Minutes until approved at the Fall Competition Committee Meeting.
Potomac Valley Swimming
Competition Committee Meeting
University of Maryland
Eppely Center
College Park, Maryland
May 14, 2014
· Attendance – Manga Dalizu-AG Chair, Brad Bowser-Sr. Chair, Paris Jacobs – PVS, Bill Marlin – PM, Tim Husson – PVS, Mike Kraeuter – BWST, Bob Walker – ASA, Denise Adams – ASA, Tom Ugast – NCAP, Elvin Forman – ERSC, Tim Hamlet – UMAC, Tim DeLucia – PGPR, Mark Eldridge – RMSC, Heather Purk – LMAC, Joe Flaherty – JFD, Jim Rumbaugh – SNOW, Heather Haddock – MAKO, Lynne Gerlach – MSSC, Emily Menard – HACC, Steve Menard – AAC, Aaron Dean – OCCS, Dan Jacobs – MACH, Tim Kelly – NCAP, Kent Williams - RMSC
· Call to Order – The meeting was called to order by Manga at 7:20 pm
· Approval of Winter CCM minutes – Motion to accept minutes from the winter Competition Committee Meeting, seconded and approved.
· Championship Meet policy – Tim Husson
o OME – Relays entries can be difficult in OME especially for Jr Champs. There is no way to put in a NFT time. When you create relay, you can use any relay time even with swimmers that are not participating in the meet. However, if a swimmer is used in OME to make up an aggregate relay time, then that swimmer has to be made a relay only swimmers for that meet. They do not have to swim in the relay, but to use their time they must be listed in OME as relay only.
§ The time is “owned by the team” and is provable.
§ Once you enter a swimmer in OME, even if you check out, you can update their time until the entry deadline closes. OME will not automatically update if the swimmer goes a better time in a meet after they have been entered into OME.
§ Once you have checked out, you can add more swimmers or add more events for swimmers already in the meet. The only thing you cannot do is remove a swimmer.
§ However; If the swimmers are entered in Bonus events, you cannot switch them to the “real event” if you have already checked out. So it is strongly recommended that if there are Bonus events in the meet you wait until the last minute to check out.
o Officials – PVS is really starting to do well with the number of Officials. We do notice that all teams with Official’s Chairs do better at recruiting and maintaining officials on the team.
§ Starting in 2015 registration year, all Officials, including the Computer Operators will have to be registered as non-athletes.
§ If the No-deck officials meet the minimum number of sessions worked in a calendar year (10 sessions) then they too will be eligible to have PVS cover the cost of their membership fee.
· Board Reports
o General Chair – no report submitted
o Senior Chair – no report submitted
o AG Chair – See Points of Information handout
o Admin Chair – no report submitted
o Coaches Rep – As a body, we need to decide what the direction we want to take the Zone Meet/Team. Please gather ideas on what our philosophy is and what our goals are for the meet, and send your ideas to Emily Menard, the Coaches Representative. If winning the meet is important then we need more 15-18 year old athletes to participate. How do we do this? How do we get these 15-18 year old athletes excited to participant in the Zone level meet?
§ Tech Planning at EZ there is an idea to remove 15-18 from the zone meet. We, as an LSC, are supposed to discuss this idea and take this back to the EZ and vote at Convention.
· USA Swimming is creating a new series of meets, call the LEGENDS, with cuts 2% slower than Juniors. The purpose is to bridge the gap between Sectionals and Junior Nationals and to move some swimmers out of our over-crowded Sectional Meets. Our meet will consist of teams from the Eastern Zone, Lake Erie, Ohio, West Virginia and North Carolina.
· There is a proposal for a Senior Level Meet between Central Zone and the Eastern Zone. The location of this meet would alternate between the two LSC each year.
§ Emily’s Term is up as Coaches Rep. We will be voting at JR/SR Champs. If you or any coach you know are interested in being Coach’s Representative on the BoD, please let Emily know.
o Diversity – This month is water safety month, please use this opportunity to talk to people about water safety. We will be sending out more information that you can send out to your club members regarding water safety initiatives.
§ PVS will be hosting the EZ Diversity Summit here at University of Maryland, June of 2015.
o Officials – no additional report submitted
o Strategic Planning – no report submitted
o Nomination Chair – no report submitted
· Zones
o Election of LC Assistant Coaches
§ There are currently 4 nominations for the 2014 LC Zone Assistant Coaches: Heather Purk (LMAC), Ethan Gerlach (MSSC), Jessica Lynn Fry (NCAP), Chris S (ASA).
§ Motion to accept the Heather Purk, Ethan Gerlach, Jessica Lynn Fry and Chris Schleigel by acclimation, second and approved.
· Manga will find 2 additional coaches to attend as assistant coaches and will seek approval by the BoD.
o SC Zone Report
§ The meet went well. The biggest problem is the lack of older kids. The younger athletes swam well, but with so few 15-18 swimmers and the fact that we were, in some cases, unable to field relay teams, we lost a lot of points and therefore placed fourth.
o Reduce cost of LC Zones for 2015 – Because we came up under budget with the SC Zones, we anticipant being able to lower the LC Zone fees for 2014 Summer Zones.
o 15-18’s at SC Zones – Over the years, the number of 15-18 has been getting fewer and fewer. If you have ideas to gain and maintain the interest of these swimmers please share your ideas.
§ What is the philosophy of this LSC? This is an important question that we, as a body, need to answer.
§ One member of the body comments that he feels that if we cannot send the best 15-18 (that are qualified) to be there, then we shouldn’t be sending them at all.
