Dear NSAA Members and Junior Nordic Families,

Just as we share good news with our members, we need to share bad news as well.

We are announcing today that $150,000 collected by our on-line payment company, Count Me In, has not been received and could be lost due to financial difficulties noted by Count Me In.
 
Count Me In, based in Bellevue WA, has provided NSAA reliable on-line service for the past three years. However this year it has failed to meet deadlines for sending us funds which NSAA members and Junior Nordic participants paid on-line. Assurances were made that payments would be made weekly until the company was again current. No payments have been received to date.

Count Me In officials have not responded to repeated calls or letters. We have confirmed that many other organizations across the nation are in the same situation as NSAA.  The Board of Directors of NSAA is working with local and Seattle attorneys and will pursue every reasonable option at getting our members' money back.

As soon as the problem became apparent, NSAA ended our use of Count Me In and moved to another on-line payment provider.  The new on-line service, Sign Me Up, has worked for NSAA taking race and event registrations in the past. We set up our new contract with Sign Me Up to safely transfer donations to our bank account on a daily basis. 

Registration for second session of Junior Nordic ski lessons will be done with a paper application available for download on the Junior Nordic website or at the NSAA office.
   
The good news is that thanks to generous support from our members and the foresight of our Board, we have maintained sufficient cash reserves to continue our operations uninterrupted. Activities such as trail grooming, the Junior Nordic program, and the U.S. Cross Country Ski Championships in January will go on as planned. 

We will continue to be frugal and we believe with our reserves and the continued support of the Nordic community we will have a great season of world class skiing and world class events.

Sincerely,

Jeff Scott, Board President
Diane Moxness, Executive Director
Nordic Skiing Association of Anchorage

12/2008