Minutes approved at the December 2013 Board Meeting
Potomac Valley Swimming
Board of Director’s Meeting
Overlee Community Center
6030 Lee Highway
Arlington, VA
November 18, 2013
· Attendance
· Call to Order – The meeting was called to order by the General Chair, Bill Marlin, at 7:00 pm
· Proof of Quorum – It was noted that there were 10 voting members in attendance, enough for a quorum.
· Approval of October Meeting Minutes – Motion to approve the meeting minutes from the October 16, 2013 Board of Director’s Meeting, seconded and approved.
· Approval of Chair Reports & Consent agenda – Motion to approve the reports submitted by the Board Chair’s, seconded and approved.
o Pulled reports – Manga indicated that he brought additional information to add to his report.
· General Chair comments –
o As of the end of October 2013, the year-to-date membership for year-round athletes is down 4.1% across the country. Additionally PVS numbers are a bit lower than last year at this time. November if usually the tell-tale month and we will know more once the November numbers are in.
o According to USA Swimming the 2014 rulebook will be printed and distributed in December.
o There will be an on-line version of Club Leadership Business Management School, similar to the Foundations of Coaching. An in-person course will still be offered and will be called 201.
o There are eight confirmed partners to support SwimToday: Arena, ASCA, National Swimming Pool Foundation; Playcore, Speedo, Swimming World agazine, TYR and US Masters Swimming. A campaign is scheduled to launch in the spring of 2014 and will target moms of kids who have learned to swim, but now are looking to join a swim team.
o AT&T Short Course Nationals will air on NBC on December 21. And Mutual of Omaha Duel in the Pool from Glasgow, Scotland will air on NBC on December 22.
o USA Swimming reported that we are seeing positive participation signs in NCAA Swimming. There are currently more than 21,000 student/athletes. The participation has increased across all three levels (Division I, II & III) over the past three years.
o John Ertter reported that both October and November were both bigger than in the past couple of years.
o PVS Membership – PVS Registrar, Sumie Emory, was present and reported that we have 9,238 swimmers (as of 11/17/13), 670 non-athletes. These numbers are not the final numbers for the month of November and she expects them to rise this month. Last year was an Olympic Year and 4 years ago. She compared and doesn’t see as big of a jump in athletes, but a bigger jump in non-athletes. However we are still ahead of where we were at this time last year. It is still a little difficult to predict what our end of the season numbers will be at this point. Sumie was thanked for all of her hard work on registration so far this season.
· Round Table Discussion
o November Open Issues – Was there anything other than the “parking lot” issue from the PGS&LC complex at the November Open. No one reported anything.
o Friday Night Distance Events for Oct/Nov Open –It was suggested that if PVS is going to continue to run 3 sessions per day then maybe we want to move the 200 back/fly out of the Friday night distance sessions due to the length of the distance sessions.
§ There were comments both for and against moving the 200 of strokes out, but not a definitive answer.
§ This will need to go back to Competition to discuss, Brad and Manga will bring this up at CCM in January, then report back to the Board in January.
o Shuffling of teams every two years for Open Meets – A coach asked if it was possible for the teams in the Open Meets to be rotated every two years so the same teams do not have to “cross the river” all this time?
§ The practicality of this practice was discussed. While technically it would be possible, each year the placement of teams would still only be a guess and most likely teams would still be moved in order to balance the sights. The meets are set up based upon time constraints.
§ It was asked as to what the reason for this policy? Is it because a desire in a change in competition? Or because teams do not want to drive across the river? It is understandable for the desire for varied competition; however making a policy such as this would tie the hands of the administrator who has to do the balancing of the Open sites.
o Fines for adding a meet late to the schedule – This will be addressed during New Business.
o DC United Swimmer recognition – Merari wanted speak on this, not in attendance, tabled until December meeting.
o PVS day at Nationals Park - Merari wanted speak on this, not in attendance, tabled until December meeting.
o Emergency Action plan review for December Meets/Marshal training – In reviewing last year’s agenda Bill noticed that we really didn’t follow through on the Emergency Action plans at our larger facilities and training our marshals.
§ Safety Chair, Kurt Thiel reported that all FCPA, UMD, PGS&LC have very good Emergency Action Plans. He has reviewed all of them and feels that they are well organized. It was noted that in every case that we are aware of, all public facilities follow a well thought out plan and do not want our Marshals or meet staff to step in or get involved.
§ Should we have the facility directors to talk to the Marshals as to what they want us to do? It was felt that we need to let the facilities take the lead on any emergency and use the Marshal for crowd control only. Otherwise we could be opening ourselves up to be liable.
§ Kurt was asked to follow up with each facility to find out what they want us to do. So that we can inform all the meet directors what to do. All we really should be doing is to ensure that each facility has a viable emergency action plan.
§ On another note, it is felt that our Marshals are not being given enough instructions from the meet directors and/or the meet referee. Unfortunately, too many marshals appear to be on deck only to see their kids swimming and talking with each other.
