Surfing contest postponed?

[John Etherton]

Seriously? This is tragic, and feels all too typical. Someone needs to explain marketing to those guys.

John Etherton
+1-404-578-1606
john.e...@gmail.com

On 09/19/2012 02:19 AM, liberia...@googlegroups.com wrote:

 ATTENTION!!! 4th Annual Liberian Surfing Contest has been POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE...

Kwepunha Retreat <danco...@gmail.com> Sep 18 01:51PM -0700  

After having a meeting today with the local surfers regarding the contest,
they decided to postpone their event until Surfing is recognized in Liberia
by the Ministry of Youth & Sport.
 
At Kwepunha Retreat we wholeheartedly respect this decision and are excited
to help the local surfers accomplish this goal! We will have more
information soon regarding possible fundraisers and solutions to help raise
money to establish the Liberian Surfing Federation. Any ideas, suggestions
or contacts are always welcome. Thank you all for the support and sorry for
any inconveniences this might cause.


 

[Kent Bubbs]

I would have to agree with John on this. If these guys ever want the
Ministry of Youth and Sport to support them then they need to build
the industry to a point where it makes sence for them to put in
funding. Everyone just gave the MOYAS the opotunity to have the
perfect out. If you don't have an event then there is nothing to
sponsor.
Kent

On 9/19/12, John Etherton <john.e...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Seriously? This is tragic, and feels all too typical. Someone needs to
> explain marketing to those guys.
>
>
> John Etherton
> +1-404-578-1606

> john.e...@gmail.com <mailto:john.e...@gmail.com>

>
>
> On 09/19/2012 02:19 AM, liberia...@googlegroups.com wrote:
>> ATTENTION!!! 4th Annual Liberian Surfing Contest has been POSTPONED
>> UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE...

>> <http://groups.google.com/group/liberia-expats/t/185a4a2ddbdbd9c9>

>>
>> Kwepunha Retreat <danco...@gmail.com> Sep 18 01:51PM -0700
>>
>> After having a meeting today with the local surfers regarding the
>> contest,
>> they decided to postpone their event until Surfing is recognized
>> in Liberia
>> by the Ministry of Youth & Sport.
>>
>> At Kwepunha Retreat we wholeheartedly respect this decision and
>> are excited
>> to help the local surfers accomplish this goal! We will have more
>> information soon regarding possible fundraisers and solutions to
>> help raise
>> money to establish the Liberian Surfing Federation. Any ideas,
>> suggestions
>> or contacts are always welcome. Thank you all for the support and
>> sorry for
>> any inconveniences this might cause.
>>
>>
>

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>

[Stephanie Altman]

I would also agree with John and Kent. In order for the Ministry to understand the sport and its importance to those who do it, they need to demonstrate why its important and why funding is needed.

[Myles Estey]

Yet, an important question remains: "what to does?"

- - - 
Multimedia Journalist
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[John Etherton]

i wrote the guy back who sent the email to gently let him know that if the surfers decide to post-pone the event to show the MOYS what's up they need to mentor them and show them that's not the way forward. I know it's cool to let Liberians work things out themselves, but if your kid is like, "I'm going to stick these scissors in that electrical socket" you don't say, " we wholeheartedly respect this decision."

John Etherton
+1-404-578-1606
john.e...@gmail.com

[Nathaniel Calhoun]

right? As we know, the younger and more impressionable surfers can get easily swayed by the opinions of the older (cough cough, famous) ones who might be tempted to use the entire opportunity for their own immediate benefit. There's a role modeling tug-of-war at work over there for sure. And "having the sport recognized"? The MOYS has attended several contests, helped get Alfred an academic scholarship and, I think, sent him to another West African country to participate . . . not enough?

Keep giving me things! I want more things!

I surfed one of our better lefts today with some nice offshores. It ain't cotton trees.

[Andrew Hapke]

Me Me Me Me Me Me...

I surfed Long Beach (the New Yorikan one) last week with some Hurrican Leslie love.  The lefts were drainers.  Offshore and delightful.  I like beach breaks, but I like walking back up the point watching my friends surf past me much more...

xoxo

[Kent Bubbs]

From everything I've seen the MOYS is interested in surfing. The boys
need to learn that things don't come easily and they need to prove
themselves worthy of funding. There are a lot of people looking for
sport funding so if they think that it will just be handed to them
then they need to learn that it's not how it works.

Even on a global scale surfing is an insignificant spectator sport
that requires some very savy marketing to make the masses interested.
It aint no FIFA.

