Nick Russi, new WMA webmaster, has shown skill at promoting track in his native Switzerland.

Swiss media master is new webmaster for WMA 

By Ken Stone

A four-month search is over, and World Masters Athletics has named the person it hopes will bring the organization’s public relations into the 21st century and dramatically expand its modest presence on the Web.

WMA President Torsten Carlius of Sweden announced that Nicolas “Nick” Russi of Switzerland -- media and Internet manager for the European Athletic Association and a press chief for the Weltklasse meet in Zurich -- is the new webmaster for WMA.

Carlius said: “The work to create our new Web site as well as produce a new WMA logo starts immediately with the aim that the new WMA Web site will be operational from February 1, 2002.”

Russi is an accomplished journalist whose byline has appeared in the Zurich daily Tages-Anzeiger and whose English-language articles have appeared in the newsletter Swiss Athletics Flash. Russi also has served as managing director of the Web-production and design company Mediasprint GmbH in Brittnau, Switzerland.

“WMA is very happy that Nick has agreed to act as WMA webmaster, and we are looking forward to a very successful cooperation the next years,” Carlius said.

In late August 2001, WMA announced the search for its first professional webmaster -- the successor for WMA Vice President-Stadia Rex Harvey, who created the first WMA Web site in June 1998.

“A maximum salary of $500/month is available to compensate the WMA webmaster,” WMA said, adding: “It is recognized that this job, as described above, will be very time-consuming. Anyone applying for this job should necessarily be a fan of the sport of athletics and willing to perform a service to masters track and field.”

WMA, previously known by the acronym WAVA for World Association of Veteran Athletes, has filled up Russi’s plate with more than two dozen specific orders, including registering a new domain name for the Web site, creating a visually appealing site and making it readable in English and Spanish.

WMA in August also set out these responsibilities of the WMA webmaster:

1. Make continuous updates and improvements to the site.
2. Post messages from the president and other Council members, and committees.
3. Seek out and post calendar dates of WMA and other masters events.
4. Post progress reports from upcoming WMA championships organizing committees.
5. Post records (world, regional, affiliate), Championships Records, etc., provided by appropriate organizations.
4. Post entry forms for upcoming WMA championships.
5. Publish training and coaching tips provided by WMA-approved sources.
6. Post current WMA Constitution, bylaws, history and rules of competition, etc.
7. Work with database of verified masters athletes (still to be developed).
8. Post agendas for the General Assembly provided by the WMA secretary (once every two years), and post official minutes.
9. Seek out and post links to other athletics and sponsor Web sites approved by the WMA Council.
10. Create “Store” for ordering related WMA books and merchandise via the Internet (still to be developed).
11. Install translation software purchased by WMA.
12. Install new programs provided by WMA’s IT or other sources.
13. Incorporate WMA sponsor messages into the Web site as approved by the WMA Council.
14. Keep WMA in the forefront of the most recent developments in use of the Internet to reach its constituency of masters athletes worldwide.
15. Post photos. (Photos should be included in appropriate pages but in such a manner that the main page content comes up first and the pictures then continue to load in the background.)
16. Create active links to as many worldwide masters sites as possible, subject to the approval of the WMA Council.
17. Keep close track of site traffic.
18. Promote the site traffic by all means possible including meta tags, search engines and link exchanges.
19. Support banner and other advertising for potential (WMA-approved) sponsors.
20. Post as much daily, weekly and monthly news as possible, provided by WMA sources.
21. Include such features as online rankings, athlete bios and age-grading calculation, combined events scoring, to be provided by WMA sources.
22. Seek out results of World, Regional, Affiliate, and other masters meets when they are published on the Internet, and capture that data and put it directly on the WMA site. (This is for two main reasons. Meet sites tend to disappear after varying amounts of time and speed of loading is very bad on some site servers.)
23. Be prepared to handle a large volume of e-mail input from athletes, meet directors, etc.

A search committee of WMA Executive Vice President Tom Jordan, Oceania delegate Stan Perkins of Australia and Harvey of the United States interviewed candidates for the job.