Minutes were approved at the March BoD meeting
Potomac Valley Swimming
Board of Directors Meeting
February 8, 2016
Video Conference
· Attendance – Tim Husson, John Ertter, Jack Neill, Steve Menard, Jim Garner, Murphy Freal, Bill Marlin, Tom Ugast, JD Foster, Heather Purk, Merari Chollette, Mark Faherty
· Call to Order – the meet was called to order by General Chair, Bill Marlin at 7:04 pm
· Proof of Quorum – There are a sufficient number of board members to conduct the meeting.
· Approval of January Meeting – Motion to approve the meeting minutes from the January Board Meeting, seconded and approved.
· Approval of Chair Reports and Financials – Motion to approve the Chair Reports as submitted and the monthly financials a prepared, seconded and approved.
o Reports to pull: No reports were requested to be pulled.
· Old Business –
o P&P Proposal for clubs meets the same weekend as PVS meets – Jim Garner has proposed three options of verbiage change in P&P to accommodate the change in policy to allow Club meets to be held the same weekend as PVS Open and Distance meets. All versions of the wordings were discussed. A general consensus determined that Option #3 was the most appropriate.
§ PVS will advise member Clubs of open periods for submitting Club Sponsored Meet requests for a sanction. The timing and duration of the open period for each SCY and LCM season will depend on when sufficient pool space is secured for all PVS sponsored Open, Distance, and Championship Meets. A meet can conflict with other meets. However, no meet can conflict with the following PVS meets:
• For PVS Opens and Distance Meets, PVS will have the first right to secure pool space
• Any PVS Championship meet (both Short and Long Course)
• If a request for a sanction for Club Sponsored meet is received after the appropriate deadline, and there is already an approved sanction for another Club Sponsored meet, the Board may grant approval only if the requester demonstrates:
1) the requested meet will not be in direct competition with the existing meet, or the
2) the Meet Director for the existing meet concurs with the request. In addition, all appropriate
3)sanctioning requirements must be met.
§ Motion to accept Option #3, as stated above, seconded and approved.
§ The Board has approved and will notify the HOD body by email. If there is a concern or discussion about this change in policy, it will be discussed at the annual HOD meeting in May.
o DC Clean Hands – John Ertter has be in contact with member of the DC Parks and DC Government by email. He has determined that PVS is not required to have a DC Business license, but we are required a “Clean Hands Certificate” which is basically provides information to the DC Government to make sure that no one (PVS) owes DC any taxes. Because PVS does not owe DC any taxes, we should easily be able to obtain the certificate. The issue seems to be that the top three officers are required to submit their SSN and a business address that is not a PO Box to the DC Government. At this time, John doesn’t have all the SSN, nor is if felt that it is appropriate for our officers to do so. The application has not yet been submitted. Until this is rectified, PVS can not be paid for the club, coach or athlete registrations for the DC Wave club.
§ Merari stated that there is a PVS Official who she believes works in that office. She is willing to help find the right person to talk to and will help facilitate a face to face meeting.
§ One option is to play hardball and suspend the team; not allow the swimmers to swim or the coaches to coach, if they do not pay. The DC government owes PVS approximately $13,000.
· Athletes and coaches are currently registered with PVS and USA Swimming, so they are not an insurance risk; however, the team is considered “not in good standing” because they have not yet paid their invoice for registration membership.
§ David Merkin, an attorney in DC and PVS Official has offered his legal support as needed. John Ertter will also contact legal counsel at USA Swimming for their advice.
· New Business –
o Officials travel – Officials Chair, Tim Husson, submitted a request for travel reimbursement for one Official who attending and worked the Arena Pro Series, January 15-17, 2016, Austin, TX.
§ Motion to accept one Officials travel request as recommended by the Officials Chair, seconded and approved.
o PVS Zone Team, online form demo – Tim Husson and Kelly Rowell have been working on an online form to be used for Zone Team Applications and apparel purchases. Tim Husson showed the form to the BoD. John Ertter was in a meeting earlier this evening to review the financial back end.
§ Tim demonstrated the form and answered any questions members had.
§ What about athletes who we assist with? They can be handled outside the form. Historically there are only 1-2 per meet.
o Approval of Athlete Travel – Mark Faherty submitted a request for three athlete’s reimbursement for meets held in December.
§ Three were submitted, but there were several others who participated in Junior and Senior Nationals. However not everyone submitted a request.
§ There is a new online form. Bill Marlin, from Potomac Marlins, submitted their request via online form. He stated it worked well and will make applying for travel reimbursement a simpler process.
§ Currently the form is submitted to the Senior Chair and the Controller. But this can be altered or changed at any time.
§ Senior Chair, Mark Faherty, will contact the clubs who did not submit a travel reimbursement request, as it is customary that all coaches are notified prior to the entry deadline to help avoid late requests.
§ Motion to accept the travel reimbursement for the three athletes who submitted applications, seconded and approved.
o Approval of New Club (FXFX) – A new club has applied for membership and received approval from USA Swimming, the Fairfax Foxes. They will be swimming in 3 facilities (JCC-Fairfax, GMU and Villa Aquatics Club), coach owned. Everything is in order.
§ Motion to accept the Fairfax Foxes, seconded and approved.
· Round Table Discussion –
o Entry Fees Collections – There are some clubs who have issues paying their meet entry fees in a timely manner. It is recommended that we require each club to submit a credit card or a direct debit authorization, so their account can be charged the amount due if their meet entry fees are not paid by a predetermined date.
§ With technology where it is, we should do as much electronically as possible.
§ There is a concern that teams will not be happy to have their accounts charged seemingly without their approval.
· We would ask for their authority first and would only charge them if their entries fees are not paid.
§ It was recommended that we discuss this with the Competition Committee in May. The board does have the authority to make this decision and then to notify body.
§ Do we plan to get this information from all the clubs? Several individuals expressed concerns that the clubs owned by the county or other organizations, may not be willing to give up such information.
§ This seems to be the only a way to collect a delinquent accounts.
§ We will continue to explore these options.
o Athlete Travel Forms – previously discussed
o PVS PayPal for Zones – previously discussed
o Diversity – report was submitted
§ There will be a hospitality dinner this Friday during the Black History meet, with Cecil Gordan, so he can present information on Diversity and his journey to travel to Rio to officiate at the Olympics.
§ Merari would like to offer some sort of stipend to Cecil. There is money in the Diversity budget available.
o Frequency of BoD meetings – There is nothing in our By-laws or P&P that states we are required to have monthly BoD meetings. The Board of Directors are tasked to make decisions on how to run this organization.
§ The question is do we need to have monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly meetings
§ It was suggested we move towards a bi-monthly meetings. We set the dates at the start of the season and publish them. Then we would have video conferences in the other months if needed.
· What about reports? Monthly? Or only when there are meetings?
o Yes, monthly reports from each BoD members to help keep
o Budget – The first look at numbers will be at the March meetings. Then review the hard numbers and make recommendations at the April meeting and be ready to present at HOD in May.
§ Send your proposals to change the budget line items to John Ertter and he will highlight these items on the proposed budget.
§ Open meets you get the most bang for the buck by increasing the meet entry fees, if the Board feels we need to increase our funds.
§ There are ways to increase revenue if we feel it is needed.
§ A question about club renewal fees was asked. It was felt that $100 was quite low.
· Date of Next meeting: Monday, March 7
· Motion to adjourn, seconded and approved.