official's tower

Welcome to the Official's Tower! Thank you for your interest in helping out at tournaments! This is the place to go for information on getting rated as an official and for maintaining and upgrading your official’s ratings. It is also a place where officials can share helpful tools and tips. Please feel free to contact us with questions regarding obtaining, upgrading or reinstating an officials rating, or if you have any suggestions or comments (send to Deb Parsons).

Submit tournament results (zip file) to Laura Johnson no later than two days following your tournament.

News - Winter 2010

Revised release of WSTIMS For Windows.

I am very happy to report that I have an update for WSTIMS For Windows. I have spent the past 3 months working on the many suggestions and issues that were passed on to me from testing thru out the summer. I greatly appreciate everyone who was able to test and provide feedback this past tournament season. I receive many great suggestions and I have been doing my best to find the best way to implement these ideas. I am not done yet with enhancements and with completing the final requirements that will allow for submission to HQ once full testing and validation has been completed.

If you already have the system it will recognize that an upgrade is available. If you want to install the system go to www.awsaeast.com/scoring/publish.htm

A brief summary of the changes included in this version:

• Boat use input form fixed to eliminate requirement to include the Hull ID. Many other usability and performance changes also included.
• Added color coding to skier running order in each event score entry window to indicate the scoring status for each skier. You will now be able to determine at a glance if a skier has been scored and if scoring is complete or has an outstanding issue.
• Official Work Assignment entry form has been enhanced for better usability and performance. One of the usability enhancements is a quick find feature for assigning participant to official assignments.
• Tournament registration functionality has been significantly enhanced for usability and especially for performance. This window performed very poorly and was almost unusable which I believe has now been resolved. Improved functionality has been provided to edit skier information and for adding in new skiers.
• Jump entry form has been enhanced for better usability and performance. A value of OK is now allowed in the time cells and support for selecting ramp heights below 5 feet. Also add a print option to print the current skiers passes
• Trick entry form has been enhanced for better usability and performance. I’ve tried to improve cursor movement and timing for when scores are saved. A better print format for printing the current skiers passes
• Slalom entry form has been enhanced for better usability and performance. This window has had many new features and issues fixed.
• Support has been added for scoring, boat times, and re-ride determination based on skier tournament class.
• Support for entering OK in the time cell and the use of “Q” and “H” in the score cells has been added.
• Better cursor navigation from cell to cell during the pass. After entering a score in the judges cell pressing the “ENTER” key will move the cursor directly to the next score entry cell with the cursor moving to the time cell after the boat judge score. Pressing the “TAB” key will just move the cursor to the next cell.
• Better support for specifying the number of tower judges being used in the tournament. System will default to the minimum requirement based on the on the tournament classification but it is now much simpler to specify 5 judges will be used if desired or 3 judges for a class R when video is in use.
• A popup dialog has been added to enter a reason when a re-ride is requested.
• A print option to print the current skiers passes

A document highlighting the changes included in this release is available at www.awsaeast.com/scoring/WstimsForWindowsFixes_V1_0_0_64.pdf.

As always your comments and suggestions are encouraged and appreciated. Dave Allen

WSTIMS - Release 3.56a as of May 19, 2009

The 2009 release of WSTIMS is now finalized and available for your download and usage. One thing of note, the tournament archive is now a .zip file, not an .lzh file. The archive will be saved to the drive that you have noted in your WSTIMS hardware settings. Please email that entire archive to Laura Johnson. This applies to all AWSA and NCWSA tournaments.

Also, a new addition to the upload process - the seeding representative (Laura) will be notified of missing paperwork in the zip archive and the resultant missing information will be emailed to the tournament organizer and the chief scorer. Missing information includes the officials credit file and it will determine whether or not chief official information has been documented. If you need assistance with properly documenting chief official credit, contact Laura. For all missing tournament paperwork, please submit it via postal mail or email to Traci Baylon at HQ.

There are other updates this year to WSTIMS. Be sure to review the "What's New" material in the User Guide. Download here.

Tournament kits are available online at http://www.usawaterski.org/pages/TournKit/AWSA/tournkit.htm

Important Notice For AWSA Officials

American Water Ski Association officials, drivers, judges and scorers should note – AWSA Rule 9.09(a) outlines a new standard for the communication and input of jump times, newly revised for the 2009 season.
Read all of Important Notice For AWSA Officials

Officials' Downgrades Postponed Until 2010
USA Water Ski has decided to postpone officials' downgrades for 2009. No official will be downgraded this spring. However, USA Water Ski will be calculating downgrades for 2010 in the fall. Notifications will be sent to all officials in danger of downgrade in late November or early December. These will include all judges, drivers, scorers for the American Water Ski Association and the American Barefoot Club; all drivers for the National Show Ski Association, United States Hydrofoil Association and USA Wakeboard; and safety officials for all sport disciplines.

Due to the high cost of mailing downgrade notices, USA Water Ski is creating an automated officials' downgrade notification process whereby an e-mail will be sent to each official in jeopardy of downgrade, directing them to log into the "Members-Only" section to view their downgrade report. However, this process is not yet complete, and it is too late in the year to allow adequate time for notifying officials and event organizers of rating downgrades. As a result, the downgrades have been postponed for 2009.

Please be on the lookout for some exciting information for officials coming soon in future editions of the USA Water Ski E-Blast!

Officials' Clinic Fee Changes Approved

At its annual mid-winter meeting in January, the USA Water Ski board of directors voted to approve a new two-tiered clinic fee structure. As a result of increasing costs in shipping, printing and labor, officials' clinic organizers will now have the option of receiving hard copies or electronic copies of the clinic materials. USA Water Ski will continue to make the clinic materials available electronically for a $10 fee per participant, while hard copies of the materials will be available for a $15 fee per participant.
In the past there was a $10 fee per member to participate in a sanctioned officials’ certification clinic (i.e. safety, judges & scorers, driver, etc.). This fee was intended to cover USA Water Ski’s overhead and labor costs to maintain, produce and ship the clinic materials that each participant received. The $10 fee was established more than 20 years ago, and had never been raised.

If you have any questions about officials' clinics, please contact the Competition Department at (863) 324-4341, ext. 121, or by e-mail at competition@usawaterski.org

Official's Resources

AWSA has an entire page of links for Officials Resources. Here you'll find the rule books, applications, policy manuals, etc. Check it out!

Judging | Scoring | Driving | Technical | Safety | Announcing

Click here to dig a little deeper into each aspect of officiating. We've compiled tips and techniques, trick calling videos, speed control information and much more. If you have ideas to share, send them to Laura Johnson.

Clinics

Clinics are a great way to keep up with the latest rules in our sport. They're also a good way to meet with other officials and discuss thoughts and opinions. Clinics do not have to be classroom-style meetings either. An optional mentoring program is also available. Mentoring can take place on-site during a tournament and is usually one-on-one or small group format. Contact Deb Parsons for more details.

The Western Region will pay the $10 AWSA clinic fee for regular and senior officials, and assistants who plan on upgrading (including State/Regional/National Safety). Exactly how this happens depends on your area. Assistant judges do not need to attend a clinic to maintain their ratings, only to upgrade.

We added single event clinic instructors and testers (Senior judge in slalom only). Clinic instructors are not required to pay a clinic registration fee and receive full credit towards clinic maintenance requirements. A clinic may also count as one of the required tournament maintenance credits. If you are interested in becoming a clinic instructor or tester (or both), please contact Deb Parsons