USAWA

53 athletes including 47 USAWA members filled out the first ever members survey. Less than half (22) responded that the USAWA was going in the right direction. Even fewer (14) felt like they had a voice in how the organization is run.

The 2025 Annual General Meeting and ensuing fall out gives the USAWA a chance to change that. The 2023 board had been in place for a long time with 3 of the 5 members having had over 2 decades of experience with the organization in leadership roles. The 2025 board is less experienced in all-round weightlifting but brings a wealth of knowledge from powerlifting (the OpenPowerlifting database currently includes data on over 800,000 athletes). The excitement has brought founder Bill Clark back to leadership. He was the long time Secretary from 1989-2009. Joe Garcia has also joined the board. Joe was one of the founders of Clark’s Championship Gym.

32 members were at the Annual General Meeting. This was the largest meeting in recent history and is evidence of how committed people are to all-round weightlifting.

There has been a lot of hullabaloo on social media in the past couple of weeks. Most of that has been in response to the rapid pace of change. Posts have been made and deleted. In credit to the members of the group, the tone has been cordial.

The transparency of the board is amazing. They have been meeting frequently and minutes have been published within 48 hours.

When I look at the new business topics, they are a mix of operations, marketing, communications, rule changes and a couple are in response to issues. I suspect Robert’s Rules of Orders (RRO) are in response to uneven communication and participation at the annual meeting. As written RRO can be perceived as too formal for a group our size or maybe not formal enough? I suspect the general discussion on aggressive behavior is in response to long delays during the competition. There were some equipment issues that were not handled perfectly. The board provided oversight per the by-laws and athletes appealed the decision.

A new rule was approved by the board and states that “Meet directors reserve the right to remove any athlete due to disruptive behavior.” Athletes should keep this in mind when registering for events. Disruptive behavior is defined by the meet director and cannot be appealed.

On a fun note, the new board is discussing a new logo and a slogan. I like the Crucifix-USA Flag logo, but it may not be appropriate to an organization that is now accepting people from around the world and nearly 1 in 4 current members hailing from Canada. Slogans are always fun and make for consistent messaging.