The competition has ended, and we are left with the echoes of applause for all the skaters who took part. That leaves us needing to offer up some thank yous so we’ll start with the competitors, without whom we’d be sitting around staring at the ice. We had such a wide span of levels and ages, it was a wonderful event to watch. We were especially thrilled to host some Special Olympics events with some wonderful competitors and for the first time we had Theater On Ice and Synchro events too, with critiques provided by National Synchro and TOI Judge, Pam Pangle. So to all of you who swallowed your nerves and stepped on the ice in front of the crowd and the judges, thank you; you rock! And to parents of our younger skaters, thank you for giving them this opportunity and bringing them to our competition!
Our officials traveled from around the country to come to the Magnolia Open and judge, operate the IJS system, referee, and run the technical panel. Officials don’t do this for money; they do it for the love of skating and donate many weekends every season to supporting our skaters. To all of you, thank you!
Delivering an event takes a village and all of those villagers are volunteers who donate their time to make a special event for our children and our adult skaters. To the phalanx of volunteers who donated food and beverages for the hospitality rooms, or who gave of their time to announce the events, play the skaters’ music, run results around, staff Registration, move heavy boxes and furniture around, decorate the rink, and many other tasks, we thank you. Our shared love of figure skating turns a slab of frozen water into an smooth competition and we could not do it without you all.
Particular thanks go to Tea Junnila and Lori Malthaner, for whom this event is their organizational swan song. These ladies have been the backbone of our Local Organizing Committee (LOC) for our competitions in the last few years and there are no words to convey how much we appreciate everything you have both done for the club. Paul Detwiler and Todd Pettigrew have been understudying Tea and Lori during this event, and with help from Nikki Belmonte (who also managed our volunteer corps) made this event remarkably smooth, and we look forward to you leading the team for the Atlanta Open.
We hope that you enjoyed your time with us and hope to see many of you at the 2022 Atlanta Open (more details coming soon), or next year at the Magnolia open again.
Over and out!
