Watch out for our special Club Women's Days

One of the most important elements in our Strategic Plan is our focus on encouraging far greater public involvement in our sport – and especially Women and Children. Last year we launched an incentive scheme to encourage our Affiliated Clubs to organise special days for the events. We supported these with a national Poster campaign and the results were very encouraging.

This year, to build on the success of 2011, we reserved special dates for these special inclusion events. May 19th was our National Kids Day – and June 9th was set for our National Women’s Day.

Special Kids Days at a Club near you !

As we all know, our early season weather has been one of the coldest and wettest in memory !  This has certainly not helped the organisation by our Clubs of our special Calendar events. As a result, it has been decided that instead of having a single National Day for Kids and Women that we encourage each Club to now select a day which suits them best – and hopefully when the sun is shining ! The Federation will now send undated Posters to all affiliated clubs to help them inform all in their areas where to join in the fun.

You can find details of all our affiliated Clubs here on site – just check the Tabs on our Home Page for their locations. We will also bring you reports and photos of these special days as soon as we can.

Janet Gray in action on the water

Media reports today stated that Belfast’s blind Skier Janet Gray has settled a lawsuit following a near-fatal training accident. Eight years ago, while training in the USA, she  collided with a Jump Ramp which resulted in dreadful injuries. After years of surgery and rehabilitation, she has since made a miraculous recovery, even to the point of returning to her sport of Waterskiing and competing at IrishWWF affiliated Meteor Waterski Club in County Down.

The Belfast Telegraph reports that Janet Gray has settled the matter out-of-court. However, she has also signed a nondisclosure agreement, meaning that the exact figure that she was awarded for her injuries won’t be made public.

All in our sport wish her many more years of waterskiing and hope that having resolved the legal action involved, she can now enjoy competing without having to worry about ongoing legal matters.

If this News Flash below is true, it could be good for our WAKEBOARD 2020 VISION project to bring Cable Wakeboard to the 2020 Olympic Games.

“May 6 – Windsurfing has been controversially axed from the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and replaced by kiteboarding, the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) has announced at its mid-year meeting in Stresa, Italy “

This would appear to confirm that the IOC fully supports new, low cost, youth driven, lifestyle sports and that is exactly what Cable Wakeboard is all about – with the major added advantage that any Village, Town or City with a pond, lake, river or even ocean access, can easily set up a low cost Cable Wakeboard site.

We also hope to have some good news for CABLE WAKEBOARD here at home in the coming days – so watch this space !

Stainless Steel edges towards Golden Falls today

While some of our Clubs are already back on the water, others are still preparing for action. Spare a thought for the Golden Falls team which has an unexpected and major challenge on hand right now ! Bank erosion at the lakefront has hampered access.

It has been an extraordinary few months for the Club. Serious bank erosion damage caused by high water has pushed the Club to the limit but thankfully, there is light at the end of the tunnel. ‘And today saw a major step in the right direction.

The first challenge was to redesign the Fueling Dock at the Club Car Park so that it could accommodate the Skiers while the bank erosion problem at the Clubhouse area is tackled. This involved building two long stainless steel walkways and also rebuilding the floating dock to make a great starting area for all at this new location. The whole idea is NOT to lose any time on the water this Summer !

Thanks to a great team effort, today’s plan was to lift the two large new stainless steel sections on to a trailer and then transport them  from Fiachra O’Riordan’s house nearby to the Club Car Park. ‘Just as well he does not live on the 10th floor of an Apartment block ! Anyway, as we report right now, the structure is slowly making its way to the site for assembly. Hopefully, by Monday morning, this first stage should be ticked off – and we will have some historical photos for you then !

Well done to all the Golden Falls Team !

If your Club is also working on some interesting projects, do let us know and we will share the fun with our site fans around the world.

When you log in here every day, do you ever wonder who is also doing this ? 

There was a time when we could check some general statistics but now we can do much better. For those who invest in our great value Advertising Boxes, these statistics are critical. For our sport, it is really great to see the steady growth of our regular followers and we greatly appreciate this. Here is a brief summary of the Month of April so far.

