A Message from the NASA President - Spring 2011
April 12th, 2011
To All NASA Families:
The end of a busy skiing year and race season is in sight. I hope that your children (and you parents) are having a great time in this great sport and with your club.
I would like to thank all of you that have been involved in volunteering for races, casinos and the other necessary jobs to keep our operations going. We have hosted outstanding races at every level from Nancy Greene to K1, K2 and FIS, all of which have required tremendous volunteering hours and efforts. The NASA board is very proud and appreciative of the work done by all of our parents this season. We hope to see everyone out one last time (all for fun) at the Wearmouth Cup for moguls, a BBQ, a race and awards on April 16th. After that, some of the programs have some further skiing planned to take advantage of the spring snow.
We are busy planning next year’s programs. As some of you may have heard, we are looking to adjust to one big change: Scott Bailey is returning to University and will leave us as the Development Level Program Director. He has done an amazing job for the past two years with NASA and before that with Paskapoo and Skimeisters.
The search is on for his replacement. Scott’s skills are not easily found so we will likely be looking at some organizational changes.
We have a unique model for NASA and the clubs that has the potential to offer the best options to help the athletes develop to their potential. In addition to your club executive, NASA has a Board that has members from each club that meets monthly to review operations.
Where is the NASA money going (including your hard-earned Black Diamond Bash and grocery card money)? Here is a summary of some of the things NASA has done this year:
- NASA supports the club executives. We started with the first ever planning summit in September and have had a constant flow of ideas for making the clubs work better through the year.
- NASA has paid for access to Nakiska training space for each of the clubs.
- NASA has purchased the storage container to hold the equipment that is nestled in the trees behind the "shack" at the far end of the Lodge. Before, COP provided some space (withdrawn this year) or the clubs paid for storage space. We constantly lost items that were “borrowed” by the hill or other clubs.
- NASA has purchased radios for races and new timing equipment to improve our ability to run races at all levels that are available to all of the clubs.
NASA has also been busy improving the quality of the athletes’ experiences through coaches training, planning and implementation from the Program Directors and long term planning.
We just keep getting better. Thank you for your continued support to enable us to provide quality programs for young skiers.
If you want to contact me, please send an email to my attention through either of the Program Directors.
Great skiing!
Janet Russell, President