JAM Brands Judges
Dan Kessler, co-owner of the JAM Brands, sent the following email to judges on July 16th:
Dear Judge-
I would like to introduce myself to many of you. My name is Dan Kessler and I’m a co-owner of The JAM Brands. I’m contacting you to share some information on judging for this upcoming season.
I hope by now you know about The JAM Brands and what we are trying to do in the industry. If not, simply put, we are trying to produce the very best cheer and dance competitions…period. With that being said, we are looking for your help this season. Once again, we are looking for professional and qualified judges for each and every brand within The JAM Brands team.
We are currently working on finalizing our “judge information” for this season. We invite you to spend the season with The JAM Brands and want you to save any available judging weekend/dates for The JAM Brands companies. Please note you will still work with your “normal company” (i.e. if you judge predominantly for one company) first, and if your schedule allows, you will have the opportunity to judge for other JAM Brand companies. We have nearly 200 competitions this season across the U.S., so please save your weekends for The JAM Brands!
In addition, we are working on a JAM Rewards Judging System that will benefit you for committing to The JAM Brands and/or a specific company as a whole! More information will be coming soon regarding this system.
The company or companies that you judged for last season will contact you very soon to confirm your schedule. I look forward to having you involved with The JAM Brands team!
Thanks,
Dan Kessler
Co-Owner
The JAM Brands
Cheersport Judges
Debi Larson of CheerSport has sent an email to her judges letting them know the judges link is up.
Coincidence?
Late last week Jeremi Sanders, the JAMfest judging coordinator, sent an email to all of his judges letting them know he would soon be sending information on the events they were confirmed for the remainder of the season. Apparently one of the judges is a friend of COA because today COA’s staffing coordinator, Stephanie Palombi, sent an email to the exact same list of people, looking for additional judges. Coincidence, I doubt it.
Thank You Too, Dan
Dan Kessler of the JAM Brands was feeling the love for his judges on Tuesday, as the following email notes:
Hello-
I wanted to take a moment during this busy season to drop a note to all our judges (yes this is a mass email). I wanted to say THANK YOU!!! Thanks for the time, effort, professionalism, and hard work. We really do appreciate everything that you do for us. Sometimes we might get too busy at a competition as we hand out a check real quick to get you on our way and for us to get back to the final awards, to say thank you. So I wanted to take the time today to say we really appreciate your hard work. It does not go unnoticed or unappreciated. So again, thank you!!!
As I hope you know we (Aaron, Emmitt and myself) are making a substantial push in the cheer and dance industry to provide the very best products. Thus the reason we formed our new parent company, The JAM Brands. What we have done with the JAM Brands is we have acquired great partners, GSSA 1 Spirit Championships (Tammy Van Vleet), Great Lakes Championships (Sherri & Jim Wargnier and Heather Mills) and Coastal Alliance (Serena Andres, Dimi Kosmakos and Jeanne Vance). We have made a substantial impact in the industry thus for this season and we are hoping to be able to offer even more here soon.
For me personally working on this growth has meant less time “communicating” with many of you. As you know we did not want the judging process to suffer for you. Thus the reason we hired a great judging coordinator in Jeremi Sanders. He has done a tremendous job and he will continue to provide that great personal contact with our office (along with our event coordinators) that is important to you. We want to continue to work hard to make sure your time “dealing” with any of our companies is as smooth as possible.
Should you ever need anything please know that I am here. I don’t want you to think since we are acquiring all these companies and growing that I’m not able to talk to you, it is just the opposite. Yes Jeremi is here to make sure all is well and things go smooth for you. But I’m always going to be here, not just because many of you are my friends, but also because I want to make sure that The JAM Brands is a great place to judge.
So as we continue on this season with great events all over the country, please know that all of our staff here at JAMfest and The JAM Brands thank you for all your hard work and dedication to “getting it right”. Please continue to work hard for us, represent us with professionalism, and enjoy your time with us. As we look forward to a great future I hope we can continue to work with you.
Cheers!
Dan Kessler
Co-Owner
The JAM Brands
The Cheer Standard
I’ve heard repeated requests for more standards in cheerleading; standard rules, standard score sheets, standard scoring grids, standard floor types, standard floor colors, standard floor sizes, and so on. I think some of these requests, such as standard rules and floor sizes, are valid because they provide basic boundaries for cheerleading, much like the rule books used by football or basketball. Other requests will lead to the demise of creativity and originality in cheerleading. And please don’t tell me all of the standards will help to legitimize the sport when right now the World’s most popular sport doesn’t even have a standard field size for the World’s most popular sporting event.
The more we standardize the more we move towards everyone having the same routine. Gone is the originality and creativity that made cheerleading beautiful. Why not just imitate the short program in figure skating and give each team a list of elements they must perform and see who does it the best. Gone are the difference that allowed a companies like Cheersport and Jamfest to grow from nowhere in 10 years. Let’s say we started standardizing things 10 years ago. All*Stars would not have levels (which would be fine with me) or be using spring floors because Cheersport, the company that really made these popular, was just a baby 10 years ago. All*Stars would not be competing on a 9 panel floor or with 35 people. What makes us think we have it right now?
What was wrong with having a cheer in the routine? Has this diminished UCA High School and College Nationals. What was wrong with with having Semi-Finals and Finals? Has this taken away from the College Championships? Why can’t NCA All*Star still have the Challenge Cup and give away Worlds bids. Why are we limiting our ability to evolve by saying every bid competition must be near exactly the same? If we continue standardizing the only differences between competitions will be the dates and locations.
Simply put, there is no standard of perfection in cheerleading. Why are we trying to artificially create one by standardizing unnecessary elements of cheerleading. Does may preference for Stunts and Pyramids take away from the beauty of Flipping, Twisting, and Dancing? Does my preference for Cheersport take away from the prestige of NCA? I don’t think so because it is just my opinion, a personal preference, a single opinion. Shouldn’t each competition have its own flavor? Shouldn’t there be choices in cheerleading? Shouldn’t each company be able to go back to what made them different, unique, and special?
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