2020 - 2021 Far West Skier's Guide - FWSA28

90th Anniversary Booklet/FINAL.qxp_90th Anniversary Booklet 12/6/20 2:06 PM Page 28

FWSA Annual
Meeting Locations
Compiled by Ingrid P. Wicken
and Jane Wyckoff
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969

by Jane Wyckoff

Tahoe City
Unknown
Unknown
Dutch Flat
Sacramento
Yosemite
Fresno
San Francisco
Yosemite
Yosemite
Not held
Pasadena
Not held
Pasadena
Santa Cruz
Yosemite
Pasadena
Reno
Yosemite
Bakersfield
Lake Tahoe
San Mateo
Pasadena
Squaw Valley
Pasadena
San Francisco
Fresno
South Lake Tahoe
Reno
Long Beach
Berkeley
Yosemite
Santa Monica
Palo Alto
Las Vegas
South Lake Tahoe
Newport Beach
Phoenix

Past Convention Chair, FWSA; Past President, FWSA

The Skier
magazine cover
shows FWSA
volunteers
preparing club
placards for the
1956 Annual
Meeting in
Pasadena. At least
55 clubs were
registered.
mage courtesy Ingrid P.
Wicken, California Ski
Library

87 Annual Meetings /
Conventions
During its 90 years of existence, the Far West
Ski Association has conducted 87 Annual Meetings/Conventions. Two were not held during
World War II (1942 and 1944) and the third was in
2020 in Portland, cancelled due to the COVID-19
Pandemic. After all the planning by the Northwest
Ski Club Council, Debbi Kor, Convention Chairperson, negotiated extending the contract with the
Red Lion Hotel on the River-Jantzen Beach, to
2022.
The Far West Ski Association used to be a division of the United States Ski Association (USSA)
- Sports Division. This changed in 1985, at the
Oakland Annual Meeting/Convention, when the
delegates voted to reanimate the FWSA as an independent, non-profit, totally volunteer organization.
Members of ski clubs who belonged to a regional
council, were automatically members of the FWSA.
The clubs could choose if they wanted to be dues
paying members of the USSA or the new United
States Recreational Ski Association (USRSA).
FWSA no longer had access to an office, full time
staff members and there would be no dues.
The Association turned to a club and/or
council to host the Convention, and provided a remuneration agreement for payment for its Convention volunteer work as a fund raising opportunity.
The host club or council provided a Host Council
Convention Coordinator, and the FWSA had a designated Convention Chairperson to oversee the
event.
The Silent Auction began in 1986, when the
Balboa Ski Club of Orange Council, host for the
54th Annual Convention, organized a Friday evening Silent Auction with a Mike Murphy Concert, as
a fund raiser to offset Convention costs and support
program development. The ski and sports industries donated over $10,000 in lift tickets, ski trips,
and ski equipment. BSC and FWSA split the proceeds of the event. After that first year, the FWSA
solely managed the Silent Auction with an appointed chairperson. In the past 34 years, there has
only been four chairpersons - Jane Wyckoff, Barbara Razo, Mary Ohlhausen and Jeannine Davis.
A Mike Murphy Concert was also part of the Friday night event in 1987 but after that, it was customary to have a " DJ " for musical entertainment in
conjunction with the Silent Auction.
By 2001, the 17th Annual Silent Auction in
Reno hosted by Bay Area Council, had a recordsetting $118,000 in donations. Over 140 companies
were represented at the event. For the past 34 years,

FWSA 90th Anniversary Booklet / 1930 - 2020

the Silent Auction has served as one of the two
major revenue streams providing funds to support
FWSA programs, with the other one being the
FWSA Travel Program.
Even in this age of technology, with the ease
and convenience of going on-line to search for a
winter vacation, nothing can truly replace the opportunity to meet " one-on-one " with industry representatives to plan your next family or group trip.
A Travel Carousel was added to the Convention in
1987. The industry representatives would leave
their booths up overnight, and on Saturday the delegates would visit the booths, and after a designated
number of industry representative signatures on
their card, would be entered in a drawing to win a
trip to the next Far West Ski Week and additional
prizes.
In 2003, the Travel Carousel was changed to
the Travel Expo under the leadership of Catherine
Ohl. The industry representatives would remove
their booths after the Silent Auction on Friday evening, and had assigned tables for the Travel Expo on
Saturday. Delegates set up appointments with the
industry representatives on Friday evening or Saturday morning before the event started. They
would move from table to table for a designated
time period (a bell would be rung to move to the next table)
and would have their " Passports " signed for prize
drawings. Written instructions were given to both
the ski industry representatives and the delegates, so
that the productivity of these sessions for our industry partners would be maximized. These programs
greatly strengthened FWSA's industry partnership
programs. With the participation of the industry, a
Convention sponsorship program was offered,
which was instrumental in helping to offset Convention costs. This enabled FWSA to keep the registration fee at a reasonable rate, attracting greater
volunteer participation. In addition, North American and International FWSA Ski Week bids could
be presented to the Travel Ski Week Bid Selection
Committee at the Convention for future ski weeks,
since the industry representatives were already in
attendance.
In perspective, the annual meetings, with convention-like activity, went on for over 40 years before the travel world began to reshape them, with
charter flights and ski weeks. The final separation from USSA and the restart of FWSA was a
decisive event in the changes to the Conventions.
The absence of dues made the search for start-up
funding imperative. The convention content was

2020 - 2021 Far West Skier's Guide

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