Draft Minutes until approved at the March Board Meeting

Potomac Valley Swimming

Board of Director’s Meeting

Overlee Community Center

6030 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA

February 9, 2009

Dinner: 6:30

Attendance: Greg York, Jim Garner, John Hirschmann, Bill Marlin, Tim Husson, Jim Van Erden, Corey Wallace, Boots Hall, Bob Vincent, Brian Pawlowicz, Virginia Ratcliff, Tara Banks, CJ Fiala, John Ertter, Dan Jacobs, Paris Jacobs, Art Davis, Bill Stephens and Terri Marlin

Call to Order:  At 7:00 pm by Greg York

Items Requiring Board Action

• Approval of January 12, 2009 meeting minutes: The Board agreed to the addition of athlete rep report and addition of travel reimbursement motion made by Linda Klopenstein to the minutes that had previously been distributed for review. Motion to approve minutes as modified, was made, seconded and approved.
• Policy and Procedure  Amendments: see motions as reported
•  Motion #1: To add new required language in meet announcements for all meets sanctioned or approved by PVS occurring on or after 5/15/09. (source:  Admin Division initiated, based on new USA Swimming rule.) The motion was made, seconded and approved.
• Motion #2: Art pulled this Motion after he had further discussion and clarification with USA Swimming. USA Swimming has clarified that an Age Group record is not an American Record for the purpose of requiring an engineer certified measurement of the pool to validate the record.
• Motion #3: A new order of presentation of P&P was proposed and adopted. The topic of all current policy and procedures would remain in the reorganized material. To remove the PVS Policies and Procedures from showing current status and re-name the section “Policies and Procedures, Under Construction” (source:  Admin Division initiated.) The currently posted P&P would then be put in a separate “Archive” section for reference. The motion was made, seconded, and approved
• Davis clarified that the goal is to update and improve the Policies and Procedures, not do away with them; the current policies and procedures will remain in effect until modified and rescinded by the Board.
• Black History Swim Meet
• Cullen Jones Fee: At the last minute Brendan, from DC Parks and Recreation was able to secure getting Cullen Jones to come in to make an appearance at the meet. He will be shaking hands, making brief remarks and signing autographs.
• Motion: A motion was made to by $6,000 of Cullen Jones appearance fee on behalf of DC Department of Parks and Recreation (DCPR). In exchange for paying this fee, DCPR will provide PVS with a permit for the use of the Takoma Community Center Swimming Pool for the 2009 November Open Swim Meet to be held November 6-9, 2009 at no charge.
• The motion seconded and approved
• Steps are being put into place to make sure this is a secure deal for this year.
• USA Swimming has committed to do whatever they can do to make sure this is a premier event. They are very excited about this and will be here for the whole weekend sitting in the stands and talking to people.
• Hospitality: The Board was informed that the District would not free up any money to do hospitality for officials, coaches and that the Parent’s Booster Club would not do so in connections with their concessions for athletes and spectators.  So PVS has offered to help out with the funding.
• Motion: A motion was made to donate up to $2,000 to the Black History Meet to be sued for providing officials, coaches and volunteers hospitality for the meet. The donation will be made after the meet, based upon receipts. The motion was seconded and approved (one opposed)
• Officials: We seem to be in fairly good shape for the Black History Meet. Several emails have been sent out to the PVS Officials requesting volunteers sign up for the Black History meet and the response has been fairly good. There are also several Officials coming in from other LSC, including Cecil Gordon from Delaware who will serve primarily as a Deck Referee for the 13 & Over sessions.
• Equipment Rental: John Ertter reported that a satisfactory solution has been made with the DC government for them to pay their outstanding bill for equipment rental for the 2008 Black History Meet. He is expecting a check from the city.
• 2009 Budget Proposals and Timetables
• John Ertter reminded the Board that we have 3 months to get a budget together before the May House of Delegates meeting. As with many things when we look back there are always a few things we could have done better. It is being recommended that schedule 2 meetings in the month of March; where in one we do “normal business itemsf” then in the other we only discuss the budget. The second meeting should not be called a Board meeting, but rather a meeting of the “committee as a whole”. Ertter will get a zero based budget ready, assuming nothing changes for that meeting. Some discussion continued including the pragmatics of getting the Board together for an additional meeting. In lieu of an additional meeting it was decided that on April 13 we will have a shortened Official Board Meeting limited to 30 minutes, then have a two hour budget planning session.
• 2009 Swimposium
• It has been confirmed with USA Swimming that since PVS did not receive any funding from USA Swimming for the last Swimposium we held in 2007, we are eligible for funding from USA Swimming for 2009. Paris Jacobs indicated that she is prepared to oversee arrangements for the lanning and preparations of a Swimposium. The board endorsed having a Swimposium in the fall of 2009.
• Are there any other New Initiatives for the inclusion of the PVS FY 2010 budget?
• Two items were brought up for consideration for next year budget: 1. Open water swim clinic (part of Swimposium or separate)        2. Open water pool swim POW (Pool Open Water); “PVS” to host two of these type of meets
• PVS Equipment Operations & Rental Program Update
• The trailer (which was approved at the January 09 BoD meeting) has not yet been purchased. Ertter wanted to make sure that both PVS and anyone driving and pulling this trailer would have adequate insurance. Risk Management says there is no separate insurance policy available. Accordingly PVS may have to severally restrict who can actually tow the trailer. Although PVS has some insurance that may cover an individual assisting PVS as a volunteer, the primary responsibility for the person pulling the trailer will fall upon the individual’s personal policy. If it is a PVS contractor pulling the trailer then PVS is more likely liable. The plans are still on track to purchase a trailer, however it was agreed that the insurance issues needs to be satisfactorily worked out and completely understood first before the purchase takes place.

