At the Tournament Ball in November 2016 we launched the Friends of Tournament Group whose aim was to support fund raising to assist our elite skiers to attend European and World Championships as well as promoting initiatives to help the continued development of Tournament Waterskiing.
The first initiative was to launch a 200 Club Lottery that started in January 2017 with 35 ticket holders. We have seen steady growth in participation and in the March 2021 draw there were 134 tickets.
The monthly Lottery Ticket price is £25 of which 32.5% goes towards prizes and the rest is building our fund. There are now four prizes every month.
The odds on getting a win are really good and the 170 prizes drawn till March 2021 have gone to 83 different winners with one lucky ticket holder winning six times, three five times, eleven four times, ten three times, sev1enteen two times and forty one winning once.
To date a gross amount of over £155,000 has been raised by FoT and after prizes this means over £111,000 to fund Team Travel for World and European Championships teams and various Development activities designed to encourage new young participants into competitions.
With the loss of funding from UK Sport and the ongoing reduction of funding from Sport England this fund raising is of vital importance to encourage new skiers into competitive Tournament skiing and to ensure we are able to send our very best teams to represent us in Europe and the World. So please join us as a Friend of Tournament and a 200 Club Lottery ticket holder.
Sign up forms can be found in the resources section of this website or through the 200 Club news item on the BWSW website.

The winners for March are:

1st Colin Horne £435.50 No. 23
2nd Dr Ian Campbell £326.63 No. 33
3rd James Baxter £217.75 No. 1134
4th Andrew Preston £108.88 No. 162

You can see the draw here:

200 Club March Draw

The first Bulletin for the World U17 and U21 Championships has been published and can be downloaded on the link below. The IWWF has established a Covid Task Force who will make decisions about the viability of holding these events some three months before they are due to take place.

World U17 and U21 Bulletin 1

The February Draw of the FoT 200 Club Lottery has taken placed and can be viewed by clicking the link below.
This is the 50th draw since the lottery started and together with some other fundraising FoT has so far raised in excess of £150,000 before lottery prizes. We now have enough money banked to fully fund our 2021 planned budget of £52,000 and so are now building a fund to carry over into 2022 when hopefully normal service will be resumed for our sport.

The February winners are:

1st Flo Hazelwood £432.25 No 104
2nd Nick McGarry £324.19 No 8
3rd Cora Coster £216.13 No 136
4th Emma Whaling £108.06 No 77

hank you for supporting FoT and if you would like to sign up for the lottery you can find a sign up form on the resources page of www.tournamentwaterskiing.org.uk.

200 Club February Draw

Additional Age Categories were added to the World Rules in 2020. These are for 70+, 75+ etc. Also for 2021 the shortening speed for 45+ Women has been reduced from 55kph to 52kph.
These changes mean that we need to consider the establishment of new records as these changes come into effect. The Tournament Committee has given some thought to the issue and have decided that New Base Records will be established at the end of 2021 based on the best scores achieved in each Age Category for each event since January 2020 for the new Age Cats and in 2021 for 45+ Women. Thereafter normal record applications will be considered in the usual way. If a particular Base Record is not established in any Age Category due to lack of participation then the same process will be used in the first year that the Age Category is first populated.

We have started our fifth year of Friends of Tournament with the January 2021 lottery draw.
While we had no World or European Championships to support in 2020 we did run a number of successful Development Days. While we will have to wait to see if competitions resume in 2021 plans for a further 10 Development Days are being formulated and will be publicised once we know that they can go ahead. Our FoT budget for 2021 is in excess of £51,000 and thanks to your generosity we have available funds of over £50,000. 2022 will no doubt see a return to some level of normal activity and so we need to keep pushing to raise funds.
So to date you have raised a total of £148,000 which has given us £106,500 to invest after lottery prizes.
The video of the January draw can be seen below and with 130 balls in the bag the winners are:
1st Jon Wilkinson no. 63 £422.50
2nd David Frost no. 24 £316.88
3rd Mark Beard no. 4 £211.25
4th Danielle Critchley no. 53 £105.63
Congratulations to our winners and a big thank you to all our supporters.

200 Club January 2021 Prize Draw

Please find here the EMS Newsletter No.10. It is time for Event Organisers and Scorers to familiarise themselves with the EMS System before hopefully the 2021 season starts.

Other topics in this Newsletter:

Control of your National Licences through EMS
Integration of Cable Wakeboard into the EMS System
Can an Organiser manage his competitions in EMS?
How are Officials (Judges, Scorers, Drivers, Homologators, etc.) invited to the Jury Panel?
How can a confirmed User change the Email address of his Login?
Can a merged operation of Officials or Athletes be cancelled?

As a Competition organiser or Scorer you should have been invited to register on EMS. If not then please contact Gavin on gvnkelly@aol.com.

EMS Newsletter #10

We are staying optimistic that by November social distancing rules will be relaxed allowing us once more to mingle on the dancefloor. So please reserve Saturday 20th November in your diaries. The venue will once again be the Hilton Northampton where we held the very successful and enjoyable event in November 2019. We will provide much more information once we can be sure that it will be able to take place.

We will not be developing our British Calendar after mid February when Covid-19 restrictions may be a little clearer. But the dates for a number of European and World events are already known and we have established that the Combined British National Championships will be scheduled for week ending 15th August at Oxford Wake and Ski.
We all hope that by the second half of 2021 it will be safe for these to go ahead.
• 22/07 – 25/07 E&A 2021 Open : Agrino, Greece
• 31/07 – 02/08 E&A 2020 U14 Champs : Sesena
• 31/07 – 02/08 E&A 2021 U14 Champs : Sesena
• 03/08 – 05/08 E&A 2020 U17 Champs : Sesena
• 03/08 – 05/08 E&A 2021 U17 Champs : Sesena
• 06/08 – 08/08 E&A 2020 U21 Champs : Sesena
• 06/08 – 08/08 E&A 2021 U21 Champs : Sesena
12/08 – 15/08 British Nationals – Oxford Wake & Ski
• 22/08 – 29/08 World 2020 U17 : Pickos Lakes, Florida
• 22/08 – 29/08 World 2021 U21 : Pickos Lakes, Florida
• 02/09 – 05/09 E&A 2021 35+ : Ravenna, Italy
• 13/09 – 19/09 World 2020 35+ : Baurech, France
• 11/10 – 17/10 World 2021 Open : Jack Travers, Florida

All competitors who have held a British Tournament Licence in the last three years and who were members of BWSW in 2020 should have received an invitation to register on the new EMS System. If you intend to compete in Rankings List events in 2021 you will also need to purchase the new IWWF Licence through EMS. This is now live and the links below will give you all the information you need to know.
You will also need a British Tournament Competitors Licence and as already announced any Licences paid for in 2020 will be valid for 2021. The price of a British Licence has not been increased for some years and remains the same for 2021. A reminder about this will be emailed to all competitors later in the year.
It is not necessary to purchase either Licence at this time and of course you can wait until we have a calendar.

IWWF EMS Newsletter 8

IWWF Competitors Licence

It is now two months since Woody died in a tragic accident in the USA and the shock of his loss is still felt by his many friends and family. The recent BWSW Magazine contained a tribute to Woody and his passionate involvement in our sport. Last May Anny Wooldridge interviewed him for a magazine article and parts of this were published as part of the tribute. But the link below will take you to the full interview and anyone reading it will get a real flavour of what Michael was about.

Michael Woodgate Interview