Yesterday it was the NWWB live event, finally! I was looking forward to this event a lot. I had heard about gala's being held for members and champions way back when the sport was still much more alive in the Netherlands. It waas the plan to bring back a day where everyone could meet and be celebrated in a less formal setting than member meetings or a gala. I had no idea what to expect, but I was very excited to be seeing everyone, meeting new people and see what the federation made of it. It was held at a great location with room for many stands, including many boats outside and some gear stands. The first hours I spent catching up with the team, since we hadn't seen each other in quite a while already, after spending the summer seeing each other very often. After checking out all the gear and boats, everyone was called together to celebrate the champions in all disciplines that fall under the federation. First up the ski racers, cable and boat wakeboarders, barefoot skiers, cable skiers and finally, the boat skiers! It was fun to have all champions on national and international level called out one more time and receiving some flowers, a gift card and a certificate! I think this is also great to motivate other skiers and increase the level of competition for next year. This is in the first place why it is so great to have an event like this again. This is what we need to grow our sport, get more skiers and competition and most importantly support. Water-skiing is starting to grow again and this will help to expand further. On the other hand it is also good to see who wants to be involved in the sport, because we do need new judges, drivers, homologates, etc. without them there are no competitions and without competitions there is no way to grow further and get more attention for what we do. 
After the celebrations, I switched to lobbying around with the companies that were there, since they are by default related to the sport in some way or another. I had my sponsor plan with me, which I finished last week. I found it very difficult to get started and basically present myself to these people. It was well out of my comfort zone, but at the end of the day, I don't have much choice if I want to reach my goals and get ahead in water-skiing, I need it to be financed. So I started approaching people and handing out my information. If anything, I got tips to help improve my sponsor plan, so that's already worth something. Whether or not it will pay off, I'm not sure, but I definitely hope it will be a beginning and afterwards I can expand that network. I have my sponsor plan available as an online version as well, so if you or anyone you know is interested in reading it, send me an e-mail at lieke.a.r@hotmail.com and we can see what we can arrange!
For now, the countdown to Florida has started! Only 21 more days!!
No comments:
Post a Comment