USSA Northern Division
ACC Meeting Agenda
June 3, 2005

ACC chair report:  Jen Stielow:

Call to Order: 8:00 PM

Attendance: J.C. Knaub, Rick Jacobs, Erik Hamilton, Jeff Pickering, Eric Munoz, Bill Brown, Caryn Jones, Fritz Wood, and Jen Stielow.

Old Business:

          *JC gave an overview on the past history of divisional issues.

1. Western Region ACC meeting overview
• USSA points list is skewed due to sites hosting extremely low penalty races or several small events in small fields with slow skiing rabbits – problem is nationwide
• Minimum penalty for USSA races
• SL course setting will change from a 15m maximum to 13m maximum – gate count being used
• FIS proposal a multi-discipline event GS/SL/SG one run and one course set
• USSA team event discussed, but the plate is full at the moment
• Code of conduct that needs to be signed by all athletes and suggested that divisions check into the code of conduct at their level
• Report on discussion with Lester Keller at the region -
• A WR treasurer is needed – Dawn will continue until a replacement is found
• Intent to Competes – must use style guide (this will assist Lester in completion of the boards in a faster time period)
• Application for Regional Directors quota will need to go the divisional representatives first and then the ACC Chair or Administrator can submit the list to Lester.
• 5 per series per gender with a max of 30 per year per gender – this was a number thrown out by Lester
• Names must be submitted from divisions to Lester 14 days out prior to the start of the event
• Field expansion at event typically occurs 7 days out
• Travel/Event selections –
• Everything will be posted on the WR web page and then invitations will be e-mailed out in this order.
• RTG/NDS/RT group selections will be posted on the WR web site
• WR trips – paperwork received by Lester without money will need to pay the staff prior to getting a room key or lift ticket
• Regional Calendar –
• No site for a WR elite DH due to scheduling
• Shoot out should include a camp – Park City put in a bid
• J3’s will be held at Mt. Hood Meadows
• WR Jr. Champs – Schweitzer (tech events only)
• FIS Finals – Jackson Hole (Snowking) tech events only
• Awards Nominations –
• Awards nominations need to be into the main office by February
• You can nominate someone from outside your division
• Will be posted on website
• Coaches clinics – schedule
• Get dates and feedback on needs back to Lester so he and Finn can schedule accordingly
• Next meeting - Conference call will be held in September

2. Calendar Review and issues:
• Calendaring will continue in a top down manner
• Big Sky & Bridger JO qualifier/ Bridger would also like a YSL race
• Silver Run would like a qualifier or YSL race
• Integration of rotation schedule for division so races rotate every 3 years allowing Casper to host a race every now and then
• 3-day qualifying events need to remain intact – good this past season
• Pilot program – schedule a learning & pre-season divisional camp during the beginning of December 12/8-11th.  Can be held at Whitefish/Red Lodge/Big Sky
• 1 staff member from each club will have expenses paid by camp any additional staff members will need to reimbursed from their home club program
• Needs to happen prior to Christmas camp
• Good time to bring small division together and allow athletes and coaches to gain familiarity with one another – teambuilding as well as letting athletes take advantage of all the good coaches in the division.
• Coaches' education forum sometime during the second weekend in December 15-18th at Big Sky
3. ND  Administrator position overview 
• Good items
• Items that needs improvements
  *Caryn resigned her position as Administrator and distributed statements to coaches showing money owed by athletes to Northern Division.
4. NO MONEY ISSUE – UPDATE what can we do to make things better? 
• Create a database in Access for athlete tracking and contact information available to ND administrator, ACC and Treasurer.
  *No money at races issue was discussed
• PROBLEMS:
• Will not be tolerated by coaching staff any longer – no more traveling on the road without proper amounts/checks prior to departure
• Monetary amounts are always changing – coaches need blank signed checks to travel with, including an extra check for emergencies so coaches do not have to “foot the bill”.
• Still have 20-25,000.00 dollars of outstanding bills
• Need task force to solve collection problem as we have more athletes racing out of division and data collection is difficult
• This is Tim’s busy time period with his business
• SOLUTIONS presented by ACC:
• Restructure administration
• PayPal solution, we need to be able to accept credit cards at the divisional level (need to ensure processing fee is included in this service, so division is not footing the bill for the processing fees)
• Need database for entire division
• Require a 2000.00 deposit for FIS age athletes prior to start of season
• Estimated trip costs should be listed on trip information sheets with clause stating that it may be more or less expense than advertised amount
• MOTION made from ACC to carry to Divisional meeting:
• OPTION #1 - ACC recommends a maintained PayPal site ran by the ND webmaster
• OPTION #2 – Admisistrator tracks books with Treasurer as a back-up reviewer so checks can be signed by administrator and money would be in hand to coaches prior to leaving for trips.  Both individuals would have signatures on the divisional account with ability to view account on-line.  E-mail communication between administrator and treasurer is followed up with back-up material shipped to the Treasurer for documentation following completion of event.
• OPTION #3 – Every ND athlete 15 years and older must submit a credit card number and signed authorization form – must be to administrator by Nov. 15th regardless.  If credit card is declined, there is a 24 hour grace period after notification before athlete is pulled from event
  There will be some situation based decisions regarding allowing an athlete to race – ACC decision?
• Miscellaneous Items -
• Web page – we would like to get our web page similar to those on the PNSA website with trip sheets listing the selections for the trip and who has paid and not paid for the trip
• Enforcement for those who have not paid needs to be one person – suggestion
• JO coats – some kids never did get jackets but they were billed for jackets (they should not pay for coats if they did not get coats).  Caryn has warehouse looking for 4 jackets:
• Clayton Krueger
• Holland Davis
• Grayson Quigley
5. Development  Team
• Website athlete profile – did not happen, recognition certs went out, missing athlete information such as contact information
• How do we and how should we view this team?
• Suggestion – do away with current team structure to create a ND team for older athletes only J1/J2 level only
• Use World Junior Selection process
• 4 girls
• 4 boys
• 1 zk girl
• 1 zk boy
• Podium finishes for J3’s to make a team of 12 athletes
• ND Junior Alpine Team will replace ND Development Team
• College athletes will need to be in the division for one year time period before gaining recognition onto team and funding will be based on achievement

