Membership Required
By Al Myers
The biggest financial support of the USAWA comes from individual memberships in the USAWA. Membership fees are critical for our organization to survive. All membership fees go into the USAWA bank account – there’s no money siphoned off for administrative fees. In turn, all of the money the USAWA spends goes back to the membership in one form or another. We operate on a “bare bones” budget. It’s so bare there’s no areas anywhere where cuts could be made without taking away services the USAWA offers to the membership.
Today I want to emphasize how important it is for meet directors to ensure that the lifters in their USAWA meets join the USAWA. The following rule is part of the USAWA Rulebook.
VIII. The Competition
11. The Meet Director is responsible for verifying that all competitors are current USAWA members, and must submit new member applications along with the membership dues to the USAWA secretary immediately after an event. Failure to do so may result in loss of meet sanction following a competition or event.
It should be an obvious assumption that you must be a current member of the USAWA in order to receive the benefits of an USAWA sanctioned event. And a member THE DAY OF the competition – not the next day or the next month or the next year. Current means RIGHT NOW. I will leave lifters off meet results if they entered a competition and are not a member of the USAWA the day of the meet. I’ve heard a meet director complain that his lifters didn’t get listed because of a technicality. Well, not being a current member the day of the meet is NOT A TECHNICALITY. That’s a rule violation. A technicality would be forgetting to sign your membership application, or forgetting to list your zip code on your membership application. I have never disqualified someone for those things. In those instances I notify the lifter in question to redo their application so it’s right (assuming the payment is good!!!).
As stated in the rules it’s the meet directors responsibility to make sure everyone is a member. Most lifters register before they enter a competition, but if not a meet director should collect membership applications and dues the day of the meet. Now it’s super easy to confirm membership status (membership roster is always up to date on this website). Then come Monday morning after a weekend event mail the applications and dues to me. I know the mail can be slow at times, but by the end of the week I should have everything “in hand”. I give a 1 week “in the mail” buffer, but after that time it’s obvious to me that it was not taken care of when it should have been. Then it’s too late. And not my problem.
Now if a meet director wants to let someone enter a USAWA meet they’re promoting who is not a member that’s their business, but DON’T include this lifter in the meet results you send to me because then it becomes mine and the USAWA’s business. Just leave the lifter out of the results.
Enough said.