"Boastings & Railings" is a summary of activity in the U.S. SQUASH office. It is intended to provide you an inside look at the ups and downs in the office, as well as an attempt to keep all of you up to date on what the office staff of 6 is spending its time on in relation to supporting the sport.
It is not intended to be a comprehensive report on our initiatives but a first step towards increasing people's awareness of our work and initiatives. In addition, your feedback is critical - in reviewing this content, please contact me with your input and suggestions on how we can do better.
Thank you for taking the time to read this email, and more importantly, for what you do to support squash.
BOASTINGS
Membership: Now exceeds 13,000 which is officially the highest it has ever been in the Association’s history. To read “Taking a Look Back” which summarizes where the Association has been in the last 5 years, and appeared in the January 2010 issue of Squash Magazine, click here.
2009 U.S. Junior Open, 12/19-12/22: Hosted 440 players from 20 countries, highest participation since 2005, with no major incident! An accomplishment since it's a large event, and a challenging one logistically in Hartford, CT - in part due to an outstanding, but distant, second venue and transportation needs for the nearly 200 international players.
Scholastic Squash: We announced 25% growth this season in sanctioned high school squash leagues, 1 of our 5 major U.S. SQUASH initiatives. To read more, click here. It is likely we will sanction our first two middle school leagues this year as well - Baltimore and Dayton, Ohio.
U.S. Middle School Championships, 1/29-1/31: 33 teams (up from 26 in 2009) competed in three divisions at this National Championships held at Yale. The event appears to be maturing from a competitive point of view, with competition intensifying as the weekend progressed.
U.S. High School Championships, 2/5-2/7: This event is central to our future growth – with attendance up 25% to 125 teams and 1,000 players, it is now the largest squash tournament in the WORLD. We believe we will be able to double participation within 3 years, and have determined we have the capacity to do so. Feedback from the event was nearly universally positive, for the high level story and results, click here.
Junior Championship Tour: Princeton hosted its first sanctioned junior tournament since 2006 this January. The JCT was registered to capacity at around 250 players. This is the third in the series of five JCTs this season.
Adult Regionals: The Regional Championship Series kicked off with the Grand Open in NYC held in conjunction with the Tournament of Champions at Grand Central Terminal. This event, and the other 5 across the country, offers free entry for the winner and finalist for each division into the U.S. SQUASH Skill Level Championships in April.
NAO/HGO, 1/19-1/24: The North American Open (ISDA) and Harrow Greenwich Open (WISPA) is an event we partner with the three Greenwich clubs to promote. It paid out $80K in prize money to the men and women. Proceeds from the unique tri-club event now benefits a U.S. SQUASH/NAOHGO Scholarship Fund for urban squash players.
2010 U.S. Open: We finalized the licensing agreement for the title. To see the great progress the organizers have made already for the event, visit their site. Plans for 2011 and beyond will be discussed in the next Board meeting.
Regional/National Training Center: Three more schools have responded to our proposal to partner with "maybe's" from coaches. In addition, a major center planned in Virginia called SportsQuest is also interested in being a Regional Training Center. If built, the center would have 9 singles and 2 hardball doubles courts, with potential for arena seating for one all-glass court.
Customer Survey: Our mid-year survey yielded some interesting results - 564 members responded to the survey in 2.5 days, 5.5x more than responded to the last one in April 2008. This statistic alone I think is a positive sign; people are more engaged. The results included:66% of members agreed or strongly agreed with this statement (another 21% were neutral):"I think U.S. SQUASH (USSRA) is going in the right direction in supporting squash in the U.S." This number was52% for lapsed members, and 60% for non-members (never have been a member).55% of members agreed or strongly agreed with this statement (another 27% were neutral):"I am satisfied with U.S. SQUASH (USSRA) as an organization in delivering value to members and the squash community." This number was 49% for lapsed members, and 52% for non-members.57% of members are satisfied or very satisfied with Tournament & League management services, up 2% from last time. Another 24% were neutral. 42% of members are satisfied or very satisfied with Software Tools and Support, up 7% from last time. Another 30% were neutral. Interestingly, 77% are satisfied or very satisfied with Squash Magazine, another 13% are neutral - so overall 90% neutral to positive on the magazine.
