COLORADO BASS FEDERATION

PRESIDENTS PAGE 

PRESENTED BY      Valentine Marine

Presidents Update

On January 15, 2011 I was able to attend a special meeting with all the state federation presidents and New BASS Owner Jerry Mckinnis. Below you will find notes I took at that meeting. I walked away from this meeting feeling very good about BASS and the future ahead. I hope you feel the same way.

Thanks for being CBF members.

Jay

Special Presidents Meeting

Jan. 15, 2011

Orlando Florida

1)      Introduction to Jerry Mckinnis

a.       Jerry said he has no agenda except to listen to us.

b.      One of three new owners (With Don Logan and Jim Copeland). He gave us his history, from Missouri, he fished and played Pro baseball. He met Forest Wood as a guide on Bull Shoals when he was 18 or so. He moved to Arkansas, and helped Forest start Ranger boats. He felt the boat thing would not pan out, so he started another career on Television doing outdoor programming, in Connecticut. This little network became ESPN. The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. 

2)      Thoughts on BASS Conservation and ESPN

a.       Jerry says that whatever our negative perception of ESPN may be, they did a lot for bass fishing with exposure. He started the FLW for ESPN2 when it came on the air. ESPN approached him last year about buying BASS.  He says he is firmly committed to making BASS work. Quote, you will never see anyone in this position work his butt off so hard, to make this work. 

b.      At the foundation he sees the federation. He sees us having a incredible influence on conservation

c.       Jerry  Introduced  Noreen Plough who spoke to us briefly about the new BASS and conservation. She wants to have a meeting with conservation directors as soon as she can.

3)      BASS Insider & the Website

a.       He is in the middle of pulling the website out of Disney, and rebuilding it. There will be a dedicated portion to the federation.

b.      He doesn’t like the idea that you need to pay extra to access BASS INSIDER. He wants to do away with paying to access INSIDER. 

4)      Sponsors, Lowrance

a.       He wants to see sponsorship change, to increase, and when it does, we have a lot more leverage. Toyota is renewed for three years. Pure fishing, and Bass Pro and many more have been renewed. Every single existing sponsor has been renewed.

b.      Lowrance, this ended up on Jerry’s to do list. Lowrance promised Jon Stewart current pricing information before this meeting. There was some discussion that the TBF got a better discount than BASS. Whatever the discount is, Doug Ohara stopped responding to Jon Stewart and we do not have current information. Jon will give all of us information as soon as he gets it. Don’t think Jon is ignoring you. Out of all the state federations, only 4 or 5 said they got any cooperation out of Lowrance. That includes BASS not getting cooperation. 

c.       BASS is working on sponsorships with Sunglasses and battery companies.  When BASS was part of ESPN, potential sponsors were approached as part of ESPN, so BASS was only a small part of the conversation. Now as a separate entity, we are the only presenter for sponsorship opportunities.

d.      Bass Pro Shops is back and BASS is trying to create a member discount.

5)      TBF

a.       His vision is to see one federation in five years. Not that he has a plan to “take over” TBF, he just feels natural attrition will dissolve both federations into one.

6)      Growth through Youth & Social Networking

a.       Jerry is on Facebook. Averaging 100 new “friends” a day. 

b.      He wants to see us pull 10,000 high school students into BASS.

c.       Jerry interacted with individuals trying to see if we can create a model for high school involvement.  He wants 4 or 5 states to submit an outline as to how they went about including high schools into BASS. They will combine these into a master outline for states to follow.

d.      Jerry wants to bring casting kids back. Many states are still doing casting kids. The thoughts are it opens doors, provides a way into boat shows, starts conversations. Maybe it isn’t a avenue for kids to convert to adult anglers, but it is a conversation starter.

7)      The Opens

a.       Jerry feels we need to change the system so the elite fishermen are not risking their careers and their families future in order to fish. 

b.      Jerry really wants to bring opens to the west. He wants to sit down with western presidents to make this happen.

c.       We spent almost an hour one on one with Jerry and the Western Presidents talking about proposed locations and formats. We also discussed the impact we felt this would have on Western federation membership

d.      IF we do this, we may have to do some unique financial work and figure a way to make it appealing to Western anglers to make the effort to go to the opens. We have the advantage that federation members have a first shot at open entries. If we play it correctly, we could gain members in our state federations simply because they want to fish the opens and have an advantage in the entry process through us.

e.      Again Jerry seems committed to bringing the opens to the West, stay tuned

8)      State Teams, & Nationals

a.       Apparently we were much closer than I thought to loosing nationals. So much so that no location has been chosen for this year.

b.      Jerry attended Nationals held November of 2010 in Florida, and was impressed with the event.

c.       He feels the Nationals should stay and he said we will make this happen, and he wants to grow it much larger.

d.      Much discussion ensued about  having the kids on the state team. Pressure to perform, and fear of being on large unfamiliar water etc. Opinions went both ways, we need to teach the kids to handle that pressure, others felt they should not be there if they can’t handle it. 

