Pacific Northwest Ski Association A Division of USSA PNSA ACC Meeting Pasco, WA May 31-June 1 2014 PNSA President Bill Brooks opened the general session of the Alpine Competition Committee Meeting by welcoming everyone. Bill gave the committee a brief report on the status of the sport and some of his concerns. Using graphs prepared by Bill Gunesch he detailed the decline in athletes over the last decade. He noted that all of the regions are worried about the decline and it has been a topic of conversation on the McKinsey task force. WR Report Bill gave the committee a short report on the USSA Congress and the Western Region meetings held at the same time. He noted that PNSA had made several recommendations at the Western Region meeting and these sparked some heated debate. USSA Congress Bill reviewed some of the actions and discussion at the USSA Congress in Park City. He noted that the high point of the meetings for the PNSA delegation was a chance to meet with Tiger Shaw on Thursday evening. Before turning the meeting over to Ryan, Bill announced that the PNSA Executive Board decided that the full board should make the site selections for the WR U16 Championships and the PNSA Buddy Werner U14 Championships. Consequently, the applicants will make their presentations to the board at the Saturday noon meeting.
Working Group Reports: The following ACC Working Groups and Sub-Committees presented brief reports. (Secretary s note: The majority of working groups and subcommittees submitted written reports. The minutes only include those items that were additions or clarifications to the written reports.) College Working Group: Ron Bonneau gave the committee a short summary of his written report. He noted that the fall college meeting will most likely be rescheduled to coincide with the PNSA and PNSEF fall meetings. U18-U21 Working Group: U16 Working Group: U14 Working Group: Kate Morrell began her report by thanking Crystal Mountain for hosting the 2014 U14-Buddy Werner Championships. Kate noted that Super G was added to the event and it was very well received. Kate listed some of the items that the U14 Working Group will address in their meeting. Potential formats for future BW Championships. Rule changes to handle ties. Reviewing the limitation of scored starts for 1 st year U14 s. Skills Quest. Coaches: Alpine Officials Working Group: Roger briefly reviewed the proposed schedule for officials clinics in the fall. Concussion Management: Dr. Craig Panos reviewed the PNSA ImPACT Concussion Management program and presented several case studies, which illustrate the value and use of the program.
Rules and Tech Working Group: Dan noted that PNSA should establish positions on several issues that USSA and WR will be considering this fall and at the next USSA Congress. These include: Prerequisites for a FIS license SG course setting standards Limiting starts S. Hemisphere racing for 1 st year U18 s. The meeting was recessed until Sunday morning. Sunday June 1, 2014 Session Roll Call: ACC Chairman Ryan Shorter opened the meeting at approximately 8:00 am with a roll call of voting members of the ACC. The following members were present: Peter Boit, Ron Bonneau, Bill Brooks, Nils Ericsson, Bill Gunesch, Dan Henry, Chuck Holcomb, Jamie Landwehr, Alan Lauba, Dave Lyon, Kate Morrell, Pat Robson and Evan Weiss. Ryan noted that this would be his last meeting as chairman of the ACC. Bill Brooks thanked Ryan for his service. Approval of the agenda: Ryan asked for a motion to approve the agenda. 2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion #36: To approve the agenda. Maker: Roger Root, second by Dave Lyon. Motion passed. Old Business: Ryan asked if there were any changes to the minutes from the September 28, 2013 ACC meeting. None were proposed and a motion to approve the minutes was presented and passed.
