PUBLISHER USA Synchro


EDITOR Jordan A. Dillon USA SYNCHRO BOARD OF DIRECTORS


President Duke Zielinski Secretary Eugenia Gillan


Treasurer Nancy Rosengard VP Marketing & Member Services


Traci Lunsford


VP Education & Certification Shannon Korpela


VP Competitive Operations Toby Smith AEC President Kim Probst


USOC Athlete’s Advisory Council Representative Sara Lowe


Athlete Representative Anna Eng


REPRESENTATIVES TO OTHER ORGANIZATIONS


FINA Representative Virginia Jasontek ASUA Representatives


Barbara McNamee, Charlotte Davis


USOC Representative Duke Zielinski ZONE REPRESENTATIVES


North Myrna Hagedorn South Cheryl Cook


East Laura Ehrenreich West Patricia Jones


USA SYNCHRO NATIONAL OFFICE STAFF


Executive Director Terry Harper National Team Director


Sandra Mahoney


Business Development Director Jordan Dillon


Education Director Kevin Warner


Finance Manager Jennifer Hawkins Membership Manager


Elizabeth Simonson Administrative Assistant


Janice Sherman


LAYOUT & DESIGN Quad Graphics


Copyright 2011 United States Synchronized Swimming, Inc. Produced in the USA


Letters


Dear Members,


One of the core functions


of a National Governing Body (“NGB”) of any Olympic sport is to establish high quality national for


championship events its members. For many years


we have conducted six championships each year, and our leadership, volunteers, and members have continued to debate whether we have the correct competition format, dates, and concepts


for our events. The economic and cultural changes that our country has experienced in the last few years have affected how our members can participate in these events, and we are finding that we must adapt these events to continue to make them attractive to both participants and hosts. For example, for 2012, we will combine our Junior and U.S. National


Championships. Each of these events is intended to draw the best athletes in the country, but we have seen participation wane, and our Board of Directors realized that we need to reformat. The exact format remains to be decided, since we want to provide a quality experience to all athletes. A survey to explore ideas is underway. Mesa, Arizona, will host to the combined 2012 event, and we know that they will do an excellent job. Now we must look at our other events and decide whether they, as well, need modification. A working party is looking at each of the others, and this will be an exciting topic of discussion at September’s USAS Aquatics Convention. On another front, beginning with this issue of our magazine, you will see two


exciting changes. The first is that it is digitized. About three months ago, we met with Quad Graphics, a company that specializes in print and electronic media, to discuss the concept of a digitized version of our magazine. Some other NGBs had had great success with Shawn Pye and his team at Quad Graphics, and they convinced us to let them show what their technology can do. One of our staff visited Quad’s facility in Milwaukee, WI and came away quite impressed. They offered to design a new, more modern, layout of the magazine, and sent us sample pages. At our recent Executive Directors’ Conference, they showed the assembled NGB Executive Directors the “before” and “after” designs, and received rave reviews on how clean and crisp the new designs were. Next, they suggested that we consider modernizing the name of our magazine, which, for many years, had been the same. After thoughtful consideration, our Board of Directors decided to change the name to “Synchro” to align more with our new brand and this issue is the first under the new name. A lot of thought went into these changes, and we truly hope that you, our members, like the new direction. And, while you’re at it, try looking at some of the digitized content that wasn’t available before, and offer your suggestions for how we can make the next issue even better.


Terry Harper, Executive Director, USA Synchro


JULY 2011 USASYNCHRO.ORG 5


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