New Business:

1. Western Region Junior Championship Selections –
• Review selection process for J1/JII athletes
• Selection boards will remain as 4 event boards
• Speed qualifiers – J3’s need a better/more challenging venue for SG qualifier – looking at working something at Big Sky
• Announcement date for WRJC boards and full ACC approval/review of boards prior to announcement.
• General selection issues –
• Athletes transferring into Northern for college purposes are not skiing their points at WR events.  They race at these low point races and gain a low point profile causing them to be higher on the selection board than our development athletes
• College kids are taking spots due to low point profiles and this is hampering our development athletes
• WR Directors quota was discussed
2. Divisional travel
• INSURANCE IS AN ISSUE – how you operate the van will change the insurability of a 15 passenger van
• Cannot carry more than one driver + one passenger with rack
• 1.00 per mile should be paid to non-rented vehicles
• Rented vehicles should only be reimbursed for the rental cost plus gas
• Code of conduct and medical release forms are needed for ND traveling coaches – will shadow WR and needs to include a team agreement form – possibly finding a way to distribute electronically to coaching staff. 
• 15 passenger vans are a liability to all clubs who continue to operate these vehicles.
• 15 passenger vans during in and out of divisional projects if rented must have full insurance through the rental company, “check if Visa Gold will still cover”, also rental vendors are decreasing their fleets for insurance reasons.
• Named ND athletes traveling to a project should all be responsible for a share of transportation of the Coach, ie. Ground and or air travel including expenses incurred for the ND staff representing the ND Team at events.
• Travel expenses for all coaches rental, personal, club within reason will be incurred by all athletes traveling on the trip
• All athletes must pay for coaches travel expenses
3. ND wax policies.
• We need a more streamlined way to identify what we are responsible for to the athletes and how we can be prepared to cover our bases for these kids so  individual clubs do not have to tap into their supply.
  “Suggestion”:
• All athletes are responsible for his / her own base wax and is expected to have their own tuning equipment. ND collectively should purchase an inventory of Mid to High flouro wax which should be dispersed to traveling coaches in November. Each coach should keep inventory and consider the type of events that they plan to travel to so we can have ample supply at any given event. We still charge a wax fee but we need to be more clear on what we expect the athletes to bring.
• Reimbursement needs to take place for the 04/05 season.
• Athletes will be required to bring their own tuning stuff and base wax – NO EXECPTIONS – athletes should be able to care for their equipment at the basic level on their own.  This is not a divisional responsibility – division will provide overlays, etc…
• Divisional wax supplies will need to be re-stocked and we will need to do a better job of distribution.
4. Athlete selections to WR / Nat’l events.
• Athlete management is key to mapping a clear path for athletes.  Not all cases but some need to be considered when it comes to forced entry based on ND by-laws for selection to certain events.  This happened this year and we should discuss this topic. This should be based on J-2 & J-1 athletes.
• Also when fielding teams we need to know the college athletes a little better.  When we fill quotas based on points on athletes we have not had access to it is important that the athlete's skiing ability is at the point level they reflect.  This mainly concerns speed access and is two sided:  1) safety, and 2) filling a development spot.
5. Event selection
• Keep in place history.  Clubs that have running events at the Jr. level should  always have the planned weekend to work with that they used in the past.
• YSL events should be spread throughout the division but when we move into  March we should have alternate plans prepared in the spring in case we have another bad snow year.
6. Speed selections for J-1,2,3.
   • Re-look at the possibility of using Big Sky as our J-3 SG qualifier.  The J-4’s  are fine with Showdown but our J-3's need more length and challenge.
   • Unless we can figure out a way to fill the need for speed with any athlete that does not qualify for the Devo Speed Series at Big Sky (J-1,2) we eventually will lose that discipline in our division.  On the other side, we should not send those athletes to an event where their safety is an issue.
   • Should we consider for the main population of our division (probably excluding some of our upper level athletes) of taking a break in the ND calendar and holding a camp?  The content of the camp would primarily be based on terrain, gliding and jumping with SG and GS included.  It seems that once our season starts we have an event every weekend.  This type of camp would encompass J-1 through J-4 and we would have a chance to work with athletes in more controlled environments with speed elements.
   [End of Jen Stielow's ACC notes]