Winter is here, best time of year, come on along sing a Skating Song…(New deals and donations requested)

Winter is here, best time of year, come on along sing a Skating Song….First on the ice we go slipping and sliding and then we fall down and go merrily colliding, come on along sing a Skating Song…..

Today we see there are new deals on the table/ice for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, coming to the Greensboro Coliseum, Saturday January 22-Sunday January 30…..These look like some pretty good offerings/deals, much in line like the family four-pack, that has been used by the Coliseum for basketball games in previous years, and in particular for the ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament….

Here is the new deal and is this a sign that ticket sales are lagging????? CLICK HERE to read all from today’s N&R and again the deal is on the slate below….

Get four tickets, T-shirts and four Krispy Kreme Arctic Avalanche Sundaes — that’s the latest deal from the U.S. Figure Skating Championships to drum up sales for three senior championship sessions.

A news release from the event organizers Wednesday said that fans can buy the package for $125 to any one of the following:

Championship Ladies Short Program, 7:15 p.m., Jan. 27
Championship Men Short Program, 7:30 p.m., Jan. 28
Championship Pairs Free Skate, Championship Free Dance, 10:45 a.m., Jan. 29

The rest of the story, may even be the BIGGER STORY……

According to a front pager on the cover of today’s News and Record, Guilford County is now being asked to provide $40,000 worth of EMS and other support services free to the skating championships….

This request is coming in to the Guilford County Commissoners less than two weeks, before the U.S. Figure Skating Championships are set to begin….Board of Commissoners Chairman, Skip Alston, said that the board will listen, but on such short notice, he doesn’t know what they will be able to do……

The meeting is set for tomorrow(Thursday) and the Skating Championships Director Hill Carrow said, that the request is basically just asking Guilford County to sponsor the championships……

Carrow said that he has been trying to get in front of the board of commissioners for a year and a-half, but now he has finally gotten a meeting/chance to stand before the board, less than two weeks prior to his event…..

The City of Greensboro is already on board with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, with the city donating police and fire services for the event, which comes out roughly to the same amount that Carrow and his group are requestig from the County, $40,000 worth of services….

Skip Alston said that $40,000 is a lot of money in these tough economic times and that his board will need to think hard and look closely, before making a decision….Carrow and the Skating Championships group, feel that they have been delayed and put off by the County already for an extended period of time….

You know the old saying, about how “they keep putting me off and puttting me off” and then before you know it, it’s too late do anything……

Will the Guilford County Board of Commissoners step up and help out, or will the U.S. Figure Skating Championships be skating on thin ice, if an emergency breaks out during the event, at our Greensboro Coliseum?????

Should the county help out? Why not, the city stepped up and this is a joint event that benefits both our city and the county regions……Let’s unite with matching funds/funding……Hey, we’re going to be on National TV, why not go all out??? We’ll probably never see the likes of an event such as this again and if we do and in 2011 we do not have universal cooperation, next go-around, we may have to hold the event at the small rink downtown near the Central Library…..You know, the Joey Cheek Outdoor Arena…….

8 thoughts on “Winter is here, best time of year, come on along sing a Skating Song…(New deals and donations requested)

  1. Am I the only resident of Guilford county who does not understand why all of these coliseum sponsored events always tell us how wonderful things are and then at the last minute ask for subsidies? When will we ever learn that the only person that benefits from these projects is Matt Brown?

  2. This comes across as more than just a Coliseum event….This has our entire community name written all over it…

    Remember last year with the cold weather and the snow and they were trying to get the Civil Rights Museum downtown open and how they brought in all the City Workers on the Sunday all day and then that Sunday night before the Monday opening and they scraped the streets up and down Elm and along February One Place and then they even dried the streets so the water wouldn’t re-freeze and the City Workers were on weekend time which equals overtime and Skip Alston and our other forward thinking leaders didn’t have any problem with that work being done, but maybe there was money appropriated in the County or City budget for those type of emergency services…..(They called in workers from other parts of town, had them leave other parts that were being cleaned/serviced and told them to get downtown.)

    For the opening of the Civil Rights Museum it became a National Event and for the opening of the Civil Rights Museum they made sure everything was right and that everything was in place…It was cold outside there on that Monday, but the people in charge of that Museum opening got everything they wanted and more….

