Governing Council 2025

Sorry for being late with this afternoon's post, but instead of spending time working on the blog, I had dinner reservations at the Grand Floridian at 6:30 and stayed to watch the Magic Kingdom Fireworks from there. After the fireworks, we took the Shuttle to Disney Springs (which is across from the hotel), and it's possible we did a little shopping.  So, it's now after 11 p.m. and I'm finally getting to work.  The Governing Council was scheduled to start at 1:30, but some technical issues delayed it by about 30 minutes. The hotel has horrible cell reception, so U.S. Figure Skating got a wifi set-up for the meeting, and shared the information with the delegates at the start of the meeting (since we need service to vote electronically). But there was a request with password - please don't use the wifi for streaming.  Amanda Evora Will, interim president, started the meeting and asked the crew to play a video with the highlights from Worlds held last month in Boston. ...

Friday morning always starts with the Caucus Meetings and since the Midwest had to elect their nominating committee member, they had us start 30 minutes before everyone else. We sped through everything quickly and likely didn't need all the time they set aside.  They had us go early because we had 19 candidates for the one nominating committee position. Each individual was allowed to do a two-sentence pitch to the group. Yes, there were a couple of run-on sentences. As we have in the past few years, voting was done electronically. And of course, there were technical issues—not with the voting but with the voters. After volunteer tech support helped the struggling delegates, we got down to voting. Of course, no one had a majority, so we had a run-off with the top two vote-getters. That was Scott Brown and Gretchen Bonnie. The second round ended with Scott Brown being elected as the representative.  Although not on the schedule, we were told to gather in the big meeting at 10:15...

After a less-than-healthy lunch, a bit of time in the Florida sunshine, and a chance to chat with Kathy Drevs, I headed back to the seminar rooms.  But first, I should mention two fun tidbits about the hotel. The big ballroom where we'll be spending the next two days is right next to the pool area. And since the cell service within the hotel is weak, we may have to adjourn to the pool whenever we need to vote on something tomorrow. You know, just so everyone has a decent signal. For the good of the organization.  Second fun or at least amusing element is that there is big cheer competition at Disney this weekend and they are everywhere in the hotel. And while we figure skaters are used to sequins and shiny objects, cheer folks really take it to the extreme. Although our synchro teams can usually match these people with hair and (sound) volume.  Okay - back to the seminars (unless I get distracted again ... no guarantees). The rooms were freezing and I was very glad that I...

The great part about having Governing Council in person is the ability to have seminars before the big meeting starts. The sessions offer an opportunity to learn about new ideas being presented at the meeting or those in development. Here are the three sessions that I attended in the morning: Figure Skating Manager (FSM) This is the software that the ISU is now using for competition scoring. U.S. Figure Skating is not yet using FSM for our competitions because it is designed for international competitions and not capable of working with all the various categories of events that are held at local non-qualifying competitions. (What?! FSM doesn't have the ability to handle Showcase Inflatables?)  In order for USFS to use FSM for our 500+ competitions, Swiss Timing will need to do a whole bunch of modifications and discussions for these modifications will be happening this spring and summer. Additionally, an API will need to be built for EMS and FSM to communicate and work with each ot...