Draft Minutes until approved at the February Board Meeting
Potomac Valley Swimming
Board of Director’s Meeting
Lee-Graham Pool Community Center
7319 Lee Highway, Falls Church, VA 22042
February 6, 2012
· Attendance – Board Members: Riley Eaton, Bill Marlin, Paris Jacobs, Brian Pawlowicz, Scott Bryant, Jim Thompson, Mike Rubin, Bob Vincent and Manga Dalizu. Non-voting Members: Tim Husson, Kurt Thiel, Jim Garner, Bill Stephens and Terri Marlin.
· Call to Order – The meeting was called to order by General Chair, Riley Eaton at 7:10 pm
o On January 16, 2012, Paris Jacobs, Eastern Zone Non-Coach Director, called a meeting of all Eastern Zone LSC General Chairs via tele-conference. The primary focus of the meeting was to determine if there was interest among the LSCs to establish an operating budget for the Eastern Zone.
o PVS General Chair, Riley Eaton, announced that he is now a member of the USA Swimming Club Development.
o There was a High School League Championship meet at Takoma on February 4. According to those in attendance, there was another public safety issue that occurred on the way out of the facility. PVS officers are continuing discussions on what is in the best interest of the association and the continued use of that facility.
· Action Items
o Approval of January 9, 2012 Meeting Minutes – Motion to approve the minutes from the January 9, 2012 Board of Director’s Meeting, seconded and approved.
o The Diversity Chair has asked the board to provide support to a Club- to take their swimmers as part of a PVS team to the Black Heritage Swim Meet in Cary, North Carolina on May 25-27, 2012 ($3,645) – See Proposal –
§ Because the Diversity Chair was unable to be present, the Admin Chair, Paris Jacobs spoke to her and Eaton, earlier in the day, regarding this proposal and how best to proceed. Both Jacobs and Eaton had concerns issuing a check to a team that is in financial trouble within the association. After further investigation; however it was determined that the funds are not to be used directly for the Team A but for other items related to the meet; such as the bus rental, kick off BBQ, and other meet related activities. In the past an individual has personally paid for these expenses and then been reimbursed; however the PVS Controller, John Ertter, explained that he was uncomfortable writing a check for these expenses to an individual and felt it better to run the money through a club.
§ It was ask if PVS could directly pay the bills for the various expenses instead of writing a check to a club or an individual.
§ Motion to support the funding for the Black Heritage meet in the sum of $3645, seconded and approved.
· According to the information presented, it said that up to 100 athletes will be participating. The questions was raised “What if there are more than 100 that apply? How will they chose the swimmers attending?
o Last year there were about 85 swimmers who attended the meet, so they felt 100 was a reasonable number to cap the team with.
· Another questions was asked, If the entire Team A is planning on attending, how does this affect the total number of 100?
· At this point there seem to be a number of questions unanswered and while the board agrees that funding the meet is a good idea, they would like to have the answers to some of the above questions before agreeing on the way to issue the funds.
§ Motion to table further discussion regarding the allocation of funds and team membership, until the March BoD meeting, seconded and approved.
o Request from the Diversity Chair to cover the cost to bring in Anthony Ervin for the Going for Gold Clinic being held at the Wilson Pool in April.
§ Motion to approve the funding for bring in Anthony Ervin for the Going for Gold Clinic for the total of $2000, seconded and approved
· Who is this camp/clinic intended for. According to the Diversity Chair’s report there are 50 athletes invited and room for 50 Learn to swim athletes.
o A concern was raised as to whether or not this clinic is intended for all members of PVS or if it’s primary target audience is the swimmers in DC.
· Some felt that it is great that there are people in this area that are looking to run camps/clinics for the Diversity population. While PVS may not be able to do everything, we can at least help pay for such programs.
o Awarding of PVS Meets for the 2012-2013 season – see chart of teams recommended to host PVS meets.
§ A team that has run meets for PVS in the past has expressed that they are not longer interested in running meets for PVS in the 2012-2013 season. In addition to a number of other teams Team B has submitted bids for nearly all meets on the PVS schedule.
§ Motion to approve the Clubs recommended by the Senior Chair to host PVS meets for the 2012-2013 season, seconded and approved.
· There was a discussion regarding a concern of Team B’s ability to properly staff larger meets with both Officials and volunteers. While there was some concerns, there were several Officials in attendance who expressed that they felt Team B was getting better at the staffing of meets and don’t feel there should be any concerns.
· Reports
o Executive Director – See report submitted
o Athlete Representatives – No report submitted
o Administrative – See report submitted.
§ Website privacy – There was an email that went around over the weekend to some members of the Board concerning the posting of the meet backups and results on LSC websites. According to USA Swimming the files and swimmer’s identifying information in questions were accessible to anyone even without having the Meet Manager or Team Manager Programs. Jacobs spoke with USA Swimming and discovered that breach of privacy had to do the way the reports were formatted. She had them check the files on the PVS website and they said that all of PVS result files were correctly formatted and no personal information was able to be seen by outsiders.
o Inclusion/Diversity – see report submitted
o Webmaster & Technical Committee – see report submitted (Technical)
§ Addition to the Webmaster report – As the swims officer and member of the Times and Recognition Committee, Tim will be attending a USA Swimming Eastern Zone Conference in April, along with PVS Registrar, Sumie Emory and Administrator, Terri Marlin.
§ Tim reported that the PVS radios are getting lots of use and not only for PVS meets, but also club-sponsored meets and now even high school meets.
§ As the Technical Chair, Tim Husson is very pleased with the response to the enforcement of the 4 hour rule for sessions with 12 & U events. There have been several meets with timelines longer than acceptable; however the meet directors have been extremely cooperative and solutions have been found and the issues resolved.
o Finance/Accounting – See report submitted
o Operations
§ PVS rented out several sets of equipment out this past weekend. For the set at Virginia HS Regionals, one of the pads apparently worked while the meet was running, but not before or after. That pad has been tagged and will be looked at and repaired if possible.
§ FISH also ran a meet and they had a few minor issues.
§ The Operations Chair, Brian Pawlowicz informed the board that we are still looking towards having Carrie Tupper from University of Maryland to take over at the equipment manager as of June 1. Carrie assures them that she has the space and interest to take this job. Pawlowicz and John Ertter are continuing discussions relating to compensation for this job.
§ Pawlowicz and Dave Crocker have been communicating regularly about all of the upcoming meets and anticipating the upcoming needs for equipment.
§ Sectionals meet announcement is now posted. OME is almost ready and will be going live on February 10.
§ Mike Rubin commented that he tagged a few pieces of equipment as well and has contacted Pawlowicz by email with equipment issues.
§ Tim asked if the CTS 6 that had problems at the January Open has been corrected. Pawlowicz noted that Colorado has been contacted and a message was left, but have not received a response as of the meeting.
o Senior Swimming – see report submitted
§ IMX – A combination of PVS and Takoma equipment was used to run the IMX meet. It all worked great. Apparently Colorado was out to Takoma several weeks ago and serviced all their equipment and it is currently in good working order.
· The only issue was during set up Friday night meet management was notified that no one was able to sell concessions during the event. The DC Wave team had previously been allowed to run concessions for any of the events at Takoma; however the DC Government has regulations against any entity selling anything on site. The Aquatics supervisor indicated that they are working with the DC Counsel and hoping to have this issue resolved for future events in the facility.
· There was on unregistered athlete who swam in the IMX meet; PVS Admin is aware of it and will take care of it.
o Age Group Swimming – see report submitted
§ IMX meet ran great. Talked to several coaches who were questioning the number of NTs in the meet. Would like to see the meet manager and Club Development or Age Group Development clear this up in the future.
· IMX meet manager, Bill Marlin, commented that most of the No Times were due to the fact that many coaches misunderstood the qualification process. Because of the wide spread confusion, USA Swimming allowed these swimmers to swim if they had not swum all their events in one season. If a swimmer was missing an event from this season, but has swum it last season, they were entered with NT. Marlin has strongly suggested to USA Swimming that the qualification rules be made more clear in the meet announcement next year.
o Coaches Representatives – No report submitted
o Officials – see report submitted
o Strategic Planning – no report submitted
· Round Table Talking Points
o Update unregistered teams entering swimmers as UNAT in PVS Meets
§ Over the past several weeks the PVS Admin Chair has become aware of a couple of clubs in the area that have decided not to become registered USA Swimming Clubs. They are having their athletes registered as UNAT USA Swimming Athletes, so they are allowed to sign up for meet. While it is legal to be an registered UNAT and still participate in meets, these athletes are attending meets without a USA Swimming Coach-Member.
· There are now at least 2 “Y” teams in Potomac Valley that are currently operating this way. While they are not doing anything illegal, they have been told that this is not the best practice. During multiple conversations with members for these teams it was discovered that the primary purpose of all of this is for the swimmers to participate at PVS JOs.
§ Additionally there are apparently parents that are now going through the certification process to become a certified, registered USA Swimming Coach-Member, even though they do not act in the coaching capacity. These parents are able to display coaching credentials and are gaining deck access. In talking with other LSC’s this is far spread across the country.
o Audit Committee Report -
§ The Audit Committee, Ed Dona, Mark Eldridge, Nick Campbell and Bill Stephens, have had multiple recent conversations regarding some concerns regarding the roll of the PVS Audit process. They want to make it clear that they are not concerned with how the actual finances are handled by the treasurer and controller. They all feel very confident with their ability and how their jobs are handled. The Audit Committee will be meeting again in the next few weeks and discuss how they feel the Audit Committee should be run and will submit their ideas to the board at a later date. One primary concern is the continued relationship with the Audit Company Sarfino and Rhodes. The Audit Committee feels they should have a good working relationship with the Auditors; however because PVS has been with the same company for about 10 years most of the interaction is between the Audit Company and the Controller. The goal is always to make sure that the organization is protected and that proper check and balances are in place. The people who do the finances need to be protected and PVS must make sure that no one can point a finger at anyone and the Audit Committee needs to provide assurance that everything is being handled properly.
· Old Business
o PVS Camera policy - At the last meeting there was a discussion about camera being behind the blocks at the January Distance, and the enforcement of rules, it was further discussed at the Officials Committee. There are members of The Officials Committee who feel there should be some discretion of the meet referee regarding the enforcement of this policy and doesn’t feel that PVS should enforce a “zero tolerance” policy.
§ At the Virginia Regional meet this past weekend, there was a picture taken from right at the blocks, the picture was published in the Washington Post and was a terrific picture capturing the entire feel of the meet.
§ Eaton believes that all of our Officials have common sense and ability to know if/when there is an issue; however the Officials do consistently ask for PVS to following the rules as they are stated and expect all rules to be followed to the letter.
§ Some concerns were expressed that this philosophy may pin one official against another. Each meet referee will have a different idea on what they think is appropriate and not appropriate and will cause an inconsistency from one meet to another.
o Riley asked that the Official’s Committee, if they still feel there should be discretion that they continue the discussion and come back to the board with a proposed change.
· New Business
o USA Swimming Safety Poster Contest – The Safety Education Committee from USA Swimming has decided to hold a poster contest. A poster, 20x24 multi-media piece of art should be submitted to the LSC. On Feb 15 the LSCs are supposed to send out information about the poster contest to its membership. The information and timeline of due dates will be included in this web posting. The final judging will take place at Olympic Trials, All finalists’ art work will be displayed and the visitors will be able to vote on it.
§ The PVS Safety Officer, Kurt Thiel, will take care providing all information to go on the website and will take care of collecting the posters and scanning them into and sending them to USA Swimming.
o AG Chair, Manga Dalizu expressed a concern regarding the hospitality budget PVS Open meets when a site it shared. He feels that there should be discloser on the amounts.
§ It was explained that in fact there is a set amount budgeted for all PVS hosted meets that all meet director are to follow. This amount is listed in the information produced by the controller, John Ertter. However there is no requirement for how much clubs can or should spend at club hosted meets.
o Eastern Zone Meeting, is schedule for May 11-12 in Ft. Lauderdale. Eaton will be contacted those he feels should be attending.
o The April meeting will be held April 16 to discuss the budget.
o The GC teleconference within the Zone focused on the concept of a Zone Budget. Currently the Zone doesn’t have a budget or a way to make money, one of the items at the Zone meeting will be whether or not the LSC supports the concept of a Zone budget.
§ The Zone is largely varied amongst it’s population, financial needs, how they look at different issues (i.e. diversity).
§ If this passes, the Eastern Zone would be the first Zone in USA Swimming to have an established budget. If it is created the budget would be set up much like it is on the LSC level, with a voted treasurer position and will following all guidelines set forth by USA Swimming.
§ There is some support from those in the LSC who have been involved and have run meets for the Zone and or other high level meets.
§ The LSC was charged with 1. Deciding whether or not they as a group endorses the concept of Zone level establish budget and 2. List 5-7 initiatives that the LSC would like to see the Zone initially support.
§ At various round table discussions with members for the Eastern Zone, there are members who feel that the EZ has a responsibility to help teams who run Zone level meets.
§ Motion that PVS endorse the concept of an EZ Budget pending further discussion, second, approved (1 opposed).
· Date for next meeting Monday March 5
· Adjourn