Finance Committee: Met last week to review the financials from the first half of the year. We are generally on track with the budget, excluding the U.S. Open loss, though we have miles to go still in membership and fundraising. The committee also approved for recommendation to the Board additional internal control policies. The 2009 Form 990 is expected to be completed and filed by the February 15th deadline. All 2009 1099’s and W2’s were completed in the required timeframe.
Nominating Committee: Has made solid progress in narrowing a list of potential candidates for the current casual vacany and the upcoming vacancy in July. The information “About the Association” on our site has also been updated.
Investment Committee: Had their quarterly meeting in January. Endowments are at or above corpus and the Committee will await a recommendation from the Finance Committee and Board on whether to resume distributions.
Technology Committee: Met in January to discuss the plans to develop league module specifications for next season, and general updates on PLAY SQUASH. The doubles league software module was completed and is being tested.
Team Tournament Technology: Coinciding with the High School Nationals, we rolled out the Team Tournamentmodule, which provides a wealth of information in . Though it is only our first version, it already is quite solid.
Website: Our site exceeded 1 million hits (1.133M) in a single month (January) for the first time ever. Page views were up 45% in January compared to year prior.
Operations: Our new VoIP phone system was installed in January. The system provides a variety of benefits including unlimited voicemail capacity, email notifications, direct dial numbers for everyone, dial by name directory, extensive conferencing ability, 4-digit extensions for transfers for all employees (even Mike on west coast), simultaneous ring (work and cell, etc). I expect the system to diminish complaints regarding our accessibility and responsiveness and increase our efficiency.
USOC: Selected a new CEO, Scott Blackmun who seems like a solid choice. In case you missed it, here’s a link to an article announcing the hire. A piece in the New York Times indicated he played squash for about 15 years before his hips gave out.
RAILINGS
Event Promotion: We fell behind in our marketing plans for the Adult Regionals, and are behind in promoting the Adult US Championships. In addition to basic implementation, this will be a focus in the coming month. Pennsylvania Regions (adults) only attracted 40 players, clearly a marketing failure on our part.
USOC Funding: Anticipated for some time, funding for Pan-American Only (PAO) sports will not occur in 2010. We received $20K in 2009, down from $40K in 2007 and 2008. In 2006 we received no funding as the PAO sports had again been cut out. We had received $100K annually for 7 or 8 years prior. Support for PAO sports is part of the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act of Congress, so it continues to be an active debate and was discussed in the monthly Association for Chief Executives of Sport (ACES) call in December. PAO sports (squash included) are trying to get the full support of all other NGB CEO's to appeal the decision made by the USOC.
USOC Grant: Our application for 2010 funding of international travel for WSF conferences was also declined. While I didn’t necessarily expect it to be approved, it’s a disappointment nonetheless.
Upcoming U.S. SQUASH events include:
Junior Championship Tour - West 2/13/10-2/15/10
U.S. Hardball Squash Championships 2/19/10-2/21/10
Junior Championship Tour at Penn 2/19/10-2/21/10
U.S. Century Doubles Squash Championships 2/26/10-2/28/10
U.S. Junior Squash Championships (Closed) 3/5/10-3/7/10
U.S. Masters Squash Championships 3/13/10-3/15/10
U.S. Doubles Squash Championships 3/26/10-3/28/10
U.S. Junior Silver Squash Championships 4/9/10-4/11/10
U.S. Under 23 Squash Championships 4/9/10-4/11/10
U.S. Mixed Doubles Squash Championships 4/9/10-4/11/10
U.S. Father-Son Squash Championships 4/16/10-4/18/10
U.S. SQUASH Championships (Skill Level) 4/16/10-4/18/10
U.S. Junior Bronze Squash Championships 4/23/10-4/25/10
National Intercollegiate Doubles Championships 4/23/10-4/25/10
U.S. Junior Doubles Squash Championships 4/30/10-5/2/10
National Under 25 Doubles Championships 4/30/10-5/2/10
U.S. Sibling Doubles Squash Championships 5/14/10-5/16/10
National Parent-Child Doubles Championships 5/14/10-5/16/10
Kevin Klipstein
CEO, U.S. SQUASH
555 Eighth Avenue, Suite 1102
New York, NY 10018-4311
p 212.268.4090
f 212.268.4091
http://www.ussquash.com
kevin.klipstein@ussquash.com