§ There are Marshal Instructions set forth by USA Swimming. There are cards/papers from USA Swimming with the instructions of what the Marshals know what to do. All Meet Directors should be printing these cards and instructing the marshals on their duties.
§ We can also inform the facilities that we are required to have marshals on deck and here are their responsibilities and we are here to follow your emergency action plan.
o On-line Meet Evaluation form – Will be presented in New Business.
· Old Business
o Amended By-Laws – The By-laws were sent the Board a few weeks ago and they have been approved by John Morse at USA Swimming.
§ Motion to accept the By-laws as presented, seconded and approved.
o It was noted that the only real change we need to make is for Safe Sport; We only have to have a committee or a Chair, but we do not need both. Greg York, the Safe Sport Chair, indicated that while we do not have a formal committee, we do have a group of people who are willing to help as needed.
· New Business
o Proposed change to P&P – see submitted. This new policy is simply to a minimum interval standards for timelines. For the most part, all clubs are in compliance, we just feel that it needs to be formalize in P & P.
§ When you are running timelines with unseeded sessions it is often longer than it looks. Everything needs to be seeded in order to run accurate pre-meet timelines.
§ Motion to accept the proposal as submitted with 15 second timeline intervals for 13 & Over session and 20 second timeline interval for sessions with 12 & Under events and 35 seconds for 8 & Under events (add 15 seconds for all backstroke events in all age groups), seconded and approved.
o Approval of PVS Equipment Subsidy for YORK – On behalf of John Ertter, Bill Marlin submitted a proposal to accept an equipment subsidy for YORK Swim Club.
§ Motion to approve the equipment subsidy for YORK Swim Club, seconded and approved.
o Approval of Zone Team fees – Motion to accept the proposed fees for the 2014 SC Zone Team of $525, and maintaining the same deadlines for application as for the 2013 team, seconded and approved.
§ It was requested that the refund policy information be added into the application. Emily will send this information to Terri to add to the zone application.
o Conflict of interest forms – Each year members of the Board of Directors must read and sign a “Conflict of Interest” form to protect both board members and the association. Forms were passed out and returned to Paris.
o Fines for meets added late to the Schedule – The Senior Chair submitted a proposal, at the request of the General Chair, to fine teams who do not submit their club meet bid requests on time and ask to add them to the PVS schedule after the schedule was already set.
§ Motion to fine clubs who do not comply with the proper club meet submission process and request to add a club meet to the PVS schedule after the deadline, seconded, motion withdrawn. After the following discussion, Brad Bowser withdrew his motion.
§ The history is that in P & P it says that if meets are not in on time, then they are not allowed in. But each year, there are several meets that are not submitted on time and have to add them after the fact. Maybe a fine would serve as a deterrent.
§ It was commented; If we make the fines steep enough then maybe they won’t do it. But how steep is steep enough. If a club is running a meet and making money they are mostly likely not going to care about a fine.
§ It was asked; how often does this happen? It was noted that it only happens once maybe twice a year.
§ Should the CCM executive committee be told they can no longer have the ability to add meets late to the schedule. If we are going to fine them, then we need to add it to the P & P, if we are going to keep the rule then we need to follow it.
§ But it is like a “late fee”, it is just a way for the club to admit that yes they made a mistake.
o Appointment of PVS Athlete Reps – General Chair sent out a note and a notice was put on the website looking for PVS Athletes Reps. There were four athletes who submitted their names, Bill the followed up with each club coach to inquire about the nominated athletes. One coach asked that their athlete be removed, to give the athlete another year or two to mature and adapt to high school and senior training.
o The three appointed athletes reps are:
§ Murphy Freal – MSSC
§ Trey McKula – SDS
§ Karina Kolb – PM
§ Once they attend several meetings, the General Chair will decide on who is the Senior and Junior Athlete Reps.
o On-line Meet Evaluation Form – Tim commented that he received quite a bit of feedback regarding how meets are run, as does Bill and Paris. There are other LSCs that use evaluations to help with their meets. These could be useful tools for meet directors to see how they can improve their meets or what they do well. This might make some parents/coaches feel better that they can tell someone.
§ Who would get these forms? Operations? The Meet Director?
§ Tim is willing to create a form that would be available for all PVS sanctioned meet. There could be a separate form for coaches than for parents/swimmers.
§ Maybe this is something Strategic Planning and Operations can work on together.
§ Tim will create a form and send it around for comments. With a Target date of January 1 to start this and have it ready.
§ Brian Pawlowicz offered for the Tom Dolan Invite as a test if it is ready by then.
o Greg sent read off the dates of the upcoming Safe Sport Workshops for this spring.
o Manga passed around more data on numbers of what age groups swim what events. This information may be useful in looking at Open meets and the future of PVS.
§ This is certainly something that can be brought up at CCM. Why are we running 200s, 400s, etc for the 10 & U swimmers? When so few actually participate in these events.
§ Maybe we need to look into making some changes to the events offered at the PVS Open meets and try it for a year.
§ Brad and Manga will pull this information together and present at the Winter Competition Committee Meeting.
o December Meeting, Monday December 16, 2013.
o Meeting adjourn.