Final thoughts and reflections on attending the Governing Council - by Dirk Vanderlaan

This was my first time at one of these, and a chance to reflect on it.

First of all, skating became a larger entity over this past weekend.  It used to be choosing a rink to skate at and work on three turns.  Now I see a much larger picture of our sport - various committees, hundreds of volunteers, judges/accountants/referees - all passionate about skating.

It made me want to be a better skater for one thing - as there are a lot of people rooting us on - working hard so we fortunate ones can continue to enjoy skating or to compete in or showcase skating.

I was surprised how many people knew each other.  We have our own third of the country - the pacific section, with a lot of clubs in that section.  In our area, there 10 clubs!  We are fortunate in that respect.

St Moritz is the 5th largest club in the Country with over 570 members.  Only Washington, Boston Chicago and New York are larger, and we are close to overtaking Chicago!

We are well represented in US Figure Skating with our Club.  Katie, Jean, Justin, Lisa, Sue and Philip are committee chairs or fill key positions with USFS.  Kudos to them.

We did see some of the star or "elite"  athletes during the sessions.  They attended and asked questions just as we did.

The venue was nice.  The hotel was close to the airport with shuttles running frequently, adequate eating facilities and places to rest and sit, though there was not much time for that until Saturday night.

Pat St Peters was well liked.  Every committee had kind things to say about her and her help.  She will be a hard act to follow!

I understand there is a shortage of judges!  Lets start getting some judging training going.

Thanks for the opportunity to go, represent our club and to learn more about how we fit into the bigger picture.  I hope the blogs made sense, and I hope to use some of what I learned to help our club be even better - and I encourage you to pitch in and make our club even better.  People are passionate about skating.  Lets keep that passion burning.

If you have questions please feel free to ask me or email me at dcvdlaan@aol.com

Thanks