Your High Speed Digital Update on All Things Eastern WHAT’S NEW IN THE EASTERN DIVISION? Check out the following pages of our new digital update to catch up on all the news you need to know as the days get a little shorter, the leaves prepare to fall and we are busy preparing for the winter season to come!
THE QUARTERLY AUTO RENEW PAYMENT PLAN IS NOW AVAILABLE!!! On August 7th, the Eastern Division became the first division in the country to offer a Quarterly Auto Renew Plan to our members. The effort to offer an incremental dues payment option for members was first brought to the Eastern Board of Directors by executive director Michael Mendrick in June of 2011. Now, thanks to the transition to a new Association Management Software system and the ongoing efforts and support from PSIA-AASI CEO Nick Herrin and the team from the National office, the programmers at Orange Bees and the Eastern Division office staff, we are now able to offer a much appreciated convenience to those who need or desire it. Our hope is this will improve our retention of younger members new to the organization, veteran members on fixed incomes as well as the rest of our predominantly part-time instructor membership demographic. It’s been a long time coming and we are confident it will allow more members to STAY members. If you haven’t renewed yet for the season, you can avoid a late fee if you renew by August 21st. Just follow the link below to start the process:
CLICK HERE TO RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP!
Get ready folks! Fall is right around the corner and we are getting stoked! Here is a look at some of our feature events so you can get stoked too (full schedule will be out early fall so stay tuned)! Don’t forget to use #seeyouthere on all of your Instagram & Facebook posts from our events!
When: Saturday, September 7 – Sunday, September 8, 2019 Cost: Total cost for the two days of coaching and facility fees is $280 Deadline: Must register by August 21, 2019 Open to: Members and Non-members over the age of 16
2019 JUMPING EVENT Killington, VT September 7 - 8, 2019
Snowboarders: Snowboard members must interview with Greg Fatigate prior to registering. He can be reached via e-mail at: squerlok@hotmail.com. Wrist guards, knee pads and full clothing from head to toe is required for your safety
This fall the annual jumping event will be held at Killington Mountain School’s Bag Jump Facility on Saturday and Sunday, September 7-8, 2019. The KMS Bag Jump is a new world-class four-season airbag facility, located just over a mile up the road at the base of Killington Resort’s Superstar trail. This jumping event is an excellent way to begin your freestyle career or even improve your skills in moguls. It allows you to learn how to become more aware of your body in the air, and what movements affect you during approach, take-off, performing the maneuver, and landing. The most basic and simplest maneuvers will be experienced first before adding more difficult ones. Athletes will first work to master tricks in the trampoline facility and then continue their progression toward mastery as they head to the bag to practice those maneuvers. This clinic is open to members and non-members, over age 16, in any discipline. Check out the Jump Event Facebook page for photos and videos of previous jumping events. Grab some friends and join us for a fun and educational clinic for any ability level! Killington Air Bag video Here is a link to the Facebook group for this event, which gives you an idea of what we do at the JUMPING EVENT!
PSIA-AASI EASTERN JUMPING EVENT Details: What: Event 001 – JUMPING EVENT Where: Killington Air Bag Facility
FALL INDOOR COURSES Jiminy Peak, MA October 26 - October 28, 2019
Open to all PSIA & AASI Members – Non-Members may attend for an additional $25 Join us for indoor educational clinics at Jiminy Peak on October 26-28, 2019. These one-day clinics will satisfy your continuing education credit requirement. Open to Members and Non-Members can attend too for an additional $25. Lunch is provided for all attendees! For those pursuing the Advanced Educator accreditation, several required and optional courses will be offered. The first course in the Backcountry Accreditation, Snow Sense and Planning, will also be offered on Saturday and Sunday. The Snow Sense and Planning course is open to all disciplines and prepares you with the knowledge needed to minimize the risk while venturing into the Backcountry. Click here for more information or to register online for the Fall Indoor Courses – deadline date to register is October 9th.
SNOW PRO JAM & MASTER’S ACADEMY Mount Snow, VT December 9 - December 13 REGISTRATION INFO FOR ALL DISCIPLINES! The 2019 Snow Pro Jam and Master’s Academy will be held December 9-13th at Mount Snow, Vermont. We will begin to accept applications on Monday, September 16, 2019. Applications received prior to September 16th will be returned. Members can register online or send via fax to 518-452-6099, or even register by mail or in person. Nonmembers may attend the Tele Snow Pro Jam, the Snowboard Pro Jam or the Adaptive Snow Pro Jam for an additional $25, but online registration is only available for members. Alpine Snow Pro Jam and Master’s Academy are only open to members.
with Mount Snow for the five-day lift ticket and five, daily two-hour (AM) lesson package. There will be no limit to the number of guests who may take advantage of this option. Cost of the package is $249 and does not include a banquet ticket. Sign up by calling Mount Snow at 800 8894411 after October 15, 2019. Please identify yourself as a PSIA-E Pro Jam guest. Package is available for individuals over the age of four. Mount Snow Grand Summit is offering discounted lodging for attendees. Prices vary depending on the type of unit you are interested in. Please call 800-817-0764 for more information.
