ISSA - International Slalom Skateboarding Association

Progress Report from the ISSA Board of Directors
[Feb 20, 2011 by Jonathan Harms]

Over the past couple of years, people have repeatedly asked the ISSA to address several major areas of concern, including:

• Provide greater publicity and support for slalom skateboard racing worldwide.
• Report race results quickly.
• Make regular updates to the world ranking.
• Schedule the race season (especially big races) with few, if any, conflicts of dates or locations.
• Make sure high-status races actually deliver what they promise.
• Make slalomskateboarder.com less forum-based and more inviting and informative to potential riders, racers and sponsors.

Here is some of what we've done so far to address those problems and to encourage interest in slalom racing around the world:

• Established two new teams of status marshals: Petr Janousek, Ricardo Damborenea and Peter Pletanek in Europe, and Jonathan Harms, Lynn Kramer and Steve Pederson in North America. In Brazil, the Brazilian Skateboarding Association is working in close contact with us. Bruno "Brown" Leonardo will be the Brazilian status marshal. We also hope to establish one or more status marshals for Australia as well. Both Brazil and Australia have many dedicated racers, and they deserve to have their races and results recognized by the ISSA.

For the last month or so, these status marshals have all been very busy. They have been contacting potential race organizers, sending them the ISSA status application form and encouraging them to apply for ISSA status for their races. Beyond that, they will be maintaining regular contact with these organizers to help them plan and promote their races, as well as planning the season as a whole so races don’t conflict with each other.

In Europe the status marshals have also recruited national coordinators to manage the events on a local level. Some countries have up to 10 events in a year, and they need local management and authority to assign event status among those events.

The point of the status marshals' efforts is to set up the framework for a successful and exciting season of races in as many locations as possible.

• Contacted numerous slalom-related manufacturers and vendors and made arrangements for them to purchase banner ads on slalomskateboarder.com. Several manufacturers have already agreed, with others likely to join in.

The money from the ads will help fund other ISSA activities, which include:

- Working with Stefan “Lillis” Akesson to redesign slalomskateboarder.com
- Hiring a PHP programmer to update the forums to the latest version of phpBB software, which will allow us to introduce new features and make the forums easier to use.
- Updating the ranking site and the software needed to run the ranking which includes various administrative tools (calendar tool, status tool, news tool, etc.).

Although no changes are visible yet, visitors to the site will begin to notice them as they are gradually implemented.

The money from these banner ads will also help us to substantially reduce, and hopefully eliminate, any individual membership fees. (More details about that will be made available soon.)

• Finalized the 2010 world rankings, and began preparing to streamline and improve the world ranking process. The 2010 world ranking has been finalized. For 2011, as in past years, racers will still be ranked as Pro or Amateur in the world ranking, but it will be up to race organizers to choose whether to run their races as Pro/Am or Open (no separate Pro and Am divisions). For the major events, i.e. European and World Championships, we recommend running separate Pro and Am divisions, unless attendance does not allow for it. The ranking system can handle either method, so racers can be assured their rankings will be reliable and accurate.

We realize these actions are only a start, and there is still much to be done. But we hope people will see that all of these actions are part of a larger plan, which is to promote the growth of slalom racing worldwide.

We will announce further progress as we continue to work toward our goals. We encourage anyone and everyone to contact us or post in the forums – and of course, to get out there and skate!

OK, it’s 2011, and it’s the start of a new year for slalom skateboard racing. The 2011 ISSA Board of Directors has been busy discussing how the ISSA can help organize and promote slalom racing around the world.

Held our first regular BOD meeting

The 2011 BOD held a conference call on Saturday, January 8, 2011, to discuss and decide several major goals for the year.

Here’s what we’ve done so far:


Elected officers

President: Jani Soderhall (FRA)
Vice President: Petr Janousek (CZE)
Secretary: Flavio Badenes
Treasurer: Jonathan Harms (USA)


Finalized the 2010 world ranking

The 2010 world rankings have been completed and published on slalomranking.com. The 2010 BOD worked hard to set up a new system of race statuses and ranking points but was unable to publish a full world ranking before the end of the year. So a team of volunteers worked diligently during the last few weeks of 2010 to gather and submit all known race results to Hans “Corky” Koraeus so they could be entered into the same ranking system that has been used in the past.

We know that some might consider this a less than ideal solution, as there was no perfect way to match the 2010 BOD’s statuses with those of the previously existing system. But we feel confident that the rankings on slalomranking.com give a fair and accurate account of the results of races (and racers) for 2010, and we thank all of those who volunteered their time and energy to help complete the ranking.

We also thank the 2010 BOD for their hard work, their dedication and their willingness to try something new. We believe the events of 2010 will serve as a valuable guide for what we plan to do in 2011. One of the 2011 BOD’s highest priorities will be to ensure that race results are submitted quickly and the ranking is updated and published regularly.


Acknowledged that there's more to do

We realize the above actions are just a start, and there is much more to do. We also discussed further actions to be taken, and scheduled our next meeting to decide on them. We will post regular announcements and updates on the front page and/or the forums as we act on and implement these items.