§ If the Zone as a whole decides to do away with the 15-18, then we may have a shot of winning again. But if 15-18s are voted to remain in the meet, then we will need to rethink our philosophy and/or come up with a way to entice the older kids to participate.
o Summer Zones to use chase starts if needed based on entries - Mary Turner from VSI reported that given the anticipated timelines, they plan to use Chase Starts for all events for 13 & Over except distance and 50s. The exact wording and description added to the meet announcement and will be out in the next week or two.
§ Some events have been reordered to better balance Finals and Relays.
o 2015 Senior Eastern Zone Meet (similar to Sectionals) – USA Swimming is making some changes to the upper level meets.
§ USA Swimming is discussing splitting Junior Nationals into two meets.
· Swimposium – Please send ideas suggestions to Terri, who is in the process of setting up the 2014 Swimposium.
o Manga commented that he would like to see more information for 10 & U and their parents.
o Emily indicated that at that the Swimposium in 2012, that the parents really enjoyed the talk given by Mrs. Conger and Mrs. Ledecky. And would like to see something similar this year.
o Please send thoughts and ideas to Terri by May 31.
· Competition Schedule
o 2015 LC Schedule – USA Swimming is going to set a Window 8-20 days before the entry deadlines of Junior Nationals to hold Sectionals; which will ultimately affect we can hold our LSC Championship meets. For 2015 given the dates we think we will be able to run our meets as it currently is. But not sure what will happen in 2016/17. The proposed schedule for the 2015 LC Meets (Championships and Opens), were presented, see handout.
§ The Eastern Zone is looking for special exemption to hold sectionals outside the window. This would most likely result in the Eastern Zone losing the funding from Speedo to host Sectionals. For the EZ, Sectionals works as it is supposed it, unlike much of the rest of the country. But since we are the only ones who have success in the current format, we may be forced to make changes to conform with the other zones.
§ It was asked: Can we run our Senior Champs the same weekend as Sectionals? Paris Jacobs answered: Yes, we would be permitted to run Senior Champs at the same time as the Sectional meet.
§ The Eastern Zone is looking into ways to make changes so we can fund our own Sectional meets without having to rely on the money from Speedo, so we can continue to hold our Sectional meet when we want it held.
§ Motion to accept the dates as presented for LC Championship meets, seconded and approved. (1 opposed)
§ Motion to accept the dates of the LC Open/distance meets, seconded and approved.
§ If at Convention, the Sectionals is moved earlier, we will revisit our Championship schedule at our fall CCM.
o Club bids were submitted and a request to endorse the proposed schedule for Sept 1-Dec 31, 2014 (final chance), see handout.
§ Motion to endorse the Club meet bids for September 1-December 31, 2014, second and approved.
o Club bids were submitted and a request to endorse the proposed schedule for January 1-March 31 (first chance), see handout.
§ Motion to endorse the Club meet bids for January 1- March 31, 2015, second and approved.
· Scoring Championship meets – We approved a change in the scoring of our PVS Championship meets, but never set how we were going to score the meet. We will be starting this for the 2015 LC meets. See the handout with the team size. We will score teams based on the team size; Small teams (less than 75 members), Medium teams (76-250 members) and Large teams (251 and more members).
· 2015 SC Junior/Senior Champs – some were really happy with the size of the meet and others not happy. Here are some ideas of the changes. (It was noted that the survey results overwhelmingly support keeping the it at t same venue on the same date, but split about 50-50 on if we keep it at GMU or move it to UMD)
§ Maintain status quo and tighten cuts?
§ Swim at dual sites prelims/single site Finals and offer bonus events for athletes and keep cuts unchanged
§ Different weekends, keep cuts the same
o Some feel if we split the meets, feel that we will lose some of the dynamics of the meet.
o What is it not tiered? Why is Junior Champs not put in the middle of the day? Answer – Coaches want trials/finals.
o Could we add another day? Make it a 4 full day meet.
o The issue for using GMU, is going to be the numbers. They are going to be looking at the number of spectators in addition to the number of people on the deck.
o We will revisit the format of the Short Course JR/SR Champ meets at the fall CCM.
· Old Business – No old business submitted.
· New Business
o Change the policy regarding the creation of the PVS and Club meet schedule – Currently P & P dictates that we set the PVS meet schedule and add club meets to the PVS schedule in stages over the course of the year. It has been noted that several of the facilities that clubs and PVS rent from, as asking for our schedule earlier and earlier and clubs are having a difficult planning 14-18 months out because the PVS meet schedule is not completed in time. As the Sanctioning Officer, Terri, has recommended setting the PVS meet schedule for both short course and long course for the next full season at the September CCM, then at the January CCM all club meet bids will be due for the full following season (18 month out planning cycle). This would both simplify the bidding process and would allow more time for planning the next season plans. There will still be opportunities to add meets or make changes at the spring CCM if necessary. If endorsed by the Competition Committee, then the Sr. Chair and Admin Chair will create the wording and seek approval from the Board at the June BoD meeting.
§ Motion to change the PVS Schedule planning and club meet bidding process to an 18 month out timeframe, seconded and approved.
o Open Water season is coming up. Wave One has a Thursday night swim at National Harbor. If you are interested in taking your team or any swimmers down to practice Open Water, contact Kurt Thiel for more information.
o Reminder in the SC Champs on Sunday the scratch rate gets a bit crazy. If you know your child is not going to swim, please let us know. As Officials we can handle it, but it is so much easier if swimmer is scratched ahead of time. If they are not going to swim prelims, just scratch them. This will help with the timelines. The number of NS and DFS was much higher than the scratch rate.
· Adjourn: Motion to adjourn the meeting at 8:40 pm, seconded and approved.