At this stage, we have had 4,528 PAGE VIEWS in April – and the average number of pages inspected was 2.5. The most viewed page, not surprisingly, was our NEWS PAGE.

In the past week, our REACH was 1,057 people and that was up 168% on the previous week.

The top NEWS story accessed by our fans was the report on young Barry T Galvin’s ankle injury. It was also very interesting to see that our NEWS feature on the O’Caoimh’s stolen trailer was viewed by 143 people within a few hours.

‘Most encouraging of all was the source path of the visitors to our Website. By far the largest referrers were FaceBook.com and FaceBook Mobile. If you recall, we recently invested in adding Social Media Buttons to each NEWS item and it has certainly worked from the moment we made the announcement. So far, we appear to be the only Federation to do so. Our President, Des Burke-Kennedy, made a recent presentation in Greece to our Europe Africa Federations on these benefits and in May will do likewise at a major international Conference in Beijing. Well done to our Federation team on setting the standard.

MANDURAH TV SCHEDULES

The global distribution of the Mandurah World Cup Stop will focus on 300 million viewers worldwide ! With Irish Team Riders David O’Caoimh and Sian Hurst achieving the rare honour of receiving invitations to compete at this level, this is really worth watching. While it covers mostly the Finals performances, the overall setting and impact is very impressive. With 9 MiniCams, 10 TV Cams and a Chopper Cam up above, this really is one to enjoy !

So, here are the Broadcast times below – starting TOMORROW – and in case you are viewing this in other parts of the World, we have also included details of the broadcasts in a range of regions.

Set your SKY BOX timer – and enjoy the WORLD CUP fun !

WW 15 – SKYSPORTS  (IRELAND & UK)

25/04/12        17:00-18:00         Sky Sports 4
25/04/12        22:00-23:00         Sky Sports 4
26/04/12        12:00-13:00         Sky Sports 2
29/04/12        06:00-07:00         Sky Sports 4
30/04/12        02:00-03:00         Sky Sports 2

ESPN STAR: Their Episode no 52 ours Hotwater 49

SCN1       26-Apr-12       17:00-18:00
SCN1       27-Apr-12       01:30-02.30
SCN1       27-Apr-12       08:00-07.00
SCN1       27-Apr-12       12:00-13.00

SEN1        27-Apr-12       01:30-02.30
SEN1        27-Apr-12       08:00-09.00
SEN1        27-Apr-12       12:00-13.00
SEN1        30-Apr-12       02:30-03.30

SID1        27-Apr-12        08:00-09.00
SID1        27-Apr-12        16:00-17.00

SIN1        27-Apr-12        10:00-11.00

SML1        27-Apr-12      08:00-09.00

SSE1        27-Apr-12      08:00-09.00
SSE1        27-Apr-12      16:00-17.00

STH1        27-Apr-12      01:3002.30
STH1        27-Apr-12      08:00-09.00
STH1        27-Apr-12      12:00-13.00
STH1        30-Apr-12      02:30-03.30

STW1        27-Apr-12       04:00-05.00

EPH1: ESPN Philippines
SCN1: STAR China
SEN1: STAR Sports SEA NPL
SHK1: STAR Sports Hong Kong
SIN1: STAR Sports India
SML1: STAR Sports Malaysia
SSE1: STAR Sports SEA
STH1: STAR Sports Thailand
STW1: STAR Sports Taiwan

Sport TV – Portugal – 3rd May 2012   Every Thursday   17.30-18.30 plus
repeats   Sport TV 3

Identical to this Trailer

It is not that easy to hide an almost new black Nautique Trailer with orange tail lights and Nautique branding – especially if it is being towed with no boat on board. It may now be in the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland.

CAN YOU PLEASE WATCH OUT FOR IT ?

Serial Number : 4WAAKFS2471000155

If you see it, please call Helen at 086 823 6954 – or your nearest Garda Station. The thieves stole it between Sunday last at 18.00hrs and 09.00hrs on Monday morning. If you saw anything that might help in the general area of Shercock, please pass it on as we need to stop these before others also suffer the loss.

