January 31, 2010
 

Dear Wildwater Racers and Friends:

Welcome to the first e-Zine for 2010.

The first news is the results of the election of the 2010/2011 USACK Wildwater Committee (WWC). Congratulations to the winners and thank you to those who were nominated but did not win. We appreciate your willingness to dedicate your time and efforts to USA Wildwater. We also greatly appreciate the work that was done by the outgoing committee members -- David Jones, Denny Adams, and Chrissy Zeltner.

One of the first tasks of the WWC was recruiting athletes to serve as Members-at-Large. Read the second article for more about who was recruited and what jobs they agreed to do.

The WWC held their first meeting on January 23rd. One of the key outcomes of the meeting was the creation and approval of the 2010 USACK Wildwater Budget. A significant portion of the budget is $7,000 in team funding.

We rely on private donations for the funds to support USA Wildwater. Now it is easier for you to donate to USA Wildwater. Just go to our home page at www.usawildwater.com and click on the bright orange "Donate" button to learn how you can contribute online or by sending us a check.

The Final 2009 Wildwater Rankings are also available on our website. The top 5 in each class are:

• C-1M: Tom Wier, John Pinyerd, Jack Ditty, Chris Osment and Craig Adams (Jr)
• C-1W: Hailey Thompson (Jr) and Rebecca Moore (Jr)
• C-2: Rich Roehner/Mike Baker, Wiegand/Borst/Staszko, John Pinyerd/Rob Murphy, Ben Peters/Liam Malakoff (Jr): and Gaudet/Kieft(Jr)
• K-1M: Peter Lutter (Jr), Geoff Calhoun, Andrew McEwan, Chris Hipgrave and Kurt Smithgall (Jr)
• K-1W: Tierney O'Sullivan, MacKenzie Hatcher (Jr), Haley Popp (Jr), Chara Whittemore and Sierra O'Brien (Jr)

The first event on our 2010 calendar, the "Chute The Hooch Wildwater Training Camp", is now history. Read all about it in the article below. Next up is the "Glacier Breaker and Team Trials Training Camp" to be held on February 27-28 on the Nantahala River. (Link: www.usawildwater.com/news/2009/091214_Glacier_Breaker.html)

In other news, we have information about the 2010 Junior Olympics (including a list of qualifying events), a "Thank You" letter to Canoe Tasmania and Hydro Tasmania for hosting the 2009 Wildwater World Cup, and a link to information about the search for a new USACK CEO.

I hope that you are looking forward to participating in WIldwater racing in 2010!!

Chuck Brabec
Editor & Webmaster, USAWildwater.com