What are the Snow Pro Jam and the Master’s Academy? Snow Pro Jam and Master’s Academy is the gathering spot for nearly 500 snowsports instructors, sponsors and guests from all over the East Coast. Each day offers great skiing, riding, coaching and après ski activities along with the opportunity to network with other snowsports enthusiasts. The Sponsor Showcase will be on Tuesday, Wednesday we will offer afternoon optional sessions, Thursday all attendees are invited to the Banquet, and we’ll wrap it up on Friday with another full day of fantastic skiing and riding with the best coaches in the country! There are groups for those who want to gear up for the season, groups for those who want to explore the challenges that Mount Snow offers, and groups for people who want to begin preparing for exams. Regardless of which type of group you choose, you can expect to have a great time.
Photo courtesy of Shannon Rucker
What are the Alpine Colleges? At Mount Snow, we’ll be offering an Alpine Level I College, an Alpine Level II Skiing College and an Alpine Level II Teaching College. If your goal is certification, these 5 day events are a great way to get started on the process. The first three days you will be coached in a variety of skiing and teaching tasks and given lots of feedback. The last two days will be the actual evaluation at the National Standards. Get a jump start on your professional development and be on your way to achieving certification before the holidays! Look for more details in the coming weeks. Guest Package for the week of Snow Pro Jam & Master’s Academy: A Guest Package will be offered through the Mount Snow Ski and Snowboard School. Guests need to register directly
Photo courtesy of Shannon Rucker, SPJ 2018
Eastern Education Foundation Event Scholarships Available for All Disciplines! Don’t miss out on this great member educational benefit! Nearly $15,000 available for 2019-20 events!
bers. In doing so, we are making a number of transfers of policy statements that currently are in the Bylaws to a newly developed Governing Policies document. No changes to policy are taking place in that process – it is a reorganization of current policies. As such and per Section 20.2 of the Bylaws, the Board has authority to make such revisions for the purpose of clarification and reorganization. A complete report on the collaborative efforts between the Board and Sound Governance will be provided in the fall issue of the SnowPro newsletter. If you have any questions regarding this process, feel free to contact Executive Director Michael Mendrick at mmendrick@psia-e.org.
A Look behind the Numbers: The 2019-20 Eastern Division Budget By Michael J. Mendrick, Executive Director Developing and balancing an operating budget for our Eastern Division is an annual challenge that requires the attention and efforts of many people at both the staff and volunteer level. We can attest that all the people involved (division staff, discipline advisors, Finance Committee members, Executive Committee officers and ultimately – the full Board of Directors) take seriously the responsibility for developing, discussing and approving an operating budget that represents your interests.
Each year, generous donations from members and sponsors to the PSIA-E Education Foundation make more than 125 scholarships available for members who wish to further their education or certification status within PSIAAASI. How to Apply For all funds, eligible members can apply online after the event schedule is posted in mid September, by visiting the PSIA-AASI Eastern Division web site at: www.psiae.org/scholarships. You can also find information on the scholarships under the “Education” tab. The Eastern 2019-20 event schedule should be available online by mid September at www.psia-e.org/ev/schedule/. Simply choose your event and complete the entire scholarship application online. The deadline for submission is October 14th. Good luck!
Eastern Board Evolving to Better Serve Members The Eastern Board of Directors has contracted with Sherry Jennings, Ph.D. of Sound Governance and is working with Sherry with the goal of becoming a “higher-functioning”, more efficient and effective Board on behalf of the mem-
Summary: The approved 2019-20 budget projects Operating Income of $1,984,881 and Operating Expenses of $1,832,028 for a projected Operating Net of $152,853 for the period July 1, 2019 – June 30, 2020. Accounting adjustments (a continued large depreciation figure due to 2016-17 uniform purchases and 2010-11 office expansion project along with minimal planned capital expenditures) will result in an Accounting Net projected at $144,639. For a comprehensive look at the rationale for the income and expense calculations that created the 2019-20 budget, simply send along a note requesting the “2019-20 Budget Support Notes” to me at mmendrick@psia-e.org. I would like to thank the division staff, Finance Committee (Peter Holland, Treasurer & Chair; Ted Fleischer and Dick Fox) and the entire Eastern Board for their work in developing, reviewing, adjusting and ultimately approving this budget. I believe it is a financial plan that represents the best interests of the members by renewing support for important educational and marketing programs.
