USAWA

by Al Myers, USAWA Secretary

The 2010 Annual National Meeting of the USAWA was called to order by President Denny Habecker following the first day of competition on Saturday afternoon. Roll call was done by Secretary Al Myers with these members in attendance: Denny Habecker, Al Myers, Judy Habecker, Randy Smith, Kohl Hess, Art Montini, Chad Ullom, Scott Schmidt, Dale Friesz, Barry Bryan, Frank Ciavattone Jr., Frank Ciavattone III, and Dennis Mitchell.  The reading of the previous meetings minutes was done by Secretary Al Myers.  The financial report was next given by Treasurer Al Myers. The report from the Official’s Chairman Joe Garcia and Records Chairman Joe Garcia was not available to be provided to the membership, so no report was given. The Website Director Al Myers gave a report on the development of the new website and how it will be beneficial to the USAWA in the future.  Next agenda item was the discussion and vote on the new proposed bylaws developed  by the ad hoc committee of Al Myers, Joe Garcia, and Tim Piper. The committee had previously provided these bylaws to the membership for review, so the membership was aware of the contents before the meeting.  After a brief discussion, Chad Ullom moved to accept them, Dale Friesz provide the second, and the acceptance of the new bylaws  passed by an unanimous vote. Next item brought to the meeting floor was a discussion of the minimum age of officials.  No minimum age is specified in the USAWA Rule Book.  After much discussion, the membership agreed that the age of 16 should be this minimum age.  Denny Habecker moved, Dale provided a second, and the motion passed unanimously.  Dale Friesz brought up the discussion of the USAWA providing a Handicap Division, to provide a division for those to compete in that have a disability.  Most everyone in attendance agreed this was a good idea, but disagreements arose in how we as an organization would assess disabilities.  Denny moved that this be looked into by the Executive Board, and a Handicap Division be implemented by the Executive Board when the board is in unanimous agreement on the specifics. Frank Ciavattone III gave a second, and the motion passed by unanimous vote. The Hall of Fame committee that was formed at last year’s meeting  of Denny Habecker, Dale Friesz, and Dennis Mitchell gave their report next.  The committee proposed that induction occur when an athlete achieves 10 National Championships.  Also, in this was the development of a “contributor” Hall of Fame.  Discussion against this proposal included the argument that it doesn’t reward individuals that contribute to the USAWA in other ways besides just competing.  Those in favor stressed that this proposal would be very simple to keep track of lifter’s progress toward the Hall of Fame, without having to keep track of points. Al Myers moved that the Executive re-evaluate the point system, make some modifications with it, and when every member of the Executive Board is in agreement, it be implemented immediately. Chad Ullom put forth the second, and the motion passed unanimously.  At this point, Dale Friesz nominated Scott Schmidt for the Hall of Fame as he had already met the previous criteria to be in the Hall of Fame. Chad Ullom seconded the motion, and it passed by unanimous decision.  It was agreed that the ceremonial  induction of Scott Schmidt into the USAWA Hall of Fame will occur in November at the Gold Cup.  The next agenda item was the approval of 5 new lifts that have been proposed which were: the chin up, the pull up, the foot press, the turkish get-up, and the bent-over row.  After a short discussion, a vote was taken and these lifts were passed by unanimous vote. Next up was the approval of the Rulebook changes. Al Myers presented a list of proposed changes, most of which were small technical issues involving rules of the lifts that were omitted in the current Rulebook.  Everyone was in agreement on these.  The only significant issue included in this was placing an expiration on Level 1 test approved officials in which a 3 year limit will be placed on officials before being required to pass the Rules Test again. Level 2 officials and Level 1 experience approved officials are exempt from this.  Chad Ullom moved to accept these Rulebook changes, Randy Smith seconded the motion, and it passed unanimously. At this point, discussion arose about allowing knee wraps for the front squat and the 12″ base squat.  The argument for this was that knee wraps have already been approved by the membership for these two lifts at the 1997 meeting, but never implemented in the Rulebook.  Scott Schmidt moved that we allow knee wraps for these two lifts and this be put in the Rulebook.  Randy Smith seconded it, and the motion failed by a vote of 7 to 4.  Discussion resumed and it was brought to the membership’s attention that several records in the Record List for these two lifts were done with knee wraps since it was previously approved and it would be impossible now to determine which ones were set with them.  