Attendance: Thirl Crudup, Chair, Todd Benedick, John Ertter, Jim Garner, John Hirschmann, Bill Marlin, Bill Stephens, Greg York. Non-voting members and guests: Boots Hall, Linda Klopfenstein, and Donald Riedlinger.

Call to Order: The meeting was called to order at 7:27 pm by the General Chair, Thirl Crudup. He provided the Board with an agenda.

Approval of Minutes: The minutes of the April 23 meeting were approved as presented.

General Chair's Report: Thirl did not present a written report but brought two items to the Board's attention. First he noted that Sue Anderson, Eastern Zone Coordinator for USA-S, would be in PVS from June 23 - 27, meeting with teams. He will circulate her schedule and Board members who want to talk with her can contact her directly to see if there is time available on her schedule. Thirl advised newer members of the Board that Sue had previously visited PVS in early 2001 and had a meeting the PVS Board during that visit.

Secondly, Thirl reminded the Board that PVS automatically gets 6 votes at the USAS convention. He indicated he has talked with USA-S headquarters about PVS members receiving two of the Presidential at-large votes. They are John Hirschmann and Jim VanErden. At least three and possibly four other PVS members may also get votes by virtue of their participation on national committees or the USA-S Board of Directors.

Treasurer's Report: John Ertter had distributed his written report and the May financial statements earlier. The statements showed that PVS had a net operating gain for the FY thru May 31 of $146,435. Current assets on hand as of May 31 was $431.679 - including $4,443 in the Dave Davis fund. There were no specific questions about his report, but there was a discussion about some related financial issues.

John Ertter noted the need to address how to comply with the House of Delegates guidance to place an absolute limit on the amount of financial assistance that PVS pays for travel assistance in a given year.

Another issue was in regard to timely club payments for meet entries. There was a long discussion in regard to the proper action in regard to a club that is late with its entry fees. John noted that this was a much smaller problem than in the past and pointed out that every meet director had been able to resolve all financial issues on a timely basis so far this year. PVS currently has a policy, but recently it has not been actively enforced, just used as a warning to potential violators.

The consensus of the Board was to delegate authority to the meet director to the degree possible. It will be the meet director's option to accept entries without fees and to accept late entries if the time line permits. Then, the meet director has primary responsibility for collecting the fees prior to filing his meet report. In unusual circumstances, the Board stands ready to assist meet directors in resolving problems with fees. The Board's ultimate resource is to deny meet entry to any club that is in arrears on meet entry fees.

There was however concerns expressed about preventing swimmers from participating in a meet because of an administrative failure by their club. Some felt that PVS had sufficient leverage by its ability to bar clubs from participating in future meets to eliminate almost any collection problem. A 10% surcharge proposal was intended to discourage clubs from not making all reasonable efforts to pay on time and thus place the collection burden on PVS rather than the host club.

Ertter indicated he was aware to two clubs who because of their affiliation with government units could not get meet entry fees and registration fees to PVS in a timely basis. He further reported that in at least one case, athletes were not entered into competition because entry fee payments could not be submitted in a timely basis. The Board indicated that it had no objection to the Treasurer setting up escrow accounts for these clubs that would allow them to prepay their expenses and then draw down against the account as the need arose.

Ertter also inquired about PVS's transfer policy and when the $1 transfer payment was due. He asked in light of the fact three clubs were dissolving and forming a new club. It was agreed it was PVS practice that the $1 charge is only due when the athlete attaches to the new club and not when they detach from a prior club and swim unattached.

Athletes' Report: The athlete members were not in attendance and no written report was presented.

Administrative Division: Bill Stephens did not present a written report, but reported orally that athlete registration had passed the 6600 mark and that registrations were being handled promptly and accurately. This is approximately a gain of 200 over the past month and the vast majority is annual rather than seasonal registrations. In other registrar business, John Hirschmann noted that we were not updating our posting of coach's registration status on a monthly basis as we indicated we would do. The Administrative Division will get this corrected.

Bill Stephens confirmed the "new" PVS post office box in McLean, VA is now in use. It was emphasized that it was important that it be checked at least several times a week and mail forwarded to the appropriate Board member, etc. for action. This will preclude inappropriate inquiries about the status of payments when in fact the funds are in PVS's possession.

