The USCA Needs You!!

 There appears to have been a spate of legislation regarding our sport and our craft lately. Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Connecticut have all had stirrings about changing PFD rules, and New Hampshire is making noises about requiring boat registration for small craft like ours.

 We need you to help us identify things like these when they come up, and to help us communicate our position to those who are in a position to affect legislation.  Many (I dare say most ?) people in state legislatures have little or no idea about what it is we do, and how we do it, when we compete.

 We need to educate them.  Perhaps we need to compose a position paper explaining the ins & outs of PFD needs in conjunction with marathon canoe and kayak racing.  Once we have something like that, we need to get it to those ins state legislatures who seem to think that they know more about this topic than the US Coast Guard.  I think a personal appearance by your President and/or Executive Director would not be out of the question if circumstances called for it.

 The USCA just is not always aware of what is transpiring until it is too late for us to mount a campaign.  We need you to be our eyes and ears in your local state.

 Second, we need you to help us with contact names, with helping us to make contact with these individuals, and to help convince them of our expertise and of how many people we represent.  Remember, just because we may have only

25 – 50 YSCA members in a given state, there may be many times more marathon paddlers in that state.  We represent them all when it comes to the interests of marathon canoe and kayak racing.

 In fact, by our rules, when someone competes in an event that the USCA is covering by its insurance, all of the participants are one day USCA members.  So, technically, we have many, many members in almost every state of the union except Hawaii and Alaska.

 Help us create a committee to monitor and influence state and local legislation regarding the regulation of our sport.  If you are a delegate, please speak to me or our Executive Director, John Edwards and let us know of your interest.  If you are not a delegate, please contact us and we may be able to help set up an action committee in your state in this regard.

 Larry Liquori,
USCA President