Scott Schmidt again moved that knee wraps be allowed in these two lifts, Chad Ullom provided a second, and the motion passed by a vote of 10 to 2.  The next agenda item was presenting the Special Awards.  Al Myers and Denny Habecker presented the awards. The Award recipients are as follows:  Athlete of the Year – Al Myers, Athlete of the Year Runner Up – Chad Ullom, Leadership Award – Bill Clark, Leadership Award Runner Up – Al Myers, Sportsmanship Award – Denny Habecker, Sportsmanship Award Runner Up – Art Montini, Courage Award – Dale Friesz, Courage Award Runner Up – Frank Ciavattone, Newcomer Award – David Glasgow, Newcomer Award Runner Up – Kohl Hess, Club of the Year – Dino Gym, Club of the Year Runner Up – Ambridge VFW BBC. The next agenda item was the election of two Executive Board members to a one year position.  Al Myers nominated Dennis Mitchell and Chad Ullom nominated Scott Schmidt.  Randy Smith moved that nominations be ceased and the nominees accepted by unanimous ballot.  Randy’s motion created confusion amongst the membership in his use of proper parliamentary procedure and after an uncomfortable period of silence, a second was made by Al Myers.   A vote was then taken and it passed unanimously.  Next up was the appointment of a Drug Enforcement Director for the USAWA.  Al Myers nominated Chad Ullom.  There were no other nominations, and it passed unanimously.  The appointment of an Awards Director for the USAWA was the next agenda item. Chad Ullom nominated Al Myers, and again there were no other nominations. A vote was taken and it passed unanimously.  The last agenda item was accepting bids for next year’s National Championships.  Only one bid was presented, and that bid was from Thom Van Vleck of the JWC.  Al Myers presented the bid on Thom’s behalf  and gave a persuasive speech to the membership on how “great a guy Thom is”.  A vote was taken and the bid was accepted by majority vote, with only one vote against. At this point and 2 1/2 hours later, the membership was beginning to become restless and  more interested in the huge sandwiches that Judy had prepared for us.  Scott Schmidt moved to adjourn the meeting, with Chad Ullom providing a second, and the vote passed unanimously.

by Al Myers

After the chalk settled, and the lifters full from a BBQ of burgers and chicken, the USAWA membership sat down to have the National Meeting, presided over by USAWA President Denny Habecker. Several issues were on the agenda this year that if voted “yes on” could change the direction of the USAWA and the future of the organization. The first item brought up was the review of the bylaws. The USAWA has been working with bylaws that were developed when the organization began in 1987. In this time no changes have ever been made to the bylaws, despite the fact that the USAWA has been operating in a different fashion from what the original bylaws outlined. Much of this was the result of the failure of the USAWA to grow in numbers – and the original bylaws were written with the idea that the USAWA was going to be a large organization and thus would require complex governing bylaws. After a short discussion, a committee was formed to re-write the bylaws. Members of this committee are Tim Piper, Joe Garcia and myself. The next item brought to the floor was the process of Hall of Fame Induction. The previous system was a point system in which an individual must accumulate 1000 points, and upon reaching this number, would automatically be the Hall of Fame. One person was designated to keep track of everyone’s points. This system ceased to work when the individual in charge of it retired and no one took it over, and thus no one has been inducted since 2003. I presented a new Hall of Fame Induction form to the membership based on a nomination process whereas an individual would nominate someone and be the one responsible for figuring the nominees points, taking the pressure off of one individual. No motion was made to accept this new form. Again, a committee was formed to investigate this process and to report to the membership at next years annual meeting. The Hall of Fame committee consists of Denny Habecker, Dennis Mitchell, and Dale Friesz. The next item was a review of the Officials’ Test. Discussion included that the current rules test is too long and is discouraging people from taking it. As of now, only 8 individuals have taken the rules test in the past 3 years. This was countered by discussion pointing out the importance of having an extensive rules test with stringent criteria in order to become a qualified official, much like other sports organizations. Also included in this was reasons why a practical exam should be implemented. No motions were made. Joe Garcia volunteered to be the Officials’ Chairman. The next item was the approval of the new Rule Book. The Rule Book was updated and