It may be summer, and by now your skis and ski equipment are in storage, your thoughts turning to hiking, biking, barbeques around a pool/park/back garden with friends and family, but the work of your elected board representatives, office staff, education staff and discipline managers goes on.

Board Volunteer Day at NAC
Prior to the recent board meeting, president Rich organized a day of “giving back” where board members assembled various pieces of furniture/ playground equipment and painted equipment for our friends at the NAC. Look for photos on the website.

As the Board has been somewhat nomadic in its search for a suitable meeting place, the NAC facility and the NAC staff have been wonderful in welcoming the board. President Rich’s efforts to encourage us all to “give back” benefits everyone, but we should all be very grateful to the NAC staff and the efforts that they make to support IMD.

Board Meeting, June 2017
The recent board meeting was a two-day event filled with welcoming new members (Sean Baker, Kim Prebish, Eric Rolls, PJ Jones), recognizing the re-elected representative (Carl Boyer), and bidding farewell to exiting representatives (Joe Waggoner, Evan Ricks, Mary Flynn-Ware, Nancy Kronthaler), budget issues, initiatives for retention and appreciation of IMD members, more budget issues (and more budget issues), and re-election of president Rich for another term. The agenda and minutes can be found on the IMD website, and highlights follow this article for your convenience. Please let me encourage you to contact your local representative for further details and to offer your insights and prejudices — the board exists for you, with a mission to “provide high quality educational resources and well-defined standards to aid our members in improving their teaching skills to better satisfy the needs and expectations of their customer in the enjoyment of Snowsports.”

Quick, can anyone recall the vision statement? Here’s an important clue — it’s in the meeting minutes! (A link to the minutes can be found below.)

PSIA/AASI Intermountain Board of Directors
Meeting Highlights, National Ability Center, Park City, June 9-10

• Rich McLaughlin reported on the bimonthly phone conference of the President’s Council where a decision was made on the first unified vision statement across all nine divisions: “Creating lifelong adventures through education.”
• Mike Thurgood reported that overall the state of Intermountain Division is sound with a solid reserve fund that is added to each year. There was a small profit this fiscal year (the smallest in several years).
• Mark Nakada presented information from the IMD Strategic Committee and stated that the division needs to increase participation in non-exam clinics, which have low member participation. Member interest in our products needs to be increased.
• Rich McLaughlin reported on the Spring Clinic at Brighton. There was lower participation this season, although the banquet and clinics went well, and the silent auction was successful. Rich also posed questions: should we ask why we are doing Spring Clinic, and how do we get members re-engaged?
• Alpine Certification Manager Dustin Cooper reported that Alpine will continue to offer the one-day and the two-day format exams.
• Snowboard Committee Board Liaison Chris Parks provided a Snowboard Committee update and described the new mentoring program designed to develop future participation.
• Nordic Program Manger Grant Bishop (via telephone) reported that the Nordic and Cross Country teams are working on concentrating events to increase participation. They are opening up their level 2 and 3 exams to other divisions.
• Children’s Program Manager Mark Nakada reported that there has been discussion across divisions about making CS a requirement for Alpine Certification and that the new Children’s manual has been pushed back one year.
• IT consultant Jesse Morse reported on improvements that will be made over the summer and hardware that will be purchased for the office and for events.
• Mike Thurgood presented an overview of the Snowsports Schools Report. There is ongoing discussion about underground instructors and how to deal with them, and about trail safety.
• Rich McLaughlin was re-elected president, Mike Thurgood was re-elected administrative V.P., Kent Lundell was re-elected ASEA representative, Charlie Rodger was elected communication V.P.
• Mark Nakada presented a budget overview and brought up the concern that our net income is low (6.3 percent average return over investment over eight years). The ways to increase revenue are: increase dues, increase event costs, or increase participant numbers.

Full minutes of the last Intermountain board meeting can be found here.

Charles Rodger is a PSIA/AASI Intermountain board member and new communication V.P., email at us01220@gmail.com.

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