USAWA

Hey Dan – I like your thoughts. I am indifferent about certificates but understand that some folks would be interested and if payment is needed to participate I would be open to that as well.

I would like to add my 2 cents to quarterly postal. One would be to rename it to the Art Montini Memorial Postal Meet. And the other would be to expand the quarterly postal lifts to 5 instead of 3. I like the added variety. I have never heard of the Habecker Lift before it being included in the postal list for this year and like to add the variety into my weekly training sessions. I am also aware of the USAWA does have rules in place for lifts done for repetitions. So perhaps the last event could be for ‘x’ reps. Again my 2 cents only.

Dan – you coming up to compete for Nationals?

Here is my 2 cents on the matter. While the certificates that John Wilmot sent out were nice and appreciated, each one had to have cost postage. I am guessing he ate that cost? I love the postal series, but I wonder if one of the draws for some lifters is that it is free. I personally would prefer not to pay and not get any award. The vast majority of my awards at this point are boxed up or in a pile on an old pool table in the basement. I would lie to say that early on I did not enjoy getting them, though.

Remember when that Australian fellow (maybe Frank Lamp) promoter a world postal? There were medals in display cases for the lifters, a printed booklet of all the results, and award plaques for the top lifters. It was very neat and looked forward to. He had to quit doing this, because it became cost prohibitive.

As far as the 3 vs 5 lifts for postals, I am indifferent. We just might have to move along a little quicker to get through the 5 in a timely fashion, as we sometimes move rather slow on postal days (LOL).

If someone with more computer skills wants to take over running the postal, then he {Dan] can do the certificates and the awards for all the lifters. I do not have the computer knowledge to do that. The postal was an idea to keep people, that maybe didn’t have the time or money to travel to meets, to be able to be involved. It was rarely about awards, although Bill Clark did send out some awards in the past.

I agree completely with what Denny said – the postals are intended as an “introduction” to the USAWA, or for those not wanting to travel to actual real meets. Denny has done an EXCELLENT JOB as postal director and it takes time to build the entry forms, compile the results and prepare the report for the website.

You need to remember that the USAWA has made allowances to allow entry in our postal meets without having a certified USAWA official present (however you do need someone to judge you) unlike other comps that require certified officials. I don’t see the point of taking the time/expense of sending out certificates. If its that important to you just make your own afterwards as simple certificates can be made with pretty much any word processing software.

I agree it is nice to have physical representation of your achievements be it a trophy, medal or certificate. I, myself have somewhat of an ego wall in my garage gym where I pin my awards and competition t-shirts.

Saying that, I believe the postals are a nice yin to the yang of “regular” meets. To me these meets are welcomed relaxed events to hang out with your mates and throw your name in the hat of a little test of strength through the organization. Relaxed not only for the practitioners but for members who run regular meets and I’m sure for those behind the scenes (except Denny as he gets it all rolling).

Dan, although your idea was an award or certificate maybe you can do something similar what I did on one of the postals below?

I was pretty proud to tie Al for first place, I believe 2018. So I simply copied the web posting into Word and tweaked it a little to make a nice single page of results. I printed this with the goal of framing and placing on the “wall” but hasn’t made it yet. Its with some other certificates in poly pockets in the back of my rulebook binder. Just an idea.

Dan – I like the variation you are proposing. So much to do in USAWA! As for the repetitions, you are right. However, in my defense, I have always have been a few bricks short from a full load!

As for the numbers of lifts and such, to be honest I am just grateful to be given the chance to use these days to gather round with friends and make excuses to lift weights with others.

As far as awards go, My opinion is most of our lifters are masters[over 40] and have been lifting for years. During those years, I am sure they have accumulated quite a few awards. After a while, do you really need an award for every meet you lift in. Where are you going to put all those awards? If you really need more awards, come to meets that need your support anyway, like Nationals, Worlds, Gold Cups, to name a few. As for variety, I could put more lifts in the postals next year, or we could do the IAWA Postals, that they do every other month. But we do not want to do postals run by rival organizations.

Denny, To quote Dave Glasgow, +1 to all your comments and suggestions.

Dan brought it up…..but Denny refreshed it. Competing in IAWA Postals seems like a fine idea. I knew Denny was president for a reason. I remember doing those world postals and getting beat badly by Steve Angell and others.

Can someone comment on what was the “Straight Weight Postal” done in 2010?

Ruth, I would have to look back to be certain, and will if time permits, but it seems like it was a postal meet between the JWC and the Dino gym that was determined strictly by the amount of weight each team lifter with no coefficients involved. This is just the way i remember it.

Check out this link: Straight weight postal

No sweat!
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