I am a bit confused. The rink dd skates in uses the usfs basic skills curriculum, but it does not have a club. DD has a usfs membership # from those bridge classes. So how does that all work? The clubs in the area all have 5-8 different rinks in thier club. Can we join a club that has rinks that we only skate at only 3 or 4 times a year and still take lessons at the rink that does not have a club?

Her USFS number will remain the same no matter what club she belongs to or what rink she skates at. It is her number for life. Even if she stops skating, no one else will be given that number, and she can reactivate it years later. She can even join more than one club, although one must be designated her "home club".

Yep, I have the same USFSA and ISI numbers from 15+ years ago... despite a span in there of not skating at all for an entire 10 years.

Your club affiliation doesn't mean much in terms of taking basic skills classes.. you can do that anywhere. Your "home" club may have other special offers and benefits though.. each one seems to offer something a little different.

When my daughter was in the 'heyday' of her skating career, she had a full membership with our local club (easy to get the test chair to sign forms when she was her main coach too!), a synchro membership with the club that sponsored the team, and an ISI membership so that she could skate/have lessons on the only ice time her secondary coach and ice dance coach had available.

Oh my goodness, that was a lot of money we spent on skating back then!

Now, she has a college membership, doesn't have to pay for ice time, and we get billed through her tuition for her ice dance lessons - which she can pay with a scholarship!

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blades, gary, Lucy, Emily, take care of Aiden and Sami. Sami is my sweetest heart, and always will be, forever. RIP Cubby Boy, my hero dog.

I've had my USFS number since the mid-80s. As a kid, I actually had it memorized before my social security number .

You also don't have to actually skate at the rink you are a home club member of.

Usually there are perks to being a home or associate club member at various rinks once you are out of learn to skate and taking private lessons (ice time or walk on fees are cheaper, you don't have to pay extra out of club fees for test sessions, you can skate in the club's show and participate in other things the club does, you get priority over non-members for test sessions or walk-ons at club sessions, etc). That works out well for some people who skate at the same rink at the same time every week.

My schedule is pretty hectic, I'm able to take advantage of city ice at several rinks (where club membership doesn't matter), or one club is really cheap to where non-member fees for walk-ons or punch cards actually cost the same as home club at my home club rink. I basically joined my home club when I moved back to this area because it's geographically closest to where I live, a few years ago when my life was less crazy it's the only rink I really skated at, and it's my coach's home rink, so when I was testing a lot of dances, that's where I tested. I will most likely change it next year once I sort out my schedules and when/where I will be skating, right now I'm looking at 2 different clubs (one where I tend to skate on their club sessions a little more often than anywhere else, but I hear that rink may close. If that happens, there is another club that is very supportive of their adult skaters and the club officers are always really nice to me when I do skate there.)

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2010-2011 goals:
Pass Junior MIF test
Don't break anything

I'm sorry. I'm still confused. If I join the club (there are 6 rinks in this club) can DD skate for the rink with no club at competitions? How can you be a member fo 2 clubs? Can the club accept people who only occasionally skate at their rinks? We only go to the other rinks when our rink closes for the summer.

When you join a club, you skate "for" that club - that is, when you skate at competition, you are announced representing that club. But of course you can enter competitions at rinks you don't skate at and sponsored by clubs you are not a member of. Otherwise, you'd only get to compete once, maybe twice a year at competitions sponsored by your own club.

You can belong to as many clubs as you care to pay membership fees to. But only one of them will be your "home club", the one you represent at competitions. At the others, you would be considered an associate member. People generally join the club at the rink they spend the most time at, but you don't have to. If it benefits a skater more to join a different club, they can do that. Some clubs have requirements about how much time you have to spend on their ice in order to be a member, but none of the clubs in my area do that.

In big cities, it's not unusual for a club to buy ice at many different rinks. Is that the situation where you are? it gives their members a chance to skate club ice at a rink nearest to them. The club designates one of the rinks as their "principal headquarters", but can hold test sessions or competitions at any of the other rinks depending on ice availability.

Skaters do not represent rinks, they represent clubs. Clubs do not "have" rinks, they buy ice at rinks. A rink can be said to have (that is, provide ice to) a club. (Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but the important distinction is that it is the club that counts when testing or competing, not the rink.)
Only one rink can be designated as the "home" rink, and no other club can claim that rink as "home".

Because there is no club at your primary rink, when your daughter competes now, at the Basic Skills level, she is representing the Basic Skills program that she is a member of, which happens to be at the rink where she skates. If she were to compete at a higher level (beyond Basic Skills), she would have to have either an individual USFS membership, or join a club. Sometimes skaters buy a full membership in one club and an associate membership (cheaper) at another club in order to get the benefits from both. It sounds like your local club has ice at so many rinks that you would only need membership in one club. One reason your rink may not have a club is that it may not have enough skaters beyond the Basic Skills level to support a club.

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That being said there are still a few clubs that own their rinks - Skating Club of Boston, Detroit Skating Club and Philadelphia Skating Club and Humane Society being three of them. (I know, Too much information!)

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Is Portland the only city with it's own ice-dance website? http://www.pdxicedance.net/

Your USFSA membership, which gives you a number for life (had mine since the late 1970's) allows you to register as a member individually or at one, and only one, skating club. If you want to join more than one club, you join as an "associate" member. That membership has fewer privileges at that club (typically: you can't vote for club officers) but it's less expensive.

In the days when we wore bone blades, it wasn't unusual for a skater to belong to one "home club" and two or more "associate" clubs. When freestyles were bursting at the seams, the clubs would limit how many times "guests" (ie. non-members) could skate. It has benefits today for test sessions and competition entries, but the skater has to compete for their "home club."

I've seen a lot of startup clubs being set up for a single rink lately, I think to give the club a sense of community. When a club has skaters from three different rinks, it loses some of that team spirit. However, the sarcastic NY'er in me thinks that the new club management just didn't get along with the people from the prior club presence. It only works if the clubs can hold the 25-member requirement, otherwise the old club folds and their skaters just join the new one.

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I getting the handle on this. In addition to the tangible benefits (those stated on the club's "why join a club") are there any intagible benefits to joining a club?

Definitely not TMI! Thank you! I had no idea.

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lol..there are too many fees in the US. In Canada we join a skating club pay our fees to just one club (skate canada only costs under 20 and often the sections will have a small fee and perhaps the clubs have an admin fee. This usually costs under 50 a year) and can skate at any other club we wish to (unless sessions are full) Some clubs buy on or ticket ice is a wee bit more if you are not a home club member. Your home club may also charge a fee if you dont skate there but want to retain your home club status. (my brother kept home club status with a club he stopped training at. They made him pay 100 a season but he often got money from the club for reperesenting them at various qualifying and national level competitions.)

LOLOL! (*wipes coke off keyboard*)

Some clubs do have a better "reputation" than others, as far as the competitive abilities of their skaters goes. So, when your skater hits the ice and is announced as representing one of those clubs, the judges might just sit up a little straighter in their chairs to see if your skater is one of the club's good ones. She might just get an added nod or two from a judge here and there. If you have a club in your area that consistently turns out high level competitors, and you don't have any other reasons to join another club, I would join the one with the best reputation.

That being said, there probably are better reasons to choose a club. Most clubs conduct holiday shows and special clinics that are open only to their members. They also have parties and such. Your skater likely will want to participate in the club where she knows the most members, or where your coach teaches the most members. And, there are also club jackets to consider--some people do choose their club affiliation based on how nice the club jacket is. It does feel nice to don that club jacket for the first time.

Thanks for your honest opinion. Since figure skating in general seems, for lack of a better word, political, I'm glad someone addressed this.