Tidbits from the USADSF Conference in Cleveland in November. Tiffany Granfors and Wayne Langbein were in attendance and they had a productive weekend. USADTF thanks Tiffany and Wayne for a great job.

1. Athlete of the Year winners are: Jamal Bradley for Basketball and Seda Ozdemir for Swimming.

2. Sam Sonnenstrahl won the Art Kruger Award and the President Award goes to Jack Lamberton for his work with the SDWG. There was an award presented to Gallaudet University. (I King Jordan) for his constant support for USADSF and the USA Deaflympic Team.

3. Jack Lamberton. won the International Affairs position by 2 votes. The position was previously occupied by Sam Sonnenstrahl.

4. Board members will take it upon themselves to search for the next NSO VP. USADTF brought up the issue of revisiting the NSO position as we have had high turnovers, etc.. like we spoke about. BBS assured me that this position is no bigger than the other Executive Board's position. It was a matter of selecting the right person. Jeff Saliat's name was the only nominated one but we need 3 to make it fly.

5. There were about 7 or 8 grant proposals. The good news was that BBS has referred to our grant as a sample for others We hope to get the grant to assist with the Youth Program: Family Track and Field Games and 2nd Youth PANAMDES.

6. IMPORTANT: The next annual report is due November 28th. I raised the issue of no hear back feedback from anyone in last 2 years. BBS promised to provide us with feedback that Jay Innes started but was never able to finish. We have submitted this year’s report in timely fashion.

7. PANAMDES: Apparently since Argentina is hosting PANAMDES without Athletics, Chile has volunteered to take up hosting the competition among Athletics. But it will be for 2002! Same time as Youth PANAMDES! It is still not clear to us whether Chile is inviting only USA or if they are considered as a sub-PANAMDES with only Athletics. Further information is needed before we can confirm anything.

8. USADSF home office might relocate to CSD in Sioux Falls, SD. CSD is offering free rent and support for the USADSF organization. We all had voted to support the idea of BBS doing further research on this.

9. Jack L. will need to select a new Team Director for the next Summer Deaflympics and this is first thing on his action item.

10. CISS Audiograms: Jack Lamberton has committed to improve the screening of all athletes' audiograms. Due to an embarrassing incident last summer when one of the USA waterpolo player passed through the cracks with 50db and was considered disqualified and couldn’t participate in Rome. Therefore, all screening must happen at the NSO level. This means that we are expected to see everyone's audiogram DURING tryouts. They need to bring their audiograms during the tryouts and at the same time if make it on the team they can pass it on to the USA team. We need to change our practices a little bit. Not simply asking how much dB they have but to actually SEE the audiograms.

11. Still debating on when is the best time to host tryouts. 1 and half year before 2005 Games or 6 months before. It all depends on the funding USADSF gets. Jack L. also talked about the possibility of having two short training camps instead of a one long one at the end. Like if we have tryouts 1 and half year before (summer of 2003) then summer of 2004 the qualified athletes would get together and train and give coaches opportunity to observe see if still in shape. This also gives athletes chance to meet their coaches. This would be a one week training camp. Then second one week training camp can occur before departing for Australia.

12. Few possible sites for training camp. 1. Riverside School, 2. USOC training camp site in San Diego, 3. Canberra, Australia. We go ahead and go straight to Australia, get used to climate and to time change and train there. Then it takes a 4 hour bus ride to Melbourne.

13. It is still unknown how much money USOC will grant us for year of 2002, BBS gets a feeling it will remain at $144k but with the new USOC president who knows what happens. Hopefully, we get more in future years.

14. Next HOD will probably be at Sioux Falls next fall.