Did you go to college, and realize how much you miss skating? Well, it’s not too late to transfer to Excel University!

The Team Excel Collegiate line, jokingly referred to as Excel University, was created in an effort to provide skaters with the opportunity to pursue synchronized skating after high school. All too often, skaters sacrifice their passion for synchronized skating to pursue their education, or skaters sacrifice their education to keep skating. At Team Excel Collegiate, we combine the best of both worlds by allowing skaters to continue to skate competitively, while attending the college of their choice.

Team Excel Collegiate is unique from other collegiate teams because we accept skaters from any college or university in the New England area. This year, our team represents Brandeis University, Bridgewater State University, Brown University, Cape Cod Community College, Curry College, Emerson College, Johnson and Wales University, Merrimack College, Rhode Island College, Roger Williams University, Stonehill College, UMass Amherst, UMass Dartmouth, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The only requirements to skate at the collegiate level are that the skaters are full-time students, and have passed Juvenile MIF. Therefore, we even have a graduate student, making our age range 18 to 27 years old.

Having an intercollegiate team definitely has its advantages and disadvantages. Certainly, starting the team was easier since we had the whole New England area to draw skaters from, instead of relying upon the population of skaters at one school. Therefore, we were able to attract synchronized skating veterans as well as skaters who were passionate about continuing to skate, but hadn’t ever tried synchro before. However, because the skaters attend different schools it is sometimes difficult to coordinate schedules, set up carpools, and have the skaters come back for practices during break. We also do not have school funding, so we are very invested in fundraising to keep the costs down.

Unlike the other lines at Team Excel, the Collegiate line is managed by the skaters. In our first year, we have two team managers who split up the administrative, clothing, and on-ice matters. We also have many subcommittees, such as the fundraising committee, which have their own set of specific responsibilities. Running a Collegiate team requires a lot of attention to detail, problem-solving, commitment, and help from others! It isn’t an easy feat, but with the help from teammates and the other members of Team Excel, all of the tasks involved with running a team can be easily achieved.

This year the Collegiate line is skating to Slumdog Millionaire, and our program has been beautifully choreographed by our extremely talented head coach, Megan Walsh. We recently competed at the Colonial Classic, and we look forward to see where the rest of our debut year brings us. Our next competition is Easterns, and would love for you to be there to cheer us on!

Team Excel and The Skating Club of Boston are excited to host the inaugural Boston Synchronized Skating Classic. The competition will be held on Saturday, March 27, 2010 at the Skating Club of Boston. The Boston Classic will offer competition in the Beginner 1, 2, and 3, preliminary, pre-juvenile, open juvenile, open collegiate, and open adult divisions. We are pleased to be a part of the Eastern Synchronized Skating Challenge Series. This competition is one last chance to earn points for your team!

In addition to the competition, we are offering two clinics led by Merita Mullen, Director of Team Excel and coach of national medal winning and US world synchro teams, and her coaching staff. Team Excel and Merita believe that synchro is built from the ground up, and we hope these two clinics will introduce new skaters to the sport and foster a greater commitment to the sport in introductory levels. In keeping with the mission statements of both Team Excel and the Skating Club of Boston (found here and here) we hope this competition, along with the clinics, will promote and encourage the sport of figure skating and synchro, and help prepare skaters for a future on nationally competitive synchro teams.

Prior to the competition (at 11:00) we will hold an Intro to Synchro Clinic for Basic Skills skaters (Basic 3 or higher). This clinic is intended for skaters who have never before tried synchro. They will be able to spend 45 minutes on the ice learning the basics of synchro and then watch the competition, as admission is included in the clinic fee. Parents of clinic participants can also purchase discounted tickets at the door the day of the competition.

At the conclusion of the competition, we will hold a complimentary synchro clinic for competition participants and their coaches. We hope that your whole team will be able to participate, but individuals are welcome even if the whole team cannot stay. In addition, coaches are invited to stay for the clinic, with or without their team’s participation.

Team Excel is excited that the 2010 Boston Synchro Classic is a competition devoted to the foundation of the sport of synchro. Team Excel and SCOB are proud to have a solid base of volunteers with many years of practice in hosting successful competitions but we welcome any other ideas that would help to improve your team’s experience at our competition. Details about the competition and entry forms can be found at our website. Questions can be directed to Deanne Benson, Competition Chair, at info@bostonsynchroclassic.org.

We look forward to seeing you on March 27!

Krista Benson is a member of the local organizing committee for the 2010 Boston Synchronized Skating Classic and the Team Excel coaching staff.

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Team Excel is very proud to present seven synchronized skating teams during our very first season! We are fortunate to have a Synchronized Skating Director with a focused and thoughtful vision who has set organizational goals; an amazing coaching staff and off-ice trainers who prepare the skaters on- and off- the ice; and really great skaters from more than eighty dedicated families.

And as everyone will tell you, “All you need for a great skating team is the coach, the skaters and the ice!” Right?

Well ...

There are also the outfits: formal competition dress, formal practice dress, travel outfits, practice wear. Who fixes it when competition dresses arrive with the skirts on backwards? ...

And transportation: how are the skaters getting to the competition: plane, train or automobile? Who are the people movers on competition day? ...

And the care and upkeep of skaters: who is arranging to feed and care for 20 skaters when practice ice is a 7:30 AM and they compete at 9:30 PM? ...

And finances: How do we create and manage a budget in the spring providing sufficient ice and coaching for each team to prepare for national and international competitions? ...

And competitions? We have volunteers with expertise, but do we have the facility and support to host a competition in our very first season? ...

