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president’s message Er ic Jord a n
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reetings Eastern members, I hope this message finds you well. It will not be long until we are enjoying some early season turns! I certainly look forward to interacting with everyone throughout the upcoming season. As you may have heard or read in the recent summer SnowPro, we have some very exciting initiatives on tap for this season that is the direct result of important feedback you have been giving to us via our annual spring Eastern Division Membership Survey. Our brand new Push for Public Awareness Campaign (PPA) is now in full swing and you are sure to see our advertisements in a variety of publications this season including Ski the East and the New England Ski Journal among others. These ads are placed on your behalf in order to increase the skiing and riding public’s awareness of our organization and more importantly YOU – the individual member. The ads promote the public to “look for the pin” that signifies they are receiving a lesson from a certified pro! The PPA campaign is a cooperative campaign that has dedicated funding of $15,000 from your Board of Directors within our operating budget. In addition, you also have you the opportunity to make a tax free donation to this initiative in order to further our outreach to the public. 100% of every dollar that you donate to the PPA campaign will go toward the promotion of PSIA-AASI Eastern Division and its members to the skiing and riding public. If you feel like this is a great initiative, I would encourage you to make a donation since the more funds we have available, the more ads we can place! You can also earn anywhere from $25 to $100 in “ed bucks” to use toward event registration fees when you donate. I believe this type of outreach program is long overdue and I thank Walter Jaeger and the Membership Promotions Committee for pushing this to the front burner for us and getting it rolling last spring. Over the next few seasons I think we can make some real headway in building public awareness of who we are, what we do and why it is so important in helping them to enjoy snowsports and the overall mountain experience. As you know, there are also a number of important issues currently under consideration on the PSIA-AASI National front. Hopefully you all completed the recent National survey to express your opinions and priority needs. I will be traveling to Colorado in early October to attend a President’s Council meeting. This meeting will be held in conjunction with the PSIA-AASI National Board of Directors meeting so I will also have the chance to sit in on parts of that meeting as well. The President’s Council meeting will be extremely valuable since the volunteer leaders of all nine divisions will spend the weekend together discussing a variety of topics as well as providing input and guidance to the National Board of Directors regarding some of their agenda items such as the proposal to raise the national membership dues as much as $8 in 2015-16. Rest assured, I will represent the feedback that all of you have provided me in order to make sure our voices are heard by all the stakeholders across the country. Sticking to the National theme, I am happy to announce that the Ed Younglove, Chairman of the Board at PSIA-AASI National, will be attending our Eastern Board meeting on the weekend of October 17 – 19 in Troy, NY. Ed is in his first term as Chairman and he has been a pleasure to work with to date. We have developed a strong working relationship over the past few months. I can assure you that Ed highly values the Eastern division and all of its members. Ed’s visit is sure to pay dividends on many fronts and strengthen the relationship between National and the Eastern Division. We will be discussing a variety of topics over the three days but I would encourage you to reach out to me if you have any feedback that you would like me to provide to Ed on your behalf. That’s it for now. As always, please feel free to contact me or your regional board representative if you have any suggestions, thoughts or concerns. I can be reached at president@psia-e.org. Happy sliding, Eric<<
Thank you to “Push” program donors! Thanks so much to our first round of member donors to the new Push for Public Awareness campaign. . . Gold Medal Contributors ($500):
Karen Anne Riley Bronze Medal Contributors ($100):
Ole Retlev Keith Miller Al Pires Ralph Eberhardt Ron Kubicki Ross Boisvert Campaign Contributors ($25 - $99):
Rocky Freeman Dick Paret Alexandra Bohling Bob Tripi Thank you all for your support in helping us get our promotional messages out to more of the skiing and riding public this coming season!