Excutive Director Report
April 22, 2008

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This week’s report is sprinkled throughout with Bush-isms. I love Bushspeak. Hopefully, they all fall into areas of interest to us within the USA Water Ski world. Here goes:

"Thank you, your Holiness. Awesome speech." --George W. Bush, to Pope Benedict, Washington, D.C., April 15, 2008

The 26th annual AWSEF Hall of Fame induction ceremony took place this past weekend. It was incredible and the acceptance speeches were awesome, as were the videotapes highlighting those“beyond-belief” athletic moves performed by both Hall of Fame inductees, and the feats of the Award of Distinction winners as described by the master of ceremonies. Since the Hall of Fame and the induction ceremonies have been around for such a long time, it may be hard to appreciate the significance of such an event to a sport. I originally came from a sport that has no Hall of Fame and, therefore, no induction ceremonies. Watching the look on the faces of the recipients was priceless, but maybe more important was the realization that their performances and their contributions were not being overlooked. They were
being recorded in an ongoing history of this sport. Congratulations to the entire AWSEF board of directors, Hall of Fame Selection Committee, and especially to Carole Lowe for her determination in seeing that athletes and other principals of this sport are always thanked.

"My job is a decision-making job, and as a result, I make a lot of decisions." --George W. Bush, The Decider, Lancaster, Pa., Oct. 3, 2007

The USA Water Ski Executive Committee met over the weekend, and reviewed our first six months under my tenure. So far financially, we aren’t doing badly. During the first three-month period of 2008, our net incomes have exceeded $190,000 as compared to less than a third of that number in 2007. The 2008 number also out-performed the 2006 number by more than $14,000. While those numbers are encouraging, the USA Water Ski staff is maintaining an alert eye toward any change in trends, especially
in light of a challenging economic environment. Further in-depth reports from the EC meeting will be distributed to you in the near future.

We have made decisions and some have been made with some difficulty. Those decisions principally dealt with laying off several USA Water Ski personnel early on and cutting back on whole programs and/or scaling back programs. The cause was created by the deficits we experienced in our 2007 spending patterns. Overall the effort was to right size the organization, and we have had success in doing that.

Programmatically, we are working toward launching a direct mail Affinity campaign and are steadfastly working on a meaningful grassroots effort for 2009. The Affinity program is meant to attract recreational skiers to support USA Water Ski because of passion for the sport and to support our efforts of advocacy to maintain the use of public waterways. Through the generosity of several USA Water Ski members, we have received $30,000 to apply toward “testing” of the new program. Currently, pro-formas are being developed and they will include a year one, two and three to hopefully demonstrate success and profitability for this direct mail effort. A decision will be made to go forward or not based upon the proforma results. If we have a positive result, we will begin the implementation process with the intent of potentially launching the test program in the fall (a great deal of time in the interim will be devoted to preparation of collateral material and other logistical functions). You may ask, “Why the fall?” Direct mail specialists tell us that the off-season is often the most effective time frame to obtain support.

"As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured." --George W. Bush, on the No Child Left Behind Act, Washington, D.C., Sept. 26, 2007

Measured results from our sponsorship development efforts have shown a high percentage of return of USA Water Ski sponsor-partners for the 2008 season. Thus far all but one has returned from last year’s roster, and two new groups have been added. Our efforts are to help in all proper ways possible to drive business to our sponsor-partners. Another encouraging number is the increase in the number of sanctioned events for the 2008 season. One of our major keys to success is encouraging more clubs to conduct
events. The more events; the more members; and the healthier all aspects of our sport disciplines will be.

"After all, Europe is America's closest ally." --George W. Bush, Mainz, Germany, Feb. 23, 2005

I had the distinct privilege of meeting the International Water Ski Federation president over the weekend. Mr. Kuno Ritschard is a Swiss/German with a dignified presence. He does amazing things, like raising substantial amounts of funds to conduct IWSF World Cup events in very exotic locales throughout the globe. Kuno has dedicated his efforts to the development of a world cup competition system to grow the sport globally. He travels extensively and, while it may sound fun, I can assure you that the travel days he racks up each year defy any sense of ever having an opportunity to just relax a bit. He does it all for the athletes and it is quite noble. It was really a pleasure to get to know him.

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.'' —George W. Bush, Feb. 21, 2001

USA Water Ski has passed a significant test. Earlier this year, independent auditor Waugh, Goodwin and Associates conducted a comprehensive audit of our organization. The Waugh group is very familiar with NGB audits as they conduct well over 20 NGB audits annually. Our audit was clean and the auditors were highly complimentary concerning the quality of work being performed by Bobbie Razor, USA Water Ski’s accounting manager.

"They misunderestimated me." —George W. Bush, Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000

I don’t know why I put that one in; just liked it I suppose. Have a nice weekend.

Steve Locke
Executive Director
USA Water Ski