Finally, what about the future? What lies beyond the blush of the first year? How can we be a viable, strong and growing organization focused on synchronized skating for years to come?

On Team Excel, off-ice support of the coaching staff and skaters is separated into 3 main groups:

• We proudly represent The Skating Club of Boston at all sanctioned events. The Skating Club of Boston has been generous and supportive from day one in both their Boston and MetroWest facilities. The Skating Club has helped us to host a Synchronized Skating Summer Camp, invited us to Friday night exhibitions, included us a holiday showcase and, excitingly, assisted in the planning of the first Boston Synchronized Skating Classic on Saturday, March 27 to be held at The Skating Club of Boston.
• The Board of Team Excel focuses on long-term planning, strategic issues and executive decisions that will impact Team Excel for years to come. They run the organization as a non-profit 501c3 and work to ensure that the executive business and the vision of the Director of Synchronized Skating are synergistic.
• And who is lucky enough to answer the rest of these questions and thousands more? The Steering Committee! The Steering Committee performs all the daily support and operational functions for the coaches, teams and families.

The Team Excel Steering Committee includes the Director of Synchronized Skating, a Committee Chairman, 8-12 Subcommittee Chairs and individual Team Managers. Monthly meetings cover ice schedule and performance planning, competition and travel logistics, publicity and public relations, competition and team clothing, finance and fundraising, rules and policies, and updates from each team and the coaches.

The Committee Chairman facilitates the monthly meetings, coordinates cross-organizational efforts, helps elucidate barriers so that they may be removed, and takes on additional tasks where needed. The Director of Synchronized Skating brings both the on-ice perspective and more than 20 years of synchronized skating experience to the meeting. The voting members (of which, the Director is one) have the final decision on operational matters.

The Skating Club of Boston, The Board and the Steering Committee complement one another in important ways from support, stability and years of experience all the way to successfully managing team performance events. This is all done in the context of the Director’s vision to have a singularly focused synchronized-skating organization combining synchronized-skating experienced coaches, trainers and supportive volunteers with developing skaters and teams in a nurturing and value-based training environment.

I am interested in hearing from other synchronized–skating organizations. How do you manage your day-to–day, team-to-team logistics; how do you get all the work done while ensuring that you are focused on the vision of your organization? We’d be interested to know and happy to share what information we could to promote the sport of synchronized skating.

Stay Warm,
Nicole

Nicole Castro is the mother of a Team Excel Juvenile skater and a Team Excel Beginner skater and the Chair of the 09-10 Team Excel Steering Committee

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Last spring, I decided to follow my vision of a synchronized-skating focused organization that would combine synchronized-skating experienced coaches, trainers and supportive volunteers with developing skaters and teams in a nurturing training environment as the goal. It is my dream to be able to make detailed and specific decisions for my synchronized skating teams – in order to provide them every advantage to perform successfully and to the best of their ability.  To realize that dream – I needed equally strong support both off and on the ice.  To that end, Team Excel was created with a singularly focused Board of Directors and Steering Committee to help me make organizational decisions based on the well being of synchronized skaters and teams.   On the ice, we benefit from having older accomplished skaters mentoring and nurturing younger skaters, inspiring them with personal passion and excitement for our sport. Volunteerism is what supports a synchronized skating organization  and I feel strongly that this philosophy should apply to the skaters as well. The competitive synchronized skaters of today, are the technical specialists, judges and coaches of tomorrow.

A devoted, smart, supportive and large group of volunteers donated their personal talents to help me realize my vision. We were prepared to be an individual member club but were generously approached by an established and well-respected club to join and represent them.  We were able to affiliate in a manner that allowed for the support of a generous skating organization, while enabling the synchronized skating teams to have their own  voice.  The vision was coming to life.

Tryouts blew me away. Over one hundred skaters auditioned for my new organization Team Excel, representing The Skating Club of Boston. I was overwhelmed with the response. Numerous graduated skaters and family members came to assist in that process. My vision was validated and I was touched to my very soul.

We work very hard!  The Preliminary and Beginner teams learn teamwork and developmental-level yet quality synchronized skating elements and transitions.  The Juvenile, Novice and Junior teams are being challenged with difficult IJS programs. (Yes, even Juvenile as they must be prepared to be Novices and Intermediates.)  I have many supportive senior skating mentors: Lee Ann Filosa, Nikki Sullivan, Ally Bejma, Domenica Fuller, and Melissa Delano.  I do not ask – they simply appear at practice to work with the teams at all levels.  What a gift to the skaters of Team Excel!  My own daughter Katherine volunteers as off ice-dance choreographer for Juvenile and Novice. Many people contribute in many ways.

Team Excel had our First Monitoring and Competition this past weekend. I had butterflies. It was our debut! Junior Monitoring was very satisfying. Not much work to do!  Megan and I were relieved.

Then at the Thanksgiving Classic, hearing "and now, representing the Skating Club of Boston, Team EXCEL" as my Juvenile team took the ice absolutely gave me goose bumps. It gave life and breath to all of the support, the hard work, and to my vision. We won our first 2 Team Excel medals in the Juvenile and Beginner divisions. I was approached by so many coaches and synchronized-skating friends who wished me and my new organization the very best. I was touched by their kindness and consideration.  Synchronized skating really is a community and I love my community.

Reflecting on the competition, I thought to myself: "OK, here we go." We have much work yet to do, but who doesn't at this time of year? We are on our way, and eagerly working toward whatever comes.  Megan, Kristin and Krista, I am proud to have you on my Coaching Team; we keep each other going and laughing.  Skaters of Team Excel:  Great job, first time out. Let’s get to work!