World Water Skiers Foundation

World Water Skiers Foundation
The World Water Skiers Foundation was set up as a Not for Profit Organization to: promote, market and advance diverse worldwide participation and excellence in the sport of water skiing through education, competition and innovation while upholding the principles of fair play. The WWS Foundation was started in 2019 by Jaret Llewellyn and David & Tom Grey. The group held deep concerns over the sustainability of the sport, which stemmed from the fragmented nature of waterskiing. The unfortunate result for the sport is little growth and a trend of losing relevance in today’s culture. The WWS was created in the belief that tournament Water Skiing needs to adapt to the fast pace of today’s technological world.

In an attempt to unify the sport, WWS prioritized the presentation of a modern face for the sport by creating a new website. The website would embrace waterskiing around the World at all levels from Grass Roots to the Elite competitive skier. The aim of the WWS was to create a  website, where you can find information from all countries around the world and waterski communities of all levels without going to numerous websites, a characteristic that no other organization offers. Yet, due to the limited resources WWS currently has, it will take time to achieve this ultimate goal. The WWS website has only been live for just over a year but can  boast:

• Over 1000 skiers that have created profiles.
• A further 500 registered non-Skiing members.
• A Calendar of all 3-event tournaments (see ours here) in the US.
• A collection of all Rankings List and Record events around the world.
• Details of over 500 Ski Sites (a number that is continuously growing) in various Countries.
• Results for all IWWF events, linked to Athletes profiles, Competitions and Ski sites
• IWWF Rankings Lists
• New Items and other Articles and features of interest.

The WWS wants to encourage skiers at all levels to go to the website, to create an account, and to fill out their very own profile. Upon creation, skiers can add photos, videos, news articles and a plethora of general information about themselves.

Likewise, any club or organization that wants to embed any of our 'iframes' on their website pulling back information from the WWS Data Hub about their Ski site, Members profiles, Competitions and results are welcome to contact the WWS and will be provided the necessary code to be able to register their club/organization, completely free of charge. An example of this can be see at https://worldwaterskiers.com/site/USAS0001/

The WWS has also been developing other services that will hopefully be useful to the various Waterski Federations around the world. The first of these initiatives was launched last year in conjunction with Waterski Canada. WWS built a new membership platform specific for the sport, which has now been in use for over a year.
The membership platform is already available for integration into all federations and the WWS also hopes to be able to adapt the platform so that it can be made available to Clubs and other Waterskiing Organizations. WWS has also created additional programs to be able to create a competition, take Skier Registration, produce a Participant list and, in due course, score the event. The WWS tournament management system will allow event organizers to improve the efficiency with which they log information and share said details with participating skiers, officials, and viewers. It has been intentionally built to conform to the variety of rule formats that different countries and federations currently use. 

Although most of the WWS resources are available for mobile phones via the Web App, one of the top priorities is to build a Mobile App. Because of the extensive database of Athletes, Competitions and Results within the WWS, we hope with a newly developed App, the WWS will be able to send notifications to viewers regarding athletes and results that water ski enthusiasts are interested in. The WWS aims to cover all events around the world, meaning that the notification services will not be restricted only to skiers participating in a national event, but any event world-wide.

World Water Skiers are also looking to put on a signature series of competitions and with major sponsor’s support. The Series was due to be launched last Summer, but because of the travel restrictions being imposed because of the pandemic, the maiden events had to be put off till later this year. Look for announcements on this within the next few months.

WWS has been funding this endeavor for over 4 years so we have had to keep the team small and prioritize projects. So much is available now to the community but there are so many incredible ideas to be built out which will strengthen the platform. Some donations have come in and we are totally humbled by your support. Now is time for engagement, the more the community uses the platform, the more it will grow. However you feel you can contribute to the WWS team by the way of time or financial support, we will dedicate 100% to rebuild the sport that we can all be proud of. https://worldwaterskiers.com/donate/
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