasurer Judy Reiner, records deposits from Margo and Ann, and must report that the sessions are subsidized in varying degrees by the Club's treasury.
* A special thanks to the volunteers that make each session unique and productive:
at Cabin John, the Moves practice followed by the Family session is monitored by Peter Tsai,
at SkateQuest of Reston, the Saturday morning Dance Sessions is monitored by Fred Ellis;
at Mt. Vernon, the Sunday Dance Session is monitored by Barbara Kapinus;
at Cabin John on Mondays, the Dance session was monitored by Tom Gluck and now temporarily by Judy Reiner;
the Cabin John classes by Linda Laurel.
Rob McBrien's class was a success last summer but tragically Rob was stricken with a brain tumor in September. Volunteer coaches filled in and the Club was able to send Rob a weekly check. In November, Justin Pekarek who started as a volunteer coach took over the class and his amazing edge quality and inventive footwork was another success for this time slot. Justin and partner Hillary Gibbons have moved to Boston to train and the 6:30 to 7:30 time has been dropped until next September.
Highlights of single event programming this season has been, an Invitation Dance in December, critiques for test skaters, a Social Dance session in April, and a stroking class by World Dance competitors Kristen Fraser and Igor Lukanin.
The Saturday morning dance session at Reston was the most expensive of our sessions and weak attendance for more than a year has failed to cover our heavily subsidized threshold. The Board recently voted to discontinue this session.
Linda Laurel is always on the lookout for new convenient times for our members. Especially now our ears are open for another dance session but the reality is that competition for evening ice is fierce at all area rinks and hockey is well funded and aggressive.
Let us know your needs, ideas and tips. Skate, it's the fun exercise.
Respectfully submitted,
Judy Reiner & Pat Brockner
Co-Chairs, Rink & Program Committee
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