Kent

[daniel]

Hello everyone this is Sean and Daniel from Surf Resource Network and Kwepunha Retreat. 
We are the ones who hosted the pre contest meeting and would like to shed a bit more light 
on how everything went down at the meeting. 

First and foremost, we share the same feelings that have been expressed in the group 
and would like to address a few comments and concerns.

We obviously wanted to host the contest this weekend and understand the 
significance of the event.  We completely agree with John and Kent that 
the event is the key to being recognized and that it will be hard to 
obtain sponsors with nothing to sponsor.

Personally, we would not be surprised if this movement was spear headed 
by Alfred.  The pre-contest meeting more or less got commandeered by 
Alfred.  He stirred the group into a bit of a frenzy and got an 
ovation for his speech.  It became apparent that there had been previous 
conversations going on amongst the surfers.

We presented alternatives to postponing the competition and highly 
encouraged those options, but they decided they don't want to have the 
competition "until they are recognized".  We have a feeling it all has to 
due with wanting money.  Alfred has been to bigger international 
contests with larger prizes, cash purses, etc. and is now expecting the 
same from the small grass roots competition. We explained the pros of 
hosting the competition this weekend and the negative effects postponing 
the event would create, but given the context of the meeting and the 
borderline aggressive approach from Alfred, plus the support he rallied 
from the others, we were in no position to make demands on them.  We 
cannot force them to surf, but quite frankly we are surprised they would 
give up the opportunity for prizes and even a small cash sum for the winner.

At the end of the day, the surfers decided they don't want to surf this 
weekend, even if we believe (and know) it is in their best interest for 
their stated goal.  We are having another meeting Friday to try and 
truly get the bottom of their intentions, motivations, and expectations.

This is a huge speed bump for them and we'll do what we can to get them 
back on course.  Any help, advice, or contacts are greatly appreciated.

Thanks and talk soon,

[John Etherton]

Thanks Daniel,

Are there enough non-robertsport surfers that you could just have a smaller contest to keep things going? If the other are offended at still having a comp maybe just have a demo day, or something.

Just a thought.

John Etherton
+1-404-578-1606
john.e...@gmail.com

[Daniel Hopkins]

Right now we haven't heard from any expat surfers that want to be involved and Peter Swen is the only surfer from Monrovia and he wasn't planning on competing in this event either.

We had 35 surfers in Robertsport sign up for the event this year, enough for a mens, womens and junior division and would be happy to set up an expat division if there was interest although last year was strictly Liberian surfers and no expats.

We really want to develop a strong plan for our meeting with them on Friday and possibly share some of the comments from this blog (or at least paraphrase) if nobody has any objections to that? We feel that showing them other perspectives than just our own will help cement the importance of holding this contest regardless of government recognition.

I know that many of the surfers were very excited about the event and appeared a bit upset/caught off guard by last minute decision of a few specific surfers but appeared to just "go with the flow" of the case presented and let those few speak on their behalf. We are contemplating the idea of having a Liberian Surfer "expression session" and will speak with some of them tomorrow to see if they have any interest in taking part.

Thanks for the reply and please keep ideas and suggestions coming!

[Kent Bubbs]

Hi Daniel

It may be a good idea to have a meeting before the meeting with the surfers (Alfred and company) who were the ones who made the decision to not have the contest. I think it will be important for them to realize the ramifications of their actions and that this is not helping the relationship between them and the MOYS. They need to understand that these international competitions have been many years in the works by many people both volunteer and working.

I think they also need to understand that they are hurting the younger generation of surfer in Liberia with their actions. Like you said bellow it was the actions of a few that made this decision so my inclination is to sit with the ones that have this power over the others and try to come to an understanding that the future of surfing in Liberia is sitting in their hands today and they need to be much more strategic in their thinking.

Just my 2 cents.

Kent

[John Etherton]

I always surfed in the comps that I was there for. Why are there no expats now? Is it intentionally to make the event more Liberian, or is the quality of expat in Liberia deteriorating? If nothing else I hope their are some expats around to model proper surf etiquette and undo all that damage Keith did.

John Etherton
+1-404-578-1606
john.e...@gmail.com

[Nathaniel Calhoun]

I always thought that inclusion of expats was a fun element in the competition. Obviously, those view times that we actually had semi-pro total ripper expats around, they wouldn't compete. But signing up to let yourself get beat by some Liberians is cool. There's great bragging rights in it for them and it increases contest visibility while also giving you leverage over contest dates. If expats had been actively recruited, the Liberians wouldn't be able to try these postponement tactics as easily and the fun-loving spirit of the event would be harder to shake off.