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To: Athletes, Families, Volunteers, and Friends
From: Neal J. Johnson, President & CEO
Subject: 2009 Summer Games |
Since my last communication, our organization continues to face economic challenges. In that letter I mentioned that our organization has had to budget expenses to match a very conservative fundraising outlook. To continue to ensure that we meet our financial needs, we have had to reduce our organizational expenses by more than $1,000,000, including reductions in our operational expenses, personnel costs, and unfortunately, we now have to change the shape of Summer Games. This proved to be very difficult, knowing we were going to disappoint a lot of people.
This year's Summer Games 2009 will see a reduction in the total number of athletes by 35% and only one day of competition. With a smaller time frame for competition, making this reduction evenly across every sport brings a number of events to a level where quality competition will not exist. To preserve a portion of our larger events, we moved the allocations from some of the low participation sporting events. We also needed to keep in mind that with one day of competition, our larger events would not be able to sustain full participation while maintaining quality competition. With that said here is what events will make up the 2009 Summer Games:
Aquatics - 100% participation*
Athletics - 85% participation*
Basketball Skills - 100% participation*
Basketball Team - 80% participation*
Bowling - 0% participation*
Gymnastics - 0% participation*
Powerlifting - 100% participation*
Tennis - 100% participation*
Volleyball Skills - 0% participation*
Volleyball Team - 0% participation*
*based on 2008 Summer Games Participation
I appreciate your understanding during these unprecedented times. It was with no great ease that these decisions were reached. The reductions to Summer Games were made very carefully and strategically. In spite of our economic environment, we look forward to the great competitions we will see all around the state this spring. It is essential for us all to do what we can to continue moving forward with our mission. I would ask each of you to explore ways in which you can help support our athletes. Thank you for all you do. |
