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news and commentary
PRESIDENT’S UPDATE
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Future Operator Growth Explodes, New Mentorship Program to Begin
hen I was elected as President of the Roller Skating Association, I gave our Executive Director a list of things I would like to accomplish while President. With the help of the Board of Directors and the National Office Staff, we have accomplished most of the tasks I wanted to achieve, including: • Continuing to help our rinks that were still closed or limited in their capacity to re-open. We have continued to help members with the Employee Retention Tax Credit, promotions to help drive in customers, and our weekly town hall meetings that provide members with ideas to improve their businesses. If you’re a member and you’re not taking the time to participate in or watch our recorded weekly town halls, I highly recommend that you take the time every week to do so. Our members who participate are reporting record numbers and the information they learn during the town hall meetings have been invaluable to their growth. • Acquiring new members. While we lost over 30 members due to the pandemic, we continue to grow as an association. Currently, we have well over 50 future operators who are excited to try to open a skating center! We are currently working on a program that will connect rink operators close to retirement with future operators to slow down the attrition of rinks that may be sold as non-rinks. This new mentoring program will pair retired rink operators with future operators in the hope that they will be able to help them to realize their dream. • Completing the formation and implementation of a competitive art program within the American Roller Sports organization. With the help of many volunteers and considerable hard work, we have accomplished what some said would take years in just a few months. This year, we are hosting the 6
Volume 30 - Issue 3 - March/April 2022
Artistic American Championships in Colorado Springs. In addition, I am thrilled that they were also able to accomplish the development and implementation of STYLE Skating into the art program. Once again, many volunteers and a lot of work went into developing this program. This year, we are excited that this discipline will be showcased at the American Championships. At the RSA’s annual convention, Jim McMahon will vote to re-elect Billy Thompson and me to once again serve as your President and Vice President. I am grateful that I will have another term to finish the few things that I still want to accomplish during my second two years of presidency. We are nearly complete in finalizing our Pepsi contract, and are currently negotiating an agreement with the newest music licensing organization, Global Music, to ensure that we are getting the best rates for our members. Looking forward, we have a lot of exciting things in the pipeline, including the 2022 Sk8Expo that will, for the first time, be held in Las Vegas, NV in a brand-new property on the Vegas strip. If that is not exciting enough, we will also be hosting our five year strategic planning session. For the first time ever, this session will be open to all members during the first day of Sk8Expo. I want to make sure that all members have a voice in the direction of the industry. This unique opportunity will allow you to voice your thoughts on where you would like to see the Roller Skating Association in the next five years. I am also incredibly excited to share information in this issue of Rinksider Magazine about our new Mentorship Cruise on January 7 – 15, 2023. Details about the event are in this issue of Rinksider and on the RSA website under events. This invitation goes out to any member who wishes to attend, but it is also for the purpose of our future operators and retired or experienced rink owners and operators who want to help those who want to get their own roller skating centers up and running. We want our future operators to be successful, and it is my hope that this new mentorship program will help
expand the number of rink owners throughout the country. I want to take a moment to thank all the RSA Committee chairpersons and committee members for their hard work in accomplishing their duties for our Association. You are the backbone the RSA and your hard work does not go unnoticed. A huge thank you to my wife, Debbie, for being able to handle me being away a lot working for our members. Debbie works countless hours as the chair of the Achievement Program Committee to make the program entertaining, easy to understand and functional for our members. I would also like to thank my sister, Beth, who picks up the slack when I’m not available. Your support is invaluable to me. I want to thank our esteemed Vice President, Mr. Billy Thompson. His friendship, advice, opinions, and business acumen have been extremely helpful to me in guiding this Association forward. Thank you to our "mighty four" of the RSA Staff ‑ Lynette, Angela, Sharon, and Tonya, you all work amazing as a team. The fact that you accomplish the volume that you do is nothing short of incredible, and I thank you for all of your hard work. To our Executive Director, Jim McMahon, thank you for your dedication to our Association and industry. You make being the President a pleasure and I value your advice and ability to carry out my vision for our Association. Most of all, I value your friendship, which has developed over the past six years. To our readers of Rinksider and the members of this Association, I hope that you can learn some new things in this issue of our publication. Our editor, Lynette, puts a lot of energy into creating our publications on a weekly and monthly basis, and I hope you can garner some new ideas with each one. If there’s anything you would like to see more of in our Association, please feel free to contact me at any time. Thank you for re-electing me as your RSA President for the next two years.
Cort Wahlig RSA President