2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion #37: To approve the minutes from the September 28, 2013 meeting of the ACC as presented. Maker: Roger Root, second by Kate Morrell. Motion passed. New Business: Moving Mission to Zone 1: Ryan asked the committee to approve moving Mission Ridge from Zone 3 (Eastern Washington-Northern Idaho) to Zone 1 (Western Washington). He cited several reasons for the move. Geographically Mission is much closer to Zone 1. Mission YSL athletes race primarily in Zone 1. Zone 3 U14 Zonal finals are part of the EEYSL series and Mission is not part of that series. Nils noted that Mission Ridge was originally in Zone 1 and that the move to Zone 3 was made to balance out the number of clubs. Evan expressed concern that the move would increase the number of clubs in Zone 1 vying for zonal and BW Championship events. The question was called and the motion was passed. 2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion #38: To move Mission Ridge from PNSA Zone 3 to Zone 1. Maker: Roger Root, second by Jamie Landwehr. Motion passed. Race Back Up Plan: Bill Gunesch introduced a motion to require race organizers to have an alternate plan for their events if weather or other factors disrupted the schedule. This plan would include a skill quest or similar skills acquisition event. After further discussion the motion was withdrawn. Ryan appointed a committee to study how to use Skill Quest. He named Dave Lyon as the chair and appointed Ted McNamara and Kate Morrell to serve on the committee. The committee will present their report to the ACC at the fall meeting of the ACC.
Format for NW Cup and U16 Series: Jamie Landwehr reviewed the proposed NW Cup Calendar. He noted that all of the races would be sanctioned as USSA events. Jamie s motion to approve the format was approved. 2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion 39: To adopt the following format for the NW Cup and U16 Series. Maker: Jamie Landwehr, second by Dave Lyon. Motion passed. (See Appendix A.) U18-U21 Working Group: Jamie introduced a motion requesting that Western Region change the WR Junior Championships from a six-day event to a four-day event. Jamie and Ryan reviewed the reasons for the request. The motion was passed. 2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion #40: To recommend that Western Region re-calendar the WR JC as a 4-day series with 2 SGs, 1GS, 1 SL for each gender. Maker: Jamie Landwehr, second by Dave Lyon. Motion passed. A motion, from the floor, to remove the Utah Tech series from the list of races PNSA makes housing and coaching assignments for was made and withdrawn. Jamie introduced two more motions from his working group. The first motion asked PNSA to support the idea of hosting a jointly sanctioned FIS/USSA speed event, which would allow both U16 and older athletes to compete at the same race on the same venue. The second motion covered the NW Cup site selections made by the ACC Calendar Committee. 2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion #41: To support the concept of hosting a joint USSA and FIS speed event in WR. Maker: Jamie Landwehr, second by Kate Morrell. Motion passed. 2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion #42: To approve the attached site selections for the NW Cup Series. Maker: Jamie Landwehr, second by Dan Henry. Motion passed. (See Appendix A)
U16 Working Group: Chuck reviewed the site selections for the U16 Series made by the Calendar Committee. A motion to approve the calendar was approved. 2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion #43: To approve the attached site selections for the U16 Series. Maker: Chuck Holcomb, second by Pat Robson. Motion passed. (See Appendix A) U14 Working Group: The first item Kate presented was a motion to clarify ties at U14 Championships. 2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion #44: To add the following item 6 to the BWC Scoring procedure in the Competition Guide: "6. In case of a tie for the BWC individual overall awards, the tie will not be broken. If it becomes necessary to break a tie for selections or other purposes, total race points from the contested races will be used. Maker: Kate Morrell, second by Bill Gunesch. Motion passed. Her second motion was another clarification to the BWC scoring procedures. It also passed. 2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion #45: To replace the first sentence in item 2 of the BWC Scoring with the following sentence. "Each athlete will be awarded place points in all contested events with the exception of Skills Quest." Maker: Kate Morrell, second by Dave Lyon. Motion passed. The next motion from the U14 Working Group suggested making the top three athletes in each gender at BWC eligible to receive an elite pass. A friendly amendment from Evan Weiss was accepted which changed the number from 3 to 10. Evan s reasoning was that the top three athletes would already be eligible for an elite pass. 2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion #46: To add the following item #4 to the Elite Pass qualification section: "4. The top 10 overall competitors in the BWC will be eligible to purchase a PNSA Elite Pass for the next competition season. Maker: Kate Morrell, second by Evan Weiss. Motion passed.