9)      Promoting the Benefits of BASS

a.       BASS is our road to the classic

b.      30% Berkley discount alone, would pay for your membership.

c.       Local competition, learning better techniques, magazines solely on bass fishing.

d.      Kids, keep the kids interested in something wholesome.  Give them an avenue to organized sporting events. 

e.      Saving habitat, combining with one of the largest voices in the nation.

10)   The “Hot Button” How to Keep Old Members & Attract New Members

a.       After Lunch we spoke more in depth about the BASS brand. If a old member who is not interested in competition is on the fence about rejoining, what can we do to convince him we are worth his money? 

b.      Jerry expressed that we are missing that issue, the “hot button” , that will bring these members back.

c.       Discussion ensued that we don’t have the hot button, and we need to create it.

d.      We need to re-brand ourselves through ad campaigns on the internet and other media.

e.      Although we receive a large number of website hits in searches about bass fishing, we need to create the presence that anything related to fishing must be related to BASS.

f.        Much the same way Nascar has dominated  “Stock Car Racing”.

11)   Splitting the Western Division

a.       I told the Colorado federation that at nationals I heard this, and it actually seemed to be getting some traction. Well if it had traction then, it has racing slicks now.

b.      Jon wants all of us to submit a plan on how we would split the west up.

c.       For the purposes of this proposal, nothing is off limits, and the reality of a seventh classic spot is very close, and we should figure seven divisions for this scenario.

d.      Consider the international divisions in this proposal, those being Italy, Mexico, Japan, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Ontario will stay with the Eastern division since they are a active federation who attend divisionals regularly

e.      Consider  reworking  the whole nation also.

f.        Why is Mississippi in the Central not the South? Why is Iowa in the North and not the Central.

g.       For this purpose, Jon will e-mail out a map of how the nation currently is divided.

h.      Understand, that this is still a ways off, but we are being asked for our input, we need to step up and help BASS reconfigure at least the West.

12)   Brandon Palinuck “Living the Dream”

a.       The Idaho president came up and gave us a rundown on Brandon Palinuck, the 2010 Nationals winner from Idaho who has elected to join the elites.

b.      He is a young man with a lot more dream than resources, but he is a excellent representative for the federation.

c.       He is the epitome of the dream. He comes from a modest home, has won his way into the classic. He wants to fish competitively, and Idaho is trying to help him any way they can.

d.      Idaho asked us for contributions to help Brandon pursue his dream

e.      Asking for contributions is great, but no one has any idea how the money will be spent.

f.        We all want to help the guy, but this program is very loose and the possibility that our money would be wasted or misused is very real, especially without any accounting or visible management.

g.       We did get some commitment from BASS that they would try to provide a spreadsheet showing how much they are looking to raise, how much entry fees are and what it really would take to sustain one competitor for a season on the road.

h.      Jerry was very interested in this and feels this would be a squandered opportunity for the federation if we ignore this kid.

i.         Hopefully we will see a quasi business plan come from this which shows, who will administrate the money, and how it will be spent. Then we can decide if and how much money we want to give.

j.        Brandon’s immediate need is to fund $3500 to $5000 to wrap his boat. The wrap will advertise the Federation Nation.

k.       Jerry said he was going to find a sponsor to help Brandon. Jerry has a lot of connections, I want to wait and see what he can accomplish on this before we commit some of our treasury which took us 6 years to accumulate. 

l.         Too many unanswered question exist to commit federation money at this point.

m.    Paul Sacks was the only president  to pony up $100 on the spot. 

n.      There were also thoughts of taking one dollar of our BASS federation membership and devoting it to a fund to help any nationals champion if they elected to live the dream.

13)   The BASS Staff

a.       Cudo’s were given to Jon and Stacy, who even with killer schedules and being on the road many weeks of the year, they continue to answer e-mails and handle federation business.

b.      We did put the bug in Jerry’s ear that they need some help. A Secretary, administrative assistant, federation aide or liaison, whatever you want to call the position, they need some help.

14)   The Final Verdict

a.       Jerry Mckinnis presents as a down home kind of guy. He isn’t much for glitz, and seems at home with all of us.

b.      He really presents as being genuinely concerned for our well being, and wants to see us succeed.

c.       He also seems ready and apparently able to change the processes and impediments that have kept us at bay for so long.

d.      He says all the right things, and you can tell his concern is genuine. 

e.      Again, stay tuned, the next year should be very interesting.