National Efforts for You – A Summary of June ELC Meeting By Kathy Brennan
Guides that will help us to achieve those outcomes. Think of the Performance Guide as a workbook that will help you to meet performance expectations, and identify those behaviors or movements that are deficient. The Alpine Technical LOs and PGs are nearly complete. In addition, task forces made a great deal of progress on the LOs and PGs for cross-discipline People and Teaching Skills. Adaptive, Children and Telemark task forces are waiting on the completion of the Alpine LOs and PGs to avoid duplicating effort, but will begin formulating their outcomes and guides soon.
In June, I had the honor to represent the Eastern Division at the Education Leadership Council (ELC) meeting in Lakewood, CO. Just what is the ELC and what do we do?
The ELC serves PSIA-AASI educational directives and acts as the conduit between all discipline task forces and association leadership to drive consistency in all educational initiatives. The ELC also acts as the visionary steering council for future growth and evolution in snowsports education.
The June meeting included representatives from most divisions, the national team, and PSIA-AASI staff. We received updates from our CEO - Nick Herrin, Director of Education Dave Schuiling, and the Alpine, People Skills, and Teaching Skills task forces. It was inspiring to learn about all the progress that has been made developing Learning Outcomes (LOs) and Performance Guides (PGs) for the Learning Connection Model. This project originated from the partnership with Penn State and a desire to allow members to earn college credit for PSIA-AASI events. In the same way a college clearly articulates what you will learn from a single course and a degree program; we identified the need to be more specific in our expectations for an instructor’s technical abilities, teaching, and people skills at Level 1, 2 or 3. By defining specific Learning Outcomes, not only are we moving toward the goal of awarding college credit, but we also will be more consistent in the delivery of our educational programs and certification exams. Furthermore, the Learning Outcomes are being backed-up with Performance
The Snowboard task force met, just as our meeting was ending, to work on their Fundamentals, LOs and PG. Even though work continues, valuable information will be ready to be shared during the Fall Conference in Colorado. One goal of the Fall Conference will be to train divisional education staff to begin working with the LOs and PGs to identify gaps in current clinics and exams in order to have a smooth rollout of these materials in the following season. Anticipate hearing more about the components of the Learning Connection Model as progress continues to be made developing the materials. Most importantly the ELC agreed the Teaching/People Skills, Learning Outcomes and Performance Guides will only be successful if the information is effectively distributed. The ELC recognizes the importance of sharing the message that people skills are not an assessment of an individual’s personality, but instead they are observable behaviors that we may all develop to help us connect with our guests. By taking the time to fully develop and review the materials this season, we are excited about a successful rollout to the members in the following season. To support our goal to drive consistency through communication, collaboration and consolidation, the ELC broke into sub-groups to propose training plans for the Learning Connection Model and quality assurance efforts. For quality assurance we identified information we can gather from our members that will help us to assess quality and improve consistency. For example, are differences in exam pass rates in different divisions a result of differences in staff training, a regional bias, or does terrain, amount of training time, access to PSIA-AASI staff, or other things have a significant impact on success? By gathering this information, we may identify areas for improvement, offer new programs, or provide suggestions to members to improve their experiences.
The ELC also agreed the Examiner Exchange program is key to helping us improve consistency from division to division.
The goal will be to have the participating Examiners ultimately work events in other divisions to learn their programs from the inside – out.
Nick Herrin shared some exciting partnerships he is exploring with mountain biking, in-line skating and more. The goal of these partnerships would be to develop year-round opportunities for snowsports instructors, offer off-snow cross training programs, and continue growing any, and all, snowsports by making playing on snow more accessible to people.
It is striking how hard volunteers are working to develop tools that will help us to be better instructors; aid member schools in attracting and retaining customers; lead the world with the Learning Connection Model; and allow PSIA -AASI to deliver consistent high-quality, exceptional programs and services nationwide. There are some great things coming down the pipe – stay tuned!
Sadly, we share the news of the recent passing of our friends and Eastern Division members. Please visit our “In Memoriam” page on at www.psia-e.org/memoriam to view the tributes. Meg Carbone Alfred E. “Alfredo” DiNapoli Thomas Michael (Mike) Hutchison Charles A. “Chub” Symonds
Check your email inbox for future broadcast emails and Eastern Express digital updates. As the leaves turn and the season approaches we’ll be back to you with more updates and info so stay tuned! The printed fall issue of the Snow Pro Magazine will be out in late October! In the meantime, stay connected with us and your fellow members via social media: Facebook: www.facebook.com/PSIA.E.AASI www.facebook.com/groups/PSIAEast/ www.facebook.com/groups/AASIEast/ Instagram: @psiaeaasi Twitter: @psiaeaasi
You can always reach us directly at: Email: psia-e@psia-e.org Phone: (518)452-6095 In the Albany, NY area? Send us a note or stop by! 1A Lincoln Avenue Albany, NY 12205
Want us to show off your pictures from your summer adventures, fall activities, winter shredding and spring fun? Send your best to psia-e.org for a chance to be featured on our social media pages and in future editions of the Eastern Express!