Kate introduced a motion to remove the tech start limit for 1 st year U14 athletes. After some discussion, a compromise was made and the motion was revised by the addition of a cut off date. The date cut off would allow athletes to race in the Golden Rose and not have those starts count against their limit. 2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion #47: To revise Section 4, pg. 12 of the PNSA Alpine Competition Guide as follows, "1st year U14 athletes are limited to 6 race starts in scored SL & GS competitions prior to April 30 each competition season. Maker: Kate Morrell, second by Ron Bonneau. Motion passed. Kate presented a resolution outlining PNSA s stance on including U14 s in a U16 National Championship including Regional events for U14 s, which would serve as selection races to a national event. 2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion #48: To adopt the following resolution. Resolved, that PNSA does not support the USSA staff proposal to include U14s in the U16 National Championships nor to hold U14 Regional Championships that lead to selection of U14s to the U16 National Championships. PNSA does support regional camps for a larger number of U14 athletes. Maker: Kate Morrell, second by Chuck Holcomb. Motion passed. Ryan s appointment of an ad hoc committee to study the use of Skills Quest was formalized by motion # 49. 2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion #49: To form a committee headed by Dave Lyon with zonal representation to provide a recommendation, at the fall ACC meeting, on the future plan for Skills Quest. Maker: Bill Gunesch, second by Evan Weiss. Motion passed. Chuck Holcomb introduced a motion to revise the selection process for WR U16 Championships. The proposal was debated and eventually withdrawn. Ryan asked Chuck to provide mock up selections and resubmit the proposal at the fall meeting.
A motion from the floor was introduced to return the Jacks Hole tech series to the list of races for which PNSA makes travel and housing arrangements. There was discussion pro and con about the value of having PNSA make the housing arrangements. When the question was called the motion passed. 2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion #50: To return the Snow King Wild West Classic to the PNSA Team travel schedule while continuing to adhere to the current "opt out" policy. Maker: Pat Robson, second by Kate Morrell. Motion passed. Chuck Holcomb introduced a motion, from the floor, to include Skills Quest in the BWC. After a short discussion the motion was withdrawn and Ryan instructed Dave Lyon to address the question in the report from his ad hoc committee s skills quest review. No further business came before the committee and the meeting was adjourned. 2013-2014 PNSA ACC Motion #51: To adjourn. Maker: Kate Morrell, second by Chuck Holcomb. Motion Passed. Appendix A: Qualifier Date Location Events Sanction NW Cup Jan 2-4, SL/SL USSA #1 2015 NW Cup Jan 31- GS/GS USSA #2 Feb1 NW Cup #3 Feb 17-22 2DH/2SG USSA NW Cup #4 (Finals) Apr 10-12 SG/GS/SL USSA
Qualifier Date Location Events Sanction U16 Jana 17-2-SL/1- USSA Qualifier #1 19 GS U16 Qualifier #2 Feb 14-16 GS/2-SG USSA Appendix B: Qualifier Date Location Events Sanction NW Cup #1 Jan 2-4, Schweitzer/SARS 2SL/1SG USSA 2015 w/ski Bowl/MHA as contingency NW Cup #2 Jan 31- Stevens GS/GS USSA Feb1 Pass/SPAC NW Cup #3 Feb 17-22 Mt Bachelor/ MBSEF 2DH/2SG USSA NW Cup #4 /U16(Finals) Apr 10-12 Mission/MRST SG/GS/SL USSA Note: NW Cup Finals are combined with the U16 Finals Qualifier Date Location Events Sanction U16 Qualifier #1 Jana 17-19 Spokane/SSRA 2-SL/1- GS USSA U16 Qualifier #2 Feb 14-16 Ski Bowl/ MHA GS/2-SG USSA U16 Apr 10-12 Mission/MRST SG/GS/SL USSA Finals Note: U16 Finals are combined with the NW Cup Finals