    What is wrong with the doing the U.S. Figure Skating event at the Coliseum the right way too??? This will also be reaching a large National audience and we want this event to come across in the best possible manner, just like those at the Museum opening wanted for their event…

    Maybe we can get some of the Emergency Services personel to donate their time….For a few tickets and some parking passes and some Free Food some of the current or former EMT’s ought to be ready to do a triple-axle and get on out to the Greensboro Coliseum….There are many different ways to make this happen and the 11th hour deadline that we are facing is not the best possible scenario, but the County and the Guilford County Commissoners need to step up and help out…..

    We ought to call Debbie Thomas and see if she couldn’t put out the good word to make this go through with the Commissoners and our chairman…..Debbie has always been a forward thinking person in life and in her skating…..

    Any other opinions, mine can’t be the only one, but for now it is the best one, cause I’ve got the goods(Info and case history)………

  3. Is Matt Brown (Coliseum Director) still the highest paid city employee? I know he used to be…….

  4. With the type of weather we’ve been having lately, there’s got to be a slush fund out there somewhere……

  5. I was doing some thinking about that yesterday, during my thought process about ice events at the Greensboro Coliseum….

    How long has hockey been gone now from the Coliseum???? When did it leave, 2003?

    If the fans want to see real hockey they are going to Raleigh to see the Hurricanes….They’ve got the NHL All-Star game there this year too….

    We don’t have enough marginal hockey fans to support minor league hockey around here….Once people saw the real thing with the NHL, it was over for minor league hockey…..I read a lot of Charlotte sports and I never see anything about the Charlotte Checkers on the Charlotte sites…..It is a dead topic….It might still be there, but nobody is talking about it…

    Baseball works, because all we have in this state is minor league baseball….

    A slush fund would benefit minor league hockey too, but the slush would be gone quickly, because it would melt….Minor league hockey is gone and the old days are over, we can’t go back there again….If you want to see hockey, pay the frieght and go to Raleigh and watch the Hurricanes….

    If you want minor league hockey, go over to Lake Brandt or Lake Townsend Saturday morning, they should hit the ice at about 8:15………

  6. 1. Matt Brown is still the highest paid City Employee. But he is getting close to 20 years with the city. He is doing the job he was hired to do by the elected and un-elected officials that run this city.

    2. As for Minor League Hockey, I’m still dropping a dollar or two into PowerBall and MegaMillions so I can blow it all on bring back minor league hockey to Greensboro. That is what it will take – several million dollars over several years.

    First – While the coliseum might be a good place to host Minor League Hockey, as Jimmy MacMillian says “The Rent is too DAMN High.” The Generals could have been successful; but the coliseum controlled the advertising as part of the reduced rent. While most events in the coliseum use the Curtain regularly, the cost is the same whether you seat 10,300 or 23,000.

    Second – The ECHL over extended itself and is in the process of contracting. Teams that were barely making it are going out of business and the ECHL requires teams sell/transfer for at least $1 Million. The buyer could buy a team for $1; but have to pay the league$999,999.

    Third – Burned Out Fans. The Monarchs were a good family value any day of the week; but when the Generals returned in their place, prices had gone up. Baseball is successful because a family can go for the same price as a movie. Greensboro Hockey with parking and $3 water was too much.

    Whoever brings Hockey back to Greensboro will do so with a Strong Hand. Matt Brown will be working for hockey (and not against it). They will control all aspects of the coliseum – from ticket prices to concessions. Weekday games will thrive because of low prices and weekend games will be the place to be (again).

    Don’t forget $1 every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. That all it takes.

  7. The problem is not so much Matt Brown’s salary. People in his position and with his tenure demand that type of money….

    The problem is all the salaries underneath Matt Brown….Way too many administrative assistants making big bucks….

    You have the same problem with the Guilford County Schools system….Money at the top for the big man, Maurice Green sure….But way too many administrative assistants underneath taking home big dollars for sitting around and doing nothing….

    We need to re-access the overall framework….We criticize and complain about the top, but it is all that fat underneath the top level that is killing us….

    Too many administrative assistants at all levels….You pay a man or woman $150,000 a year, then get that much work out of them….They don’t need a load of high paid helpers right down below them doing their work, with them and for them….

    We need to start cutting before the Spring season, when the yards will need cutting/mowing….

    I.Matt Brown
    II. One administrative assistant
    III. Marketing/media person
    IV. Secretary…..
    V. That’s it………1-4 and that is your staff……

    Lock the money box…………There is your staff and bring on retired people for parking lot and security duties and pay them the minimum….Most of them are just standing around and not doing anything any way…..Just looking over the situation…..

  8. ‘Winter is here, best time of year, come on along sing a Skating Song…’ I know these lyrics, too, so why is this the only page that comes up when searching Google?

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