expanded on this spring, and was reviewed by several people. The approval of the Rule Book passed unanimously. The motion was amended to include a date of August 1st for the new Rule Book to take effect. The reason given for this was to give time so people could be made aware of it that do not have access to a computer. The proposed Rule Book has been available on the website for the past 6 weeks. The next item brought up was a review of the drug testing policy. Much concern was voiced by the membership about the considerable expense the testing program is costing the organization, and that other cheaper testing programs should be looked at. Amongst the discussion was the importance of maintaining an extensive quality testing program, which this program has done, and having outside individuals doing the testing instead of doing the testing in-house. A motion was made by Chad Ullom to continue with our current testing program and it passed by majority vote. The next item discussed was the future of the Strength Journal, which is published by Bill Clark. Bill Clark announced that he was resigning as publisher of the Journal, effective at the end of the year. Discussion included trying to convince Bill to have a change of mind, but it was to no avail. The next agenda item was election of officers. It started with Bill Clark announcing that he was resigning as Secretary/Treasurer after over 20 years in this capacity. A motion was then made by Bill Clark nominating Denny Habecker for President, myself as Secretary/Treasurer and Chad Ullom as Vice President. The motion was seconded by Randy Smith and passed unanimously. Included in this motion was that the new officers would take office at the beginning of 2010 to allow time for transition. The next item was a review of the record keeping process. Discussion included the possibility of having the Record List put on the website. Joe Garcia, the Official Record Keeper expressed concerns over bandwidth and whether this would be possible with the new website. This was discussed and agreed upon that it needed to be looked into further before the Record List would be put on the website. Joe and I agreed that we will work together on getting the Record List on the website. The next item was a review of the website. Discussion amongst the membership included wanting to have a message board, and being able to register online for membership and sanctioning. Next up was a review of club memberships and the discussion of team awards. In the past, club awards have been given out but this ceased when club memberships declined. As of now, the USAWA has 4 registered clubs. The membership agreed that this was not enough clubs to have an club award program. Next item up was a discussion of insurance. As of now, the USAWA does not provide insurance for sanctioned meets, nor has an insurance policy that would allow meet directors to purchase insurance for meets. Meet Directors must find their own insurance, or just go with out. Discussion included having this looked into and what the costs would be to the organization. No motions were made and no committee formed. The next agenda item was a review of the age adjustment, and whether the point correction was fair. This issue was brought up at the IAWA meeting last fall. Dennis Mitchell presented a survey done by the IAWA committee that was formed to study this. The study showed 1 percent was somewhat fair up to the age of 60, but after the age of 60 performance decrease was more rapid than 1 percent. Concerns were expressed by the membership that increasing the age adjustment for lifters over 60 may deter new young lifters from joining the USAWA. The majority of the membership felt that no change should be made, and this should be the USAWA recommendation to IAWA at the IAWA meeting in October. The next item was an issue brought forward by the Technical Committee concerning whether using the Zercher Lift in the Continental to Belt should continue to be allowed. This issue was brought up at the last IAWA Meeting requesting that the Continental to Belt should be divided into two lifts – the Continental to Belt and the Continental to Belt Anyhow. Discussion among members felt that by the definition of a continental using a Zercher Lift to get the bar to the belt is within the description of a continental, and there would be no point in separating them. This was also the recommendation of the Technical Committee. Next up was a discussion involving whether we should remain part of the IAWA, or join with the BSAG. Membership voiced overwhelming support of IAWA, and after a very short discussion, no motions were made. The next item was a motion made by Bill Clark naming the Overall Best Lifter Award at Nationals the Monahan Award, in honor and memory of Rex Monahan. It passed unanimously. The last item was asking for bids for the 2010 National Championships. Denny Habecker put in the only bid, and it was accepted unanimously.