It was also agreed that arrangements for a permanent PVS phone number need to be completed. It was also agreed the phone needs to be checked regularly for voice mail once the new PVS phone number is established.

The other administrative topic was staffing for the next FY. The FY'04 budget contains $63,600 to be used for contractors who will perform specific functions. Previous discussion had involved using four - equipment manager, finance, registration and general administration. The consensus was that paying someone to answer the telephone would not be a good use of resources and that it would be acceptable to use an answering device provided that it is monitored and calls returned promptly. Therefore, the primary needs are for registrar, bookkeeping / finance, equipment and, then, administrative and operations help. The admin division will work with the Board this summer to have a plan in place by September.

Stephens indicated that he thought PVS should require all PVS clubs to use the latest version of Hy-Tek Team Manager in order to assure compatibility with the new electronic registration requirements going into effect for the 2004 registration year. Hirschmann noted we should also adopt a requirement to use the Windows version of Meet Manager and outlaw the DOS version. He noted one PVS clubs was still using the DOS version and this was causing major software compatibility challenges. The Board did not take formal action on these recommendations.

Strategic Planning - No report [Note: Jim VanErden had indicated he would be in travel status the day of the meeting and hoped to make the meeting if he were not delayed getting back to Washington.]

Operations Division - Written report was submitted by John Hirschmann. In addition to his written report, John led the discussion in regard to a series of motions - many of which were action items from the May 19th Competition Committee meeting:

Senior Swimming
Klopenstein presented on the part of the Travel Committee the requests for travel assistance related to the USA Swimming Nationals at Indianapolis April 1-5, 2003. Moved, seconded and passed without dissent to accept the four requests for travel assistance that met the published standards. Six requests for financial assistance were declined. Two athletes represented a different club at Nationals than applied for their financial assistance. The remaining four had not satisfied the meet participation requirement and did not have a justification the Board felt was appropriate for granting an exception.

Old Business
The athlete rep elections for a new Board member will take place at the championship events this summer. All registered swimmers age 13 and over are eligible to vote. The exact details of the election procedures have not yet been worked out. The PVS Registrar can provide a list of all registered athletes 13 years and older. It was pointed out that since the Age Group LC Championship meet is now a 14/U rather than a 12/U meet that elections should also be conducted at that meet.

New Business

Thirl reminded the members that new clubs (effective with the 2004 registration year) would now be required to attend a USA-S business management seminar. Sue Anderson has proposed that she conduct such a clinic in PVS during the fall of '03. It was pointed out that currently registered clubs could attend and in fact should be encouraged to do so. It was suggested that the training be scheduled for a weekend where PVS had little or no scheduled competition. The first weekend in November was highlighted as being an attractive choice.

Bill Marlin asked that the club meet (PM sponsored) in December 2003 that the PVS Board had sanctioned last January be changed from a QT trials and finals meet that would be open to at least all PVS swimmers to a club competition meet limited to 15 invited clubs. Bill indicated he had discussed his proposal with CUBU. Each club would be limited to 80 swimmers with 10 in each of the following categories: 10/U, 11-12, 13-14 and 15/O (male and female.) In connection with the matter, the desirability of making sure bids for meets (especially ones that are new on the PVS schedule) are accompanied by a completed meet announcement was raised. The Board agreed to allow PM to amend its sanction request.

The Board agreed that PVS attendees at the USAS convention in San Diego during September 2003 would have a reimbursement rate of $250/share to be distributed in accord with the PVS policy. This generally means that otherwise eligible delegates will receive $750 if they have and exercise their vote at the USAS convention, other PVS Board members who attend will generally get $500. Linda K also reviewed with the Board the status of arrangements she is making with the convention hotel.

Linda K reported that SWIMS is coming this fall. It is a database being established by USA Swimming to capture many times swum by individual swimmers throughout USA Swimming. She and Tyanna Ertter had just returned from Colorado Springs where they received a day of training on the new system. All times AA and better are intended to be loaded into the system. Linda also thought leadoff times would be loaded. Procedures to assure accuracy of the data and certain meet naming protocols would have to be addressed.

Boots Hall reported she had recently attended the USAS Education Committee meeting in Chicago. She said some concerns have arisen about former coaches in the mid-West improperly offering their services to help swimmers get admitted colleges. She indicated we should be on the alert in the event this practice started to occur in out area.

Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at approximately 10:25pm.