All,
I'm thinking about attending convention in three weeks. My reasons are several but most important is that I want to become more involved in USMS and I figure the best way to find out how/what/when/where is to attend convention.
Does this make sense? Would it be worthwhile?
Paul
In defense of Ande, who I personally think has done an incredibly good job encouraging swimming, I do think there are personality types that thrive in settings like the convention, and personality types that greet such gatherings with the same enthusiasm they would when getting hair balls caught in the throat.
I had the good fortune to attend last year's convention, and I must say it wasn't really my cup of hair ball tea. The delegates are incredibly enthusiastic and do a wonderful, obviously committed job. But I often had a sense that there were issues behind the issues that required some kind of insider understanding to fully comprehend. Case-in-point: some masters group in southern Illinois or Missouri or similarly remote location that wanted permission to move back to its former association with the Ozark zone.
To me, it seemed a reasonable request. Why fall under the purview of Chicago-area bureacracy when all the meets these folks swam in were much, much closer across the border in the Ozark region. Anyhow, there was a big brouhaha about this, or at least it seemed this way to me, reminiscent of the American Colonies attempting to get out from under the thumb of King George. I never really did understand what the argument was all about, and still don't--other than a vague sense of control-freakish turf war bureacracy.
Anyhow, permission to secede to the Ozarks was voted in by a slim margin, after much hand wringing and objections by what seemed to me the more entrenched members of the politburo.
Maybe this is what Ande hopes to avoid--just a baffling sense that what seems to be going on, and what is really going on, are destined always to be at least a little different is such settings-- perhaps an inevitable consequence of well-meaning human beings who make the mistake of forming committees, subcomittees, super commitees, and adding to all this parliamentarianism and tabling rights and maybe, just maybe, the slightest snifter of Franz Kafka bafflement were he to write about swimming organization.
In summation: they also serve who encourage their fellows to swim for health, be this through USMS, YMCA Masters, FINA, or without any governing body whatsoever.
In defense of Ande, who I personally think has done an incredibly good job encouraging swimming, I do think there are personality types that thrive in settings like the convention, and personality types that greet such gatherings with the same enthusiasm they would when getting hair balls caught in the throat.
I had the good fortune to attend last year's convention, and I must say it wasn't really my cup of hair ball tea. The delegates are incredibly enthusiastic and do a wonderful, obviously committed job. But I often had a sense that there were issues behind the issues that required some kind of insider understanding to fully comprehend. Case-in-point: some masters group in southern Illinois or Missouri or similarly remote location that wanted permission to move back to its former association with the Ozark zone.
To me, it seemed a reasonable request. Why fall under the purview of Chicago-area bureacracy when all the meets these folks swam in were much, much closer across the border in the Ozark region. Anyhow, there was a big brouhaha about this, or at least it seemed this way to me, reminiscent of the American Colonies attempting to get out from under the thumb of King George. I never really did understand what the argument was all about, and still don't--other than a vague sense of control-freakish turf war bureacracy.
Anyhow, permission to secede to the Ozarks was voted in by a slim margin, after much hand wringing and objections by what seemed to me the more entrenched members of the politburo.
Maybe this is what Ande hopes to avoid--just a baffling sense that what seems to be going on, and what is really going on, are destined always to be at least a little different is such settings-- perhaps an inevitable consequence of well-meaning human beings who make the mistake of forming committees, subcomittees, super commitees, and adding to all this parliamentarianism and tabling rights and maybe, just maybe, the slightest snifter of Franz Kafka bafflement were he to write about swimming organization.
In summation: they also serve who encourage their fellows to swim for health, be this through USMS, YMCA Masters, FINA, or without any governing body whatsoever.