TEAM CHAMPIONS 2011 IN RUSSIA

Did you ever try to remember who won the World Jump title in Medellin, Colombia, in 1997, or even last year in Dubna, Russia. Well, your answer may be here at this Link for many of the World Championship results all the way back to 1949 :

HISTORICAL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS RESULTS

If you can fill in any of the missing data, Bob Corson would really like to hear from you. ‘But as it stands, it is a fantastic piece of history !

Just imagine : Our top Cable Wakeboard Riders plus 10,250 Athletes, 6,000 Coaches and Officials, 30,000 Media personnel, nine million spectator tickets and the biggest volunteer force in the world. The global TV coverage always seems to set new viewership records also. What a perfect stage for our sport !

The International Waterski & Wakeboard Federation (IWWF) has worked closely with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for over 50 years. Our goal is entry to the Games. On July 6^th 2011, Jacques Rogge, IOC President, announced details of the EIGHT sports to be considered for the 2020 Olympics. The great news is that this list includes Wakeboard as presented in Cable Parks.

Last year, at the 2011 IWWF World Congress held in Dubna, Russia, delegates voted overwhelmingly to fully support the efforts required to bring Wakeboard to the Olympic’s audience. That was when WAKEBOARD 2020 VISION was born !

In September 2013 at the IOC Session in Buenos Aires, ONE of the EIGHT sports in contention could be added to the Olympic Games. However, by the end of this year, we must complete our application process. In other words, we have about eight months left to create a strong global focus on our sport.

Our new WAKEBOARD 2020 VISION Brochure, which describes our bid highlights, has just been released – and you can now see it here for yourself and pass to you friends :

WAKEBOARD 2020 VISION BROCHURE

While Wakeboard has all the elements required to really enhance the Summer Games, we do need a lot more help in raising the level of public awareness. THIS IS WHERE YOU CAN HELP. Please feel free to pass this WAKEBOARD 2020 VISION Brochure to all your friends and contacts and make full use of all the Social Media / FaceBook / Twitter opportunities out there ! Feel free also to copy this News item on your Website.

Many thanks for your support of our WAKEBOARD 2020 VISION

]]> http://www.irishwwf.ie/2012/04/22/wakeboard-in-the-2020-olympic-games-here-are-the-facts/feed/ 0 http://www.irishwwf.ie/2012/04/18/irish-sports-council-supports-our-q1-progress/ http://www.irishwwf.ie/2012/04/18/irish-sports-council-supports-our-q1-progress/#comments Wed, 18 Apr 2012 08:57:36 +0000 admin http://www.irishwwf.ie/?p=7056 REVIEW MEETING AT IRISH SPORTS COUNCIL HQ

Troy Reneker and Caroline Fitzsimons

We were invited by our ISC contact, Troy Reneker, to make a Q1 Federation progress report on Tuesday and this was an ideal opportunity to summarise the encouraging developments of the past three months. It was also an opportunity to meet Caroline Fitzsimons for the first time who has just joined Troy’s team. Our Treasurer Brid Deegan was not available to attend yesterday but Des Burke-Kennedy attended to present the details.

The update presentation was based on our Strategic Plan and the developments on each outlined goal. This covered a wide range of activities including Child Welfare, Anti Doping, Website and Social Media, Inclusion and Club Days, Participation Monitoring and our Club Day Books, Medals won by our Wakeboard Athletes in Q1 – and of course our very successful International Recreation Boat Drivers Certificate Course which attracted 22 students to the test centre at Irish Aqua Sports Centre (IASC) last month.

Of particular importance this year again will be participation levels. The use of the Club Day Books, National Children’s Day, National Women’s Day and Social Groups are all geared towards maximising the numbers on the water at our Clubs and we know that all will take on this challenge again this season.

For all our fans out there, watch out for more updates here on our Website for events at our Clubs this season.

We thank the Irish Sports Council for their much valued continued support and hope that we may also see Troy, Caroline and our other ISC friends out on the water as soon as the sunshine returns !