CLWSC members held their annual meeting on Saturday, October 25th. Amid a pot-luck dinner and windy conditions the club elected it's Board of Directors for the 2009 season. Gary Magoon was elected President, Mike Meyer retained his role as the VP, Sean Butler was elected Communications Officer, Cheri Trudon was elected Fundraising Officer, and Karen Powers was nominated to be the treasurer. Other topics at the meeting included puchasing a club-owned boat and a discussion of the final tally of CLWSC funds.
2008 COBLE SKI SCHOOL AN, AWESOME EXPERIENCE!!
The weather was challenging for the first two days, and bodies were aching due to the intensive schedule, but everyone who attended agreed that attending the school was just what they needed to sharpen their skills and whet their appetites for the upcoming season.
Eight club members attended Coble Ski School April 13-17 in Lillington, North Carolina. April Coble-Eller, who is ranked #1 in the world in the International Water Ski Federation (IWSF) and #1 in the USA in the Open Women's division, served as the chief instructor while her husband, USAWS Master Driver and Jump skier Chris Eller served as the chief driver and helped with ski instruction. Along with April and Chris there were several resident instructors who had extensive knowledge in all facets of towed watersports: Natalie and Adam were on hand to help out with wakeboard instruction, April, Daniel and Stallum (Sorry if I spelled it wrong) were there to teach slalom instruction and basic water skiing, and Chris worked jumping and barefoot techniques.
Monday was the first ski day and it was cold and rainy, with temperatures in the high 40's and low 50's, but with a water temperature in the private lakes at 65 degrees. With cold weather gear that we brought and that the school provided it was warm enough to ski, and each of us practiced our sport-whether it was slalom, barefoot, beginner skiing, wakeboard-getting in three sets of six passes each day behind the newest Mastercraft tournament boats. Tuesday was a little warmer-about 60 degrees, but with a strong wind. The lakes are pretty sheltered so the wind didn't whip the water up too bad, but the cool wind caused most of us to go from skiing to the lakeside hot tub and back each time we skied. wednesday was much warmer and by Thursday the temperature was in the low 80s with no wind, creating an awesome day to culminate our lessons.
The instruction and positive reinforcement that we received was superb and all of us gained valuable skills-Madision and Jacob learned several new tricks on the wakeboard, Carey learned how to slalom ski, Jordan learned how to ski and is transitioning to the slalom ski, Jacob and Ryan can now ski the slalom course, and Gary and Sean learned new skills to ski better. In my opinion the crew at Coble's created one of the best environments to learn how to improve your skiing. The instructors took control of the children from minute one, allowing the parents to focus on skiing without having to worry about the kids, and there were so many minute nuances that made this such a family oriented atmosphere and yet allowed you to completely focus on skiing that it's hard to express-I can only say that when they say you become part of the Coble family when you go there it is 100% true. Imagine getting slalom instruction from the #1 ranked women's slalom skier in the world, then a half hour later she's serving your lunch! April worked with Carey extensively on slalom skiing, and after a particularly good lesson, April skied in preparation for a tournament she was attending that weekend. April skied a very good set and she searched out Carey after lessons to tell her that Carey's committment and no-quit attitude inspired her to ski so well-the best that she's skied in months. Talk about positive reinforcement! Similar scenes were played out throughout our time there, and it all added up to a very special unique experience.
many of us decided to make the April trip to Coble Ski School an annual event-we hope that you'll join us next year!
