The biggest news is the beginning of our rebranding process.  We are now officially Ignite Adaptive Sports!  The marketing committee is working on the logo and website changes needed to better reflect our program.

Tamara Marks, hired in September, has hit the ground running as our Marketing/Development Director.  She brings much needed expertise and professionalism to our development efforts.  Among her many efforts, Tamara has worked extensively with Kurt Miller so that Ignite will be the locally sponsored organization of the national 'Make A Hero' program (www.makeahero.org).  Our first California Pizza Kitchen Philanthropizza was such a success that we have scheduled another day to benefit Ignite on May 12.

The three program directors, Barb Kish, David Schadle, and John Humbrecht, have coordinated an amazing season that saw a near doubling of our volunteers.  This allowed us to provide move lessons for more individuals (details next time).  We had a fantastic end-of-season party April 3 with so many attendees that we ate in shifts.  Thanks to Wild Mountain Smokehouse & Brewery for the great food!

David Schadle resigned from the board of directors to focus his efforts as the Veterans Program Director.

Long time no news doesn't mean nothing has happened.

The 2009 season was busy and successful.  We gave 866 half-day lessons to 138 individuals.  This is a dramatic increase from the 558 lessons to 106 individuals in 2008.  Much of the increase in students and lessons can be attributed to our successful disabled veterans program on Thursdays.  We did have an increase in volunteers from 108 in 2008 to 135 in 2009 that helped us manage this increase.  Thanks to all our returning and new instructors who make ESRP a fun place to be.

Ron Coleman stepped down as program director and Barb Kish has agreed to take on the task this year.  Thanks Ron for your service and thanks Barb for stepping in for us!  Barb, David Schadle (Veterans' Program Director), and John Humbrecht (Technical Director) have the fall training schedule published so we are just waiting for the snow to get going again.

We were successful in getting a second year of funding from the USOC to continue our veterans progam.  However, this funding is designated as start up funding so the board has had some long sessons over the summer discussing the budget, grant writing, and fund raising.  The first step we have taken is to hire a professional grant writer on a short term contract to get us set with the materials and templates we need as we pursue other grants.  The big step we are still working on is hiring a development director to lead us on to a more permanent position of financial stability.

Another step the board is taking to assist us in this phase of growth and change is to actively pursue board members from outside the ESRP family.  To that end, we welcome Malcolm Daly as our newest board member.

The season is under way and running smoothly under our team of directors.  The new veteran's program provided 25 lessons over the first 3 weeks.  Scholarships have been awarded to 1 group and 7 individuals.  Unfortunately we are still limited in the number of lessons we can offer and have even cancelled confirmed lessons based on the number on available instructors.

We've received the snazzy new jackets from Rossignol and will be doing group photos in them this week.  The new snowboards from REI have been a hit with the knuckle dragging crowd.  Still no sign of the promised snowmobile.

We have finally recruited a volunteer to coordinate the planning for this year's silent auction.  The Snow Snake race is planned for late March dependent on us receiving the necessary permit from the state.

An important event coming in February is a visit from a representative of the USOC to review our veterans program and how we are spending their grant funds.

Financially we are in a very solid position.  The silent auction and snow snake race combined netted $24k.  Note that some of the auction items were things donated from the Today show sponsors which could not be used by our program.  The Subaru donated on the Today show finally arrived in August and was sold for $26.5k.  Due to liability issues we are declining the use of the snowmobile that was donated.  Instead we are contacting the donors to see if we might have use of mule atv for transporting students/equipment to the main mountain.  This would mainly be used for bi/mono lessons since the Eldora bus is not handicap accessible and doesn't have space for large equipment.  Ron Coleman is working on getting the remaining Today show items sold. 

Jim Hahn and David Levin submitted a grant proposal to the US Olympic Committee to fund a disabled veterans program.  We were awarded $35k from USOC with a partial matching grant from the Levin Family Foundation.  In order to establish the vets program and integrate it with our regular program, John Humbrecht will be the Technical Director, Ron Coleman will be the Program Director, and David Schadle will be the Disabled Vets Program Director.  ESRP will be paying them nominal stipends for this groundbreaking work.

Michael Travis is continuing to explore options with Eldora for trenching or moving our trailers to alleviate our issues with keeping the trailers level.

Thanks for all the service to Sandy Hagen and Rick Hermann, who both left the board over the summer.

The board held a retreat October 4 to take a long term look at the organization goals and strategy.  At this time we plan to focus on building the vets program and expanding the regular program to more days per week.  There is no current interest in diversifying into a summer program.

The fall kickoff meeting drew 80 people and we have over 30 new volunteers!  On October 25, REI will deliver the snowboards donated through the Today show at their Boulder store at 7pm.  Please come for the ceremony.