• USA Swimming Membership Registrar’s Workshop being held in San Diego, CA; April 3-5 – Terri Marlin has been asked to attend.
• Disability workshop: being held at USA Swimming in Colorado Springs, April 3-5; Bill Marlin has been asked to attend since neither of the PVS Disability Co-Chairs are able to attend.
• Diversity Workshop; being held at USA Swimming in Colorado Springs (checking on dates) Corey Wallace has been asked to attend.

Old Business

• USA Swimming Convention: A Motion is made to reimburse a PVS coach who attended for their registration fee for the USA Swimming Convention, it was seconded and approved.

New Business

• Fairfax County Grades: Athlete Rep report from the January Board meeting was sent to Dave DiNardo, as Scholar-Athlete Chair, who has agreed to do whatever the Board recommends. (Note: Fairfax County subsequently decided to change its policy starting with the 2009-2010 academic year; however Loudoun county still has a policy similar to the current Fairfax County practice.)
• SLEEP 2009: Athlete reps ask that PVS to post the Fairfax County Public School survey on the PVS website. It was discussed that it is important that everyone in Fairfax County fill out the SLEEP 2009 survey, it is the only information the Fairfax County School Board will use to show who is for and against the SLEEP Proposal. The webmaster will be given the information to post on the web site.
• PVS equipment is being rented to the Fairfax County HS Northern Regional’s Swim Meet being held at Oak Marr; they will also like to rent the two 4 line scoreboards and a single line event board, because the in house scoreboard is not longer operable nor practical to repair. There was some concerns expressed and discussed about whose responsibility it would be if the scoreboard were to get damaged.
• Motion: to allow FCPS to rent the two 4 line scoreboards and the one line event scoreboard; it was seconded and approved, with 1 opposed.

• Eastern Zone Meeting in Ft. Lauderdale
• Who will attend: Greg, Riley, Bill (both as part of the EZ Technical Committee), Art, Terri, Paris as part of  Zone staff and  Boots at the Eastern Zone Secretary, all other board members are welcome to attend at their own expense. The other possibility attendees…Dan, Manga, Tim, John Ertter, Bill Stephens
• Travel Assistance:
• For the Maccabiah Games: we will table this until the March meeting to wait to hear from our Travel Assistance chair so she can explain the history of the PVS travel assistance for this meet. PVS has one swimmer and one coach participating in the meeting in Israel. (Two others are listed as potential alternates)
• The amount of travel assistance for the 2008 SC USA Swimming Junior Champs was decided at the May 2008 HoD meeting; however this was several month prior to the cuts being announced by USA-S. The cuts were slower than expected; therefore the number of PVS athletes who attended was greater than anticipated. The total amount initially budgeted was determined by multiplying the number of expected qualifying athletes (12) by $250, so that $3000 was set. Since the cuts were slower than expected more athletes qualified and attended, thus it was recommended that the total amount be increased to $7500. Competition Committee recommended $7500 at the October 08 meeting, which would give a full $250 share to up to 30 swimmers. There was concern from some members of the Board that a precedent of increasing the amount budgeted for a specific meet after the annual budget was approved by the House was being set. Others noted that this meet had to be budgeted just after it was announced and before the QT’s were known, therefore making it difficult to budget. It was concluded that this fact would be reflected in the minutes, so that action on this particular meet is not viewed as setting a new precedent.
• Motion: A motion was made to authorize an increase in PVS Travel Assistance money from $3000 to $7500 for the December 2008 SC Junior National Meet. If the increase is fully utilized it will result in an $4500 over expenditure of the budget which was approved by HOD at $3000. The maximum reimbursement per athlete will remain at $250. This motion was made after reviewing the number of PVS athletes who competed in the meet which was significantly great then in previous years. The motion was seconded and approved. [Notice to the House was given prior to the February BoD meeting that this was on the agenda.]

Reports

• Athlete Representatives: nothing new to report other than what was brought up under new business.
• Executive Director: see reports submitted: The auditor’s report (also see letter from the auditors) came back clean, however if anyone has any additional questions, or if the Audit Committee would like to meet with the auditors, PVS will set up a meeting.
• Administrative: see report submitted
• Webmaster: 
• all PVS forms are now available on the PVS website
• Black History; posted the psych sheet and sessions reports, will be moved to home page to give the meet more recognition.
• CTS can now be upgraded to use a USB port for printers, but will require an upgrade
• PGS & LC equipment: worked well at Jan Open, Tim not overly about concerned the equipment.
• Working on updating many of the forms on the website so more things can be submitted online.
• Finance/Accounting: see report submitted
• Operations: no report submitted
• Senior Division: see report submitted
• Age Group Division:
• Brief discussion with GMU about Zones for Summer 09, waiting to hear from them.
• Motion made to approve the detailed qualification criteria for 2009 SCY Zones. The criteria pertain exactly which times are eligible for consideration. These will be the same as used in 2007 and 2008 except for the specific dates. Motion includes that all times for Zone consideration are from 9/1/08 up to and including the cutoff date for the age group (14 & U Champs and Sr. Champ (15-18).  It was seconded and approved. (include link to website)
• Coaches Representatives: get write up from Manga
• Officials: See report submitted and letter from EZ Officials Chair regarding Certification Meets.
•  Just wanted to send a quick reminder to the coaches; that it is the coach’s responsibility to tell the referee about swimmers with disabilities.
• Strategic Planning: no report submitted

• Next BOD Meeting: March 9, this is between Jr and Sr Champs. The April 13 meeting will be a 30 minute formal  BoD meeting, the remainder will be to work on the PVS 2010 Budget). The 13^th is the Monday after Easter
• Motion for Adjournment 9:39 pm. Made, seconded and approved.