Meeting minutes
approved at the October BoD meeting.
Potomac Valley Swimming
Board of Director’s Meeting
Video/Phone Conference
July 15, 2014
· Attendance – Bill Marlin, Tim Husson, Brad Bowser, Bob Vincent, Manga Dalizu, Jim Garner, Greg York, Mike Rubin, Steve Menard, Emily Menard, Murphy Freal, Riley Eaton, John Ertter, Heather Purk, Brian Pawlowicz, John Ertter, Kurt Thiel.
· Call to Order – The meeting was called to order by Bill Marlin, at 7:04 pm
· Proof of Quorum – There are 11 voting members in attendance.
· Approval of June Minutes – Motion to approve the minutes of the June Board of Director’s meeting, seconded and approved.
·
Approval of Chair Report and May Financials – Motion to approve the Chair Report and June Financials as presented,
seconded and approved.
o Nothing to be pulled from the reports.
· General Chair comments
o 14 & U Championship Volunteers – Tim was at LC Ag Champs this past weekend. While the meet ran well, there were the same typical issues on getting timers for the meet. Bill talked with the meet director on Friday and by Sunday everything seemed to run more smoothly and timers were coming down to volunteer.
§ Tim feels that as we start a new season there are a few things, especially regarding the staffing for meets that needs to be clarified in the Meet Directors Handbook. This document will be updated.
§ Currently it says the host team should “strive” to have one timer per lane. We will need to clean up that language before the fall meets starts.
o Convention – If you are going to Convention, please start looking for flights now, so we can try to keep the costs down. Most should fly down on Tuesday, etc. If you find any good rates please let others know.
o Over the weekend Bill found out that 2 of the three possible new Coaches reps have decided they are not interested. Emily and Bill both spoke with Josh Travis, who is still interested. He will be appointed as the Junior Coaches Rep. Heather Purk will has been appointed to take over for Steve as the Senior Rep.
o If you have any receipts and need to be reimbursed please submit them to John Ertter as soon as possible. The 2014 books close on August 31 and it needs to be taken care of before that.
· Old Business – no old business to discuss
· New Business
o Endorse Audit Firm (Sarifino & Rhodes) – John Ertter would like to have the board endorse an Audit Firm. He is recommending that Sarifino & Rhodes continue as our audit firm.
§ USA Swimming recommends an Audit review each year. Bob Vincent feels a full audit is only necessary when there is an event; such as a change in Treasurer or controller.
§ Motion that we approve Sarifino &
Rhodes as our Audit firm and they ask them to perform a review as they did last
year, seconded and approved.
o Approve Open Water Travel Requests – There were 7 NCAP swimmers who participated in Open Water Nationals and have applied for travel assistance. Four out of the 7 have swum the required number of swims in PVS. The other three, who are college swimmers, have all applied for an appeal. The recommendation from the Senior Chair, Brad Bowser, recommends that all are approved.
§ Motion to approve all 7 for a Nationals share ($450), seconded and approved.
o Approve
PVS LC Zone Assistant Coaches – Motion
to approve the three additional assistant coaches for the 2014 LC Zone Team,
Caylyn Tate (pending certification renewal), Kelly Call and Ian Rowe seconded
and approved.
· Round Table Discussions Topics
o Leap 2 Updates – We will table this subject for a later date.
o Safe Sport Program proposal – See document prepared by Athlete Representative, Murphy Freal. Murphy has been in contact with Susan from USA Swimming and has developed a list of action items for Potomac Valley Swimming.
§ Bill Marlin commented that this looks good and has a lot of good ideas. Some of the items are things that we already do and are already required by USA Swimming for each team, such as anti-bullying policies. Greg has been asked to check all team’s websites to ensure all clubs are in compliance.
§ Bob Vincent commented that he would like to see a committee be able to check on how things are being done within the LSC and amongst the clubs. There are some lines that we cannot cross and some items that we, as an association, that we cannot mandate our clubs do.
§ Within PVS the laws on these issues differ between Virginia, DC and Maryland. Possibly we can post links for each state and DC on the Safe Sport page on the website.
§ Travel guidelines that encourage parent participation as chaperones. All chaperones do need to be USA Swimming member. But we do not have the power to enforce individual clubs take chaperones. This would go under “best practices”. Murphy indicated that is what she intended by this statement.
§ Maybe at convention we can sit down with Susan to discuss this document further and create a “to do” list.
§ On several County School websites, there are ways for kids to report incidents. At a minimum, PVS can put that link on the PVS Safe Sport page to the reporting page at USA Swimming. Greg will check with Susan on the best way to accomplish that.
o PVS LC Junior/Senior Champs Discussion –
§ Each of the two meets is over 2300 splashes, is a bit larger than last year. It is getting harder and harder to fit in all the swimming in one facility.
· Many cuts were made tighter, but the meet is continuing to grow.
· What about moving Junior Champs to a separate weekend? Any other ideas?
o It does appear it is time to make this change.
o We have close to 12,000 athletes and limited pool space. The reality is that the Competition Committee is going to have to look at splitting these meets.
o Years ago, we ran our Champ meets with flighted sessions. (If there were 8 or more heats then there were heats in the afternoon. For the kids who swam in both had the option of pulling out of morning and only swimming in the afternoon.)
o If we were to pull Junior Champs out of the Senior Champ meet, where do we put it? This is what we are going to have to ask Competition in the fall.
o One of the problems is that we more pool space in Maryland, but most swimmers are in Virginia. The concern is that it is the Junior Champs kids in Virginia who are in Junior champs only won’t travel to Maryland.
o This is something that Strategic Planning can work on. Jim Garner along with the Coaches Reps AG and Senior Chairs will talk and look towards the future, then bring back ideas on how to solve these issues.
o If there is another pool, AG Champs and Junior Champs could be the same weekend at two different pool?
§ Yes, this is an option but the coaches of the smaller teams may have trouble being at both meets.
o What about two Junior Champs meets, one in Virginia and one in Maryland and move it later in the summer, like the weekend of Sectionals or Zones?
§ Brian Pawlowicz, the Jr/Sr Champ Meet Director was asked “How are we looking for volunteers” – Brian commented that Friday will be a little tough, due to parents being at work. But feels Saturday and Sunday we should be in good shape.
· Coaches, please be sure to send this out to your parents to make sure we have enough timers.
§ Has anyone talked to Carrie regarding the starter and scoreboard?
· Yes, Carrie has indicated the problems that occurred at AG Champs have been corrected.
o October/November Meet Format (Distance Events) – Emily and Manga were asked to walk around and talk with coaches, during AG Champs last weekend, about what to do with the Distance events at the Open meets.
§ The basic consensus was that coaches would be ok with removing the distance events and having a fall distance meet (possibly use the one DCPR hosts).
§ But not ok with splitting the events. As suggested earlier. This would entail have of the events in October and half in November.
§ Maybe doing the 500 at the October Open and 400 IM at November Open
§ It was also suggested we lower the number of events allowed per swimmer to 3.
§ We need to make some decisions tonight as the meet announcement for the October Open will need to be produced before the fall competition meeting.
§ John Ertter will be looking for a pool for a Fall Distance meet in between the October and November meets.
· There was discussion regarding where the meets could be.
§ Take the 1000 out of the October Open
§ Motion to remove the Distance Events (1000
and 1650 freestyles) from the November and October, limit entries allowed per
swimmer to 3 per day (6 total), swim the 500 freestyle in October only and the
400 IM in November only, seconded and approved.
· There is a concerned that with fewer events per swimmer, we are going to increase the number of swimmers and then will be running into the problem of to many swimmers on deck.
· This has to be decided now for this year, the 2014 fall meets. Then we can discuss on how to move forward from there.
o What do we need to do for us as a body so we can split the sanction? For the fall Open meets. Is this event possible? How can we adjust and tweak so each site can make decision/adjustments that fit their site?
§ Start time and event start times can differ, but the structure of the meets have to remain the same.
§ One option that the board can endorse is that each meet, is a separate sanction.
§ No decisions was made at this time, but the consensus was to keep all sites under one sanction.
§ When we split AGSR 1 & 2, was there a push back, like there is now when we are looking at splitting the fall Open meets?
· Not that anyone can recall.
o When we go to competition every club has one vote. There are currently 7 clubs that represent more than half of the LSC population. Yet under the current system, the smaller clubs can still out vote the larger clubs, even though collectively they make up less than half of the LSC population. Can we look at a different way to divide vote?
§ This is certainly something to discuss. But this will require a change in P&P and HOD.
· Motion to adjourn the meeting, seconded and approved.