ISSA Newsletter - February 2012

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ISSA Board of Directors
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ISSA Newsletter - February 2012

Post by ISSA Board of Directors » Sat Feb 18, 2012 3:57 pm

Dear friends in the slalom skateboarding community,

A new year has just begun and with that a new BOD of directors for the ISSA; partly the same as last year, partly renewed. We've already had 3 Skype calls to get the new group going and we're all looking forward to our collaboration in the year to come.

As the president of the ISSA, I would like to express my thanks to Peter Klang who served on the BOD 2010 and 2011. I'd also extend a special thanks to Jonathan Harms and Petr Janousek who both offered their positions for relection and both volunteered to serve another period if elected, and yes they were. Jonathan Harms now has the double position of Treasurer and Vice President. New on the BOD this year is Corky Koraeus, who needs no introduction after having served the ISSA for 10 years already handling the ISSA World Ranking. Having him on the "inside" will help us assure that the ranking evolves in a way consistent with Corky's original ideas and with the community's ideas and needs. Ricardo Damborenea also joined the BOD from new year and is now the secretary of ISSA. Last year he served as one of the European Status Marshals, a position he still maintains. Ricardo was Spain's first national champion back in 1979 and has been instrumental in getting slalom organized in Spain in the last three years.

One of the priorities of this years BOD is to communicate better with the skate community to share our thoughts on current matters with you all. The lack of communication last year actually led to some of the decisions of the BOD fading into nothing. We don't want that to happen again this year. Last year we made efforts to improve the website to have a front page that is more easily updated, both on SlalomSkateboarder.com and SlalomRanking.com. News topics on both sites are now handled as posts within the forum and any of the BOD members can easily write, publish and edit content published on the front pages of the two sites we maintain. However, articles don't just jump in there because the capability is there, it still takes effort to assemble information and compose it for the site. If you are in charge of an event we encourage you to supply results, photos and even brief articles quickly after the event.


ISSA World Ranking 2011 - final
The final ISSA World Ranking for 2011 has been calculated and the results recently announced. Joe McLaren, Janis Kuzmins, Viking Hadestrand and Dominik Kowalski deserves our respect along with other exceptional skaters like Lynn Kramer, Lienite Skaraine and all others making consistent good results this season and in the last few years.

Here's a few interesting statistics from the ranking data base 2011:
- The database now contains 2951 racers, and of those 932 were active in 2011 participating in at least one of the races. It's the most ever! The average is 693 per year.

- We have a total of 518 events and in 2011 alone we recorded 88 events. The average is 58 per year.

- We now have 29830 individual results in the ranking database, and of those 4969 were added in 2011. The average is 3314 per year.

In all the above categories 2011 represented the most active year in the history of the ranking. Partly it is thanks to the national coordinators and status marshals assisting in the reporting of the events, but it's also thanks to more local races and race series being held brining new slalomers onboard. Many thanks to all organizers for making this happen!

2012 will be the 10 year jubilee of the ranking since it's revival in 2003. On behalf of the entire slalom community I would like to thank Corky for his exceptional efforts in creating and maintaining the ISSA World Ranking. It is one of the corner stones of the ISSA and it is a source of inspiration for many riders adding extra value for every participant after the actual race is over.


World Championships 2012
We're late announcing the location for the ISSA World Championships in 2012. After last years Worlds in Ottawa (CAN) on the North American continent, the tradition says it should be held in Europe this year. However, we've had difficulties identifying a suitable organizer and location for this the most important event of the year.

It is worth stating here that the ISSA does not organize events themselves, we coordinate events, event collection and help spread info before and after the events. We are dependent upon local organizers and their volunteers taking on the work of making races happen.

We now have a candidate for the Worlds busy working behind the scenes, and we hope to be able to make the announcement very soon. Stay tuned!


Sponsors 2012
In 2011 a number of partners offered their support the ISSA in the form of banner sponsorship. The Board of Directors would like to thank the following companies for their confidence in 2011: Seismic, Pavel, Fullbag, Sk8kings, Radikal and Longboards by Fatboy. We're now making a call for 2012 sponsors. If you have products of interest to the slalom community and would like to sponsor the ISSA please contact Fatboy.


Monthly sponsors 2012
As every year individuals can sponsor the site for a month. This revenue primarily helps pay for the hosting costs of the site and the surplus is put in to the general budget of the ISSA.
The monthly sponsorship of 25 USD gives you the footer space, of every single page display, for a month. We need one more sponsor in 2012 - for November. Anyone?


Voting membership 2012
If you want to support the ISSA and become a voting member, it's USD 15. Pay through paypal using the button on the front page, or just fire off 15 bucks to issa@slalomskateboarder.com. Thank you.


The race season still seems far away but already a few smaller events have taken place and many bigger are in the planning and preparation phase. Looking forward to the spring! Let's hope for a good season '12. Tomorrow I'll go and race in the Paris Pirate race #4 - Cyber Slalom. If you don't have a race next to where you live this weekend, just go out and skate! Better be ready for when the season really gets going!


Jani Söderhäll